MANIYARASAN RAJKUMAR

 

ILLUSION & INCLUSION

Our idea of the Utopian world is comprehensive. The world that includes and gives space to every living and non-living being. The idea of coexistence is more than just an argumente and proves everything here exists symbiotically. The world which we live in, today, seldom stands by that. It chose not to see the sense of ecosystem. We human’s break the harmony in ecosystem in the name of development forgetting real growth. We are distributive in whatever progress or growth we make by excluding our fellow earth beings. We are in enough illusion to believe that , we are growing. We are amidst a technological tangle. A tangle that involves some invisible waves. It is the mobile network and their waves, our major concern. We have tried to showcase the concern with these two images.

 

JOÃO TAVEIRA

 

LOOKING UP. LOOKING DOWN

The exercise of imagining a Utopia leads to the search of different ways, preferable ways, ways that can actuallysolve today’s problems and can lead us to better lives. Today’s city has problems, has noise, pollution, chaos, lack of green spaces, excess of construction. We’ve consumed all resources with no control, we’ve polluted the soil and crushed it, we’ve covered Nature with pipes, cement, tar, garbage and waste. We do not let it breathe. In acertain way, we ruined what Earth had the best, and we’ve stopped its natural development. We propose acomeback to the time when Nature and Mankind completed each other.

Let Nature take over Earth again, and let us embrace the sky. It is time to give back to the land what has always belong to it.

The project would be about a radical life change. We would leave the cities and move to the countryside and the forests. There we would raise a new type of living. Supported on punctual pillars we would find our homes, schools and hospitals. We would work on the ground, on the land. We would take from the land what we could grow there. We would only touch the ground to get the necessary resources for a pure and simple way of life. We would go up and down using the lifts, subtly hid inside the pillars.

We imagine each complex like an independent neighborhood, and at its center an open and vivid square. The blocks would communicate between them through suspended bridges, elevators, panoramic ladders or other types of connections. Based on a pre-established metric rule, the highs would vary so that we could have different perspectives of our new way of living.

Society would evolve as well. Respect for nature and maximum union with Earth would be unquestionable values that every child would learn since tender age. To work only with renewable energies and to use only theresources you need would not be needed to be taught, for it would be a part of everyone’s mentality already.We would be light and so would be our buildings. And maybe one day, with enough wisdom, we could come back down and inhabit the ground again.

It might just be evolution’s next step. We came from the water, we crawled, we walked on fours, we stood upa lifted our eyes to the skies. We only have now to embrace the air.

 

FRANCISCO SILVA

 

NATURAL FANTASIES

fantasy
noun
\
fan·ta·sy
\fan-tə-sē,
-zē\
: something that is produced by the imagination : an idea about doing something that is far removed from normal reality

Pigalle is a fantasy world. When we enter it, we enter into the representation of things most people desire but cannot have an easy access to.
If fantasy represents things that are wanted, what will be the cities’ “dirty pleasures” in the future?

Due to global warming, we witness the everyday destruction of Earth’s environment and the end of many species. It is now conceivable that all that is natural around us may quickly disappear, leaving only traces of the past through imita- tions and representations. This project imagines a future where pleasure is obtained through the experience of natural resources. Things that right now are almost unquestionable, such as breathing fresh air, swimming in clean water, witnessing snow, among others, are considered the main fantasies in the future.

Envisioned in the same style as Pigalle, these “natural fantasies” are contained in volumes that are integrated within the city and its lifestyle. Accessible to all, this “nature” represents the idea of what used to be. It is the conception ofnature
within
the
artificiality
of
the
city.
Imagining a time where anything related with the planet’s original resources are scarce and everything is a product ofhuman
creation,
people
are
depicted
in
only
finding
pleasure
in
the
experience
of
what
Earth
used
to
offer.
It is world that has been so transformed by humans that nature only exists as an idea, a memory, a fantasy...

nature
noun
\
na·ture
\nā-chər\
: the physical world and everything in it (such as plants, animals, mountains, oceans, stars, etc.) that is not made by people

 

ELENA PARASO

 

GREEN PALIMPSEST CITY

The idea of creating a utopian image originates from considering and understanding how an idyllic, healthy city could look like. Starting from that point, we have created a utopian scene showing the issues as well as the sensitivity of the current city.

The original image was inspired by Detroit, a city with a very particular expansion and development - based on automotive industry growing rapidly during the first half of the 20th century and, due to the stagnation of the sector, languishing during the second half of it - and in consequence, a city becoming a ghost town. However, the situation has been changing for a few years now and the city has started to create a reborn life.

 

CATERINA SPOSATO

 

Caterina Sposato is a first year Phd Student in Architecture and Territory at Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Italy.
Before that, she graduated with honour in architecture in July 2015 under the prof. arch. Gianfranco Neri.

She worked for an international workshop and to the realisation of her utopian and experimental thesis, which studies the future predictions for the end of this century (year 2100), analysing an environmental and spatial scenario of the entire world sea territory.

Through the victory of scholarships, she has developed a strong interest in the field of utopian architectural and urban research, the issues of visionary foresight, the environment and territories in crisis, confronting with different teachers and famous architects.

She is registering currently at Utopian Studies Society / Europe.
Caterina Sposato is working her Phd Thesis on Undestanding Space Design of Apocaliptical Utopia, and searching for the reflection over XXI Century Vision’s Spatial Biophilia Development.