excellent point urb, maybe my thesis should focus on a mixed-use, hydro-powered, seawall to protect NYC?

I wonder if such a seawall would be intended to permanently lower the water level within it -- requiring locks to permit passage of ships -- or whether its function would be to protect Manhattan etc from storm surges. Either way, an interesting project.

i don't mean to harp on this or be overly pedantic, but the effects of global climate change are not the same as the apocalypse. the apocalypse is biblical and carries with it all of the baggage associated with its judeo-christian roots. to frame the discussion around the apocalypse is not only inaccurate, it undermines the very real and relevant topic of creating an architecture that is responsive, or better yet anticipates, the effects of climate change. it may be a small point, but for me, understanding the discussion on the level of climate change grounds this discussion in a reality that i can take far more seriously than "the apocalypse."

fair enough, i should have titled the thread "catastrophic urbanism" but i called it apocalyptic because it sounds cooler and i figured more people would post

I think that use is fine, Apurimac... the contemporary use of that word implies the revelation or discovery at the end of the world.. with that end referring to some type of drastic change of biblical proportion. Drowning cities around the world would, in my book at least, pass.

I think a seawall for NY might be cool.

global warming is just the appetizer, the apocalyptic entree is on its way.

Let's see -- how would you design for The Rapture ? Automatic self-mothballing buildings. . .

Vado, I thought that you ARE the apocalyptic entree :)

SDR.. in undergrad we had a 1st yr studio exercise ... design heaven and hell

OK, now that I've been thinking a little more about Idiocracy I'm warming to it, and this seems like a good place to post this image from the film.



It's hard to read, but that sign on the warehouse says "CostCo". I would have liked the movie better if it said "WalMart".

They walk into the store and the sidekick says the item they're looking for is "On aisle 16,000 - about an hour from here". That's a pretty apocalyptic view of the future for me.

what's the muck surrounding costco?.. can't quite make it out at that resolution

Garbage. Humans in the future have become too stupid to figure out how to deal with garbage.

good god LB, that's more harrowing than a flooded manhattan for real...

Haha, yeah...somehow that endless suburban disposable consumption nightmare is worse than the thought of Manhattan full of water and groovy water taxis zipping from swim-up bar to swim-up bar...

And, I'd say, far more likely!

but.. but.. but where's the vast parking lot?

overcome by garbage i'd assume. I figure parking lots of that size would be great places to dump huge amounts of refuse.

more seriously though, for me the question of catastrophic or apocalyptic urbanism is more about new solutions rather than projections of dystopia. I'm convinced that infrastructure urbanism is the next big thing -- to cope with increased population, new sources of energy, global warming, security concerns and whatever, cities will have to create massive new and formally invasive infrastructures, that'll have to somehow become integrated into their existing fabrics... making for cool architecture.

So it's time to look again at the 60's Metabolists -- Archigram; Ron Herron's "Walking City"etc etc ?

[I once conceived of a self-directed project for a "Stairway to Heaven." An important drawing would have been titled "Section, Typical Section (typ)."]

I wanted to say earlier Urbanist that it think the ultimate challenge an urbanist or team of them could possibly face is the "greening" of Beijing. Something I think could actually be done given China's political and economic atmosphere at the moment. China faces some serious consequences of not taking its environmental problems seriously and while Dongtan and cities like it are most definitely a step in the right direction, the Green Megacity is holy grail of modern urbanism IMO.

Beijing is the nineteenth-century london of today, atmosphere-wise. What will it take to clean it up ?

^Very true. Yet I do believe Beijing is also much bigger than 19th century London. Yet I feel the Chinese can handle it because "mega-projects are nothing new in China".

Mega projects are nothing new.....
However, from the Three Gorges Dam to their new canal project,
they often are top down planned, auto-cratically implemented and often esp. as in the case of the Three Gorges Dam, have unintended or at least unwanted social and environmental consequences...

I was last in Beijing a couple of years ago and I actually didn't think it was that bad in terms of pollution (the architecture of the mile-after-mile of mass housing is another story altogether).. compared to, say, Delhi in the late '90s or Mexico City today. My suspicion is that, following from what they did successfully in Delhi between 1998-2002, is that if they just imposed special emissions requirements on the passenger cars and imposed some type of road-pricing scheme it'll greatly reduce the air pollution... something well within their ability to do. Replacing the coal-fired powerplants is much more expensive and probably much harder to do... but given it's their capital, I wouldn't put that pass 'em either.

I get a sense that China is fairly serious about urban greening, and there'll be a lot of experimentation over the next few years I think as they try to make some accommodation between rapid industrial development and the environment.