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Hovering via electromagnets, the key innovation is the laser-guided stabilization system that keeps it floating in one place rather than tilting one way, tipping another or flying off entirely … a definite upgrade from those childhood hovercraft toys that were always impossible to remote control correctly.

While not a direct duplicate of the movie classic version, the zig-zag pattern and use of pink and other atrociously 1980s-era colors clearly makes this a direct homage to the original – but perhaps the next version can look a little more timeless.

The post The Future is Back: Real-Life, High-Tech Hoverboard Design first appeared on Dornob.

The post Spherical Shelves and More Futuristic Estonian Design first appeared on Dornob.

This project is rooted in an entertaining exercise: clients ‘from the future’ seeking a multi-functional abode that can be configured to fit their needs. The quirkiness does not end with the design itself, though, as even if the finished-layout photographs feature curiously pixelated occupants.

Created by Dash Marshall, there are four core components to this futuristic “space age” project – first, some space-saving strategies: (1) replacing hallways with sliding walls to eliminate relatively-useless circulation areas, (2) a flexible living-plus-bedroom with a walk-in closet, all enabled by a thick pivoting wall, giving the feel of secret rooms.

Next, things get futuristic – (3) flush-fitting, easily-vanishing, built-in storage the recedes from view when not in use and (4) a reflective, glossy, and rounded interior to bounce light throughout and make the entire residence feel more open.

As engaging as the apartment is in and of itself, this entire sequence from concept to realization to representation also shows a level of consistency not always found in design work – every step reinforces and reflects the core ideas that went into the process and final product. The story is told in part by the choice to computer-blur people in the final pictures, and even to round the corners of the photographs themselves.

“This client came to us with an apartment in the Kips Bay complex designed by IM Pei in the 1960s. We responded by designing a space capsule temporarily docked here on earth.”

“They wanted a home to charge up between missions: a place where every boot and book, every single little thing could be hidden away. They wanted something that would make the most out of their 715 square feet.”

“We measured and labeled the total volume of possessions (569 cubic feet) so we would have the necessary data to design a place for each and every thing to be hidden away.”

“Central to our strategy is a rotating storage wall called the Transformer. By moving a series of translucent sliding panels the floor plan to be reconfigured easily for different levels of privacy.”

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From the outset, the MO Bakery owners knew they wanted a space that presented their baked goods as the stars of the show, highlighting them like precious jewels in a display case. Masquespacio honed in on water as a theme after realizing it’s one of the main ingredients in both baked goods and coffee, dividing the space into three different areas that each represent a different phase in the process of baking and brewing.

The first zone is dedicated to the liquid state, where water makes the dough start to come together. Next is the bar zone, where a massive waterfall-like installation made of sandblasted glass tubes hovers overhead. The front of the bar features the “solid-state” zone, with lamps representing ice. The third zone is the “gaseous state,” where a series of fire bulbs represent the moment when the pastry is baked in the oven.

Throughout the interiors, custom seating ranging from low lounges to high stools offers comfortable vantage points to take it all in. The various metallic finishes were designed to generate reflections mimicking the distortion that occurs when viewing objects through water. The scale of the space encourages people to stay a while, gazing up at everything and taking in the scents of the bakery’s goods.

“On the other hand, the lighting incorporates fully controllable RGB lighting to set moods that could convert the space to a different status, being able to represent a ‘different space’ within a space, in campaigns, engagements, or talks, which is also extended by the reflections of the space in chrome fabrics, tables, and spheres [that create] another level of optical fusion,” say the designers. “This space is not solid. It is interchangeable and dynamic following what the brand has to say. Welcome to the new mood branding.”

With decor and lighting that moody, the MO Bakery almost feels like a bar or nightclub instead of a daytime-oriented café. Which begs the question: why don’t we have more cool spaces to hang out in that aren’t bars or nightclubs? Masquespacio is onto something here.

MO Bakery wanted to stand out from its competition, and it’s probably safe to say they’ve successfully done so with this imaginative interior design. Check out three previous projects that capture Masquespacio’s creative approach to design: a vivid and playful Mango teen store in Milan, Italy; a lavender-hued sunglasses store in Bogotá, Colombia; and a pastel Bun burger restaurant on Milan’s Via Dell’Orso.

The post Masquespacio’s Retrofuturistic Bakery Inspired by Flowing Liquids first appeared on Dornob.

California-based Egyptian artist and architect Hassan Ragab uses the AI art-generating program Midjourney to stimulate his own creativity, and his latest project may be his most surreal yet. “A State of Decay” takes the aesthetics of Art Nouveau architecture and warps them into dreamlike shapes and proportions. While parts of the buildings appear to be solid stone, others look like billowing smoke condensing down into solid, weight-supporting masses. Check out an animated version on Ragab’s Instagram.

The results are eerily beautiful. The characteristic sinuous, sculptural lines and asymmetrical shapes of Art Nouveau are amplified and exaggerated, morphing from the feasibly real to the blatantly unreal. The fact that such structures are not physically possible (at least, not yet) is actually part of the point. If we don’t believe something is possible, we don’t even attempt to work toward it and solve problems that could make it possible along the way.

