Futurological excavations

Asteromo – Paolo Soleri

Pruned is unearthing some great links to utopian futurological speculation and imagery. Take for example the intensely brave, if more than a little fantastical proposition of 60’s architect Paolo Soleri with his Asteromo – an arcology asteroid in deep space fit for a population of no less that 70,000 people!

An Arcology is Paolo Soleri’s concept of an integrated city that combines architecture with ecology.

‘In nature, as an organism evolves it increases in complexity, and it also becomes a more compact or miniaturized system. The city too is an organism, one that should follow the same process of complexification and miniaturization to become a more lively container for the social, cultural, and spiritual evolution of humankind’ – Paolo Soleri – Earth’s Answer

Arcologies have been popularised by science fiction as away of solving the two main problems of the future, overcrowding and environmental catastrophe. Pruned also links to Fabio Feminò’s repository of futurological imagery – a massive collection of beautiful and intriguing retro-future artwork, some of them moon arcologies. Of course a lot of these conjectural drawings recall the ‘absolute egalitarianism’ and utopian ideals of late-60s architectural groups such as Archigram and Superstudio.

It seems inevitable that the logical progression of technology will lead us to the colonisation of space at some time in the future, at least if we manage to find a place before its too late. Another option is to bury Gaia’s booty for a future time when we have sorted the mess out. A possibilty as announced by the proposal of a giant seed bank being built in Norway.