Back in May, Foster + Partners unveiled their design for the Droneport, a modular shell-like structure that is constructed with local labor from earthen bricks and thin compressed tiles to create loading areas for food and medical-aid bearing transport drones. A version of the Droneport was built at this year's Venice Biennale (which is open until November 27th). Now, in the freshly unveiled thematic supplement to the 2015 Annual Statistical Report on United Nations Procurement, Norman Foster has written an essay which builds upon the idea of Buckminster Fuller's "trim tab" to help foster enormous change in Africa and other countries with relatively small, if holistically conceived, gestures such as the Droneport.

Norman writes: "There is a moral imperative to provide more globally available energy while seeking to conserve its consumption. The answer to this apparent paradox is to adopt a holistic approach to the design of sustainable communities in which the infrastructure and individual buildings are considered interactively." He goes on to explore the possibility of tweaking the infrastructure in Dharavi, India to improve the quality of life and meet the needs of the increasing population: "There could be a new infrastructure spine to bring in fresh water, data and power to the community. A spine above ground can provide a table for selling goods, cooking, seating and socializing – supporting all of the activities that currently take place in only the public realm."

Here's a video exploring the origin of the Droneport: