I am a total sucker for architecture at its bleeding edge, when it leaps beyond the ticky-tacky houses and strip malls that many architects have to suffer through at some point in their careers.
The future of architecture, like everything else, is likely to be something most of us would never guess right now. Check out these amazing ‘sand skyscrapers’ from the 2014 eVolo competition. Not only do they look cool, their construction uses locally-sourced desert sand, sintered to high strength in a 3D-printing method that is starting to be viable now.
Design challenges like this may answer some very real needs in the future. I’m one of those pesky realists who accepts that human-driven climate change is most likely real, is happening right now, and is going to make life a little or a lot more miserable for the next thousand years or so. Coastlines will be drowning, along with them most of our major cities. Deserts will be growing. Atmospheric moisture farming, far from being an esoteric setting detail for ‘Star Wars’, will be a real source of fresh water. Self-sustaining vertical living/working/farming spaces are going to be a necessity, if we want to keep seven-eighths of the world’s billions of humans fed, sane, and productive.
I love the ‘Sand Babel’ design because the basic form tells me I’m on the right page with a species of giant tree I created for Lonhra’s Girshan Vale. I took one look at these towers’ swooping, flaring struts, and figured I’d been inadvertently following the same laws of material strength as its designers had.
Plus, the ‘Sand Babel’ designs are so beautiful.