It’s clear that AI isn’t quite up to the task of designing buildings that are safe, practical, and realistic, and there’s no danger of it replacing architects anytime soon. For artists like Ragab, using AI programs like Midjourney is a way to push their own creative ideas to the next level and introduce elements of surprise. They input text prompts into the program — perhaps something like “Art Nouveau buildings partially consisting of smoke” in this case. That’s the extent of their own control over the results. The AI inserts its own perceptions, resulting in ideas that could actually be feasible as a source of inspiration for wildly creative new architectural forms and materials.

Some users who are new to AI programs like Midjourney might find they’re getting results that are too similar to those of others. Ragab recommends that they get more specific and experimental with their prompts. “Using the right prompts is only one part of the process,” he writes on Instagram. “There are thousands of possibilities that the prompt alone won’t generate. You have to have a process for prompt writing, generating variations, and tweaking your process as you go. And of course not to mention the most important factor (your unique idea).”

In previous projects, Ragab has used AI to help envision conceptual green facades inspired by nature, organic Gothic facades resembling the work of artist H.R. Giger, an interplay of glass walls and red feathers, and many more awe-inspiring images.

“The more I work with Midjourney the more I know there is more to it,” Ragab adds. “As creatives we always have the moment where we stop. Sometimes because we need to, but most of the times we can’t go any further because we are bored, tired, or because it’s time consuming. And therein lies the true power when working with AI. It allows you to make that push, to add something to your limits in the same way [the] plane allowed us to fly. It’s another barrier that we are breaking. And although there are doubts and too many unknowns, I think we will carry on and time will reveal itself to us with even crazier scenarios than the ones we already have about the future.”

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If the prototype looks like a quadcopter strapped onto the roof of an ordinary car, that’s because it basically is, at least for now. While the original HT Aero flying supercar design is more compact, with two electric rotors on articulating arms that fold away under the car’s rear bodywork, the working prototype required a few tweaks. It has an eight-rotor coaxial vertical lift system to add redundancy in case of failure, itself contained within a giant box atop the vehicle. The arms fold into this box instead of the body of the car, and the whole thing weighs an eye-watering 1936 kilograms (4,268 pounds).

“In driving mode, it is comparable with any conventional cars in terms of functionality and measurement,” says XPeng. “In flight mode, the flying car is piloted using the steering wheel and the right-hand gear lever as controls to move forward and backward, make turns, ascend, hover, and descend. Subject to laws and regulations for the low-altitude airspace, it can take off and land vertically and fly over traffic congestion, obstacles, and rivers to meet a new host of short-distance mobility needs.”

The test flight took place on October 24th, just days after XPeng showed off the capabilities of another one of its flying vehicles, the X2, at GITEX Global 2022 in Dubai. The X2 essentially looks like a massive drone with a lightweight carbon-fiber body and enclosed cockpit. When empty, it weighs 560 kg (about 1,235 pounds), and its quad-battery pack can keep it airborne for about 35 minutes. A built-in parachute can also bring it down to the ground in case of a complete powertrain failure.

As you might have guessed, the X2 isn’t exactly legal to cruise around on the streets. It’s too lightweight to pass safety tests in most countries, and its rotors don’t fold away. That’s what makes the X3 both more appealing and many times more challenging to actually develop, as it requires separate powertrains, suspension systems, wheels, and other features for road driving that aren’t required in a vehicle that’s only meant to fly. That also puts a lot more strain on the battery system, which is incredibly heavy in its own right.

Once the AeroHT X3 is refined to look closer to renderings than the current prototype, it will likely look less boxy and awkward. It’ll also lose its appearance as an add-on kit that could transform any old car into a flying vehicle. It kind of seems like a shame that the company can’t actually pull that off, though it’s understandable that the vehicle itself would need to be customized in order to work with the flying system.

Who knows what XPeng will ultimately come up with, considering that the company just got approved for $6 billion yuan (about $844 million USD) in funding from four banks to support its research and development. Last year, they received the largest Series A fundraising in the industry and accumulated more than $500 million. XPeng plans to use those funds to establish a supply chain and build production facilities for the X3 by next year, with potential sales releases in 2024.

Naturally, that timeline will probably change. It will take a lot of reliability and safety testing to pass muster with regulations, but Chinese authorities have indicated that they’re willing to give automakers some leeway with the law in order to promote aggressive tech development in the country.

The post XPeng’s AeroHT X3 Prototype Turns a Street-Legal Vehicle into a Flying Car first appeared on Dornob.

“Public Art Electric Vehicle Charging Stations” is a collection of proposals that merge art, architecture, and technology, giving people something fun to look at and interact with while they’re charging their electric vehicles. The project addresses one major anxiety of transitioning from fossil fuel-powered vehicles to EVs — a lack of charging stations. Jantzen believes that creating massive, bright, and oddly-shaped charging stations could draw attention to the need for sustainable options and reassure the public that such stations actually exist.

Perhaps even more importantly, these EV charging stations don’t rely on grid power. Electricity in most of the world is still supplied by fossil fuels like coal and oil, and EVs usually depend on that energy to charge. To get around that issue (which will only be solved by shifting power grids to renewable energy sources), Jantzen’s charging stations are all solar and/or wind-powered.

The five public art charging stations are respectively named the Silver Solar Charging Station, the Black Waves Solar Charging Station, the Red Solar Charging Station, the Yellow Solar Charging Station, and the Solar Wind Charging Station. Each one sort of resembles a futuristic car wash, but each has its own set of distinguishing features.

The Silver Solