Archinect - News

El Salvador picks Fernando Romero to plan its Bitcoin City

2022-05-13T08:27:00-04:00

The country of El Salvador has picked an architect for his attention-grabbing bid to lure cryptocurrency investment to the small Central American nation.

FR-EE founder Fernando Romero is now in charge of the country’s Bitcoin City development and plans to add a new Pacific airport, according to an announcement made on social media from President Nayib Bukele Tuesday.

All images via Nayib Bukele/Twitter

Somewhat similar to the layout of the new “crypto paradise” private island development in Vanuatu, plans revealed this week display a concentric design with outlying nodes connected to a central plaza, itself forming the shape of a Bitcoin logo. The pop-up city, which includes an airport concept similar FR-EE’s contribution to the abandoned design for a new international airport in Mexico City, will be located at the base of the Conchagua Volcano (also its power source for mining operations) along El Salvador’s southern coast.

All images via Nayib Buk...

Another day, another architectural design for a decentralized crypto republic

2022-04-06T17:49:00-04:00

A self-declared “crypto paradise” is coming to a remote island nation in the South Pacific featuring designs from Hong Kong-based firm James Law Cybertecture for what is billed by developers to be the world’s first blockchain-based democracy.

Located in Vanuatu, the 800-acre private island is named after Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto and will be subdivided into seven separate “NFT zones” and 21,000 individual parcels that can be purchased exclusively as NFTs. The Satoshi Island development will feature a range of sustainability measures like solar panels and a specialized waste management system that combine with a goal of 100% self-generated power in a move away from the energy-intensive mining process involved in crypto.

The architectural design of Satoshi Island is based on a configurable modular base, which can be scaled up to allow for different building types and non-residential construction.

Residential structures on the island come in a vaguely Midcentury modular prefabri...

Whatever happened to Liberland?

2019-08-22T18:38:00-04:00

Liberland’s earthly domain is a constellation of locations and events that gravitate around the unoccupied Gornja Siga. These props, in various stages of construction, share a fundamental quality of ephemerality and mobility, as if recalling their origins as a dream spawned on the internet.

The self-declared libertarian micronation of Liberland has vanished somewhat from the media's spotlight since its founder and current President, Vít Jedlička, planted the utopia's state flag on Gornja Siga, an unoccupied Danube island between Serbia and Croatia, in 2015. Liberland instantly found an early and vocal supporter in Patrik Schumacher, director of Zaha Hadid Architects and outspoken evangelist for free market capitalism, but what has really been happening since then?

Hans Larsson's recent Volume piece brings us up to speed and talks about the Schumacher-juried Liberland master plan design competition, decentralized autonomous blockchain governance, and neo-metabolist-inspired off-grid floating settlements.

"When seen from the right angle, the elements coalesce into an image of a new country being born," Larsson writes. "Shift your position slightly and you see a banal hoax. But if enough people buy into it, does this even matter?"

Cryptocurrency mogul wants to turn Nevada into the next center of Blockchain Technology

2018-11-07T14:44:00-05:00

He imagines a sort of experimental community spread over about a hundred square miles, where houses, schools, commercial districts and production studios will be built. The centerpiece of this giant project will be the blockchain, a new kind of database that was introduced by Bitcoin.

Jeffrey Berns, who owns the cryptocurrency company Blockchains L.L.C., has bought 68,000 acres of land in Nevada that he hopes to transform into a community based around blockchain technology. His utopian vision, which would be the first 'smart city' based on the technology, involves the creation of a new town along the Truckee river, with homes, apartments, schools, and a drone delivery system.

The first step will be constructing an 1,000 acre campus that will host startups and companies working on applications such as AI and 3D printing to help bring about the high-tech city. LA firms Tom Wiscombe Architecture and Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects have been hired to assist in this vision, designing the architecture and masterplan for the future city.

Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects + Tom Wiscombe Architecture.

Called Innovation Park, the designers contend the city will be 'human-centric,' while also planned around autonomous, electric vehicles. Housing types will range fro...

Bitcoin's opportunities and challenges in real estate

2018-03-21T18:31:00-04:00

Today, listings from one coast to another tout Bitcoin as a way to make a property transaction. A new collection of haute residences in Hollywood with Los Angeles skyline views go for $1.21 million or its Bitcoin equivalent; in Washington, D.C., two-bedroom condos are on the market for between 36 and 84 Bitcoins. In Austin, the seller of one ranch is offering a “signficant discount” if the buyer pays with Bitcoin.

Great longform piece by Andrew Zaleski for Curbed on how Bitcoin, blockchain technology, and other cryptocurrencies have changed—or not changed—the real estate industry. "While there are laws in Arizona and Vermont that allow blockchain technology to play key parts in property sales and proving property ownership, in most states, aspects of the process still involve traditional financial institutions—and Bitcoin as a currency isn’t necessarily a safe enough bet for the relatively risk-averse world of real estate."

Heating your home with...bitcoin mining?

2017-11-06T15:24:00-05:00

Two entrepreneurs have figured out how to heat their homes for free: bitcoin mining. Bitcoin transactions require a lot of processing power, which creates a lot of heat. So Ilya Frolov and Dmitry Tolmachyov built a wooden cottage in the Russian Siberian town of Irkutsk, and they’re heating it with two bitcoin mines. The men pocket about $430 a month from bitcoin transactions, while keeping the 20 square meter space warm.

Virtual money still requires real architecture

2017-10-18T13:06:00-04:00

A bitcoin vault doesn’t store actual bitcoin units. Technically, what’s being stored are private, cryptographic keys. It’s odd to think of a virtual currency needing physical storage, but just like your most precious photos, even a cryptocurrency needs some kind of material container.

The company Xapo is using a decommissioned military bunker to safeguard its customers bitcoins. In this article from Quartz, Joon lan Wong describes his way into the vault storing millions of dollars worth of bitcoins and the numerous portals and gates he had to cross.

The rise of the blockchain beyond cryptocurrencies

2016-06-09T12:58:00-04:00

The growing interest in blockchain has morphed its concept into something new. Before, the blockchain was simply the spine of the bitcoin network, but today the technology is being used on a burgeoning list of distributed ledgers with varying degrees of openness, security and complexity. [...] Ethereum, a public blockchain platform created by Russo-Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin...proposes to do away with middlemen everywhere, not just in finance.

"Ethereum is a blockchain on steroids designed for more than trading cryptocurrency units or ‘coloured’ assets: developers can use it to build programs that interact with the world based on public rules enshrined in so-called smart contracts."

Some architects are already working on utilizing the blockchain to transform just about every aspect of how the profession operates – from the organization of a studio to the way projects are funded. Last fall, I talked with FOAM about some of the potentials of blockchain and Ethereum, in particular.

"Architectural transactions could evolve in a number of ways with blockchain technology," states FOAM. "For example, from the point of view of the business model, architecture could move away from client-designer relations that rely solely on fixed design and hourly fees. Instead they could exchange equity in the built environment in the form of smart contracts that distribute cryptographic tokens that represent share or equity in the agreement."

Che...

Airbnb invests in a blockchain future

2016-04-13T15:02:00-04:00

Home-rental company Airbnb has “acqui-hired” the majority of the team behind ChangeCoin, a startup that runs a bitcoin-based micropayments service, according to four people with knowledge of the deal. The alternative lodging site has been looking at a few bitcoin and blockchain startups, according to two sources, to study what the technology could do for its services.

Have you heard of bitcoin but still can't get your head around the technology behind them?

Last fall, I sat down with FOAM, a "decentralized architecture office" that believes the blockchain may revolutionize architecture (and so much more). The interview frames a handy introduction to the technology, with particular attention to its spatial implications. Check it out here.

For more on Airbnb, take a look at some of these links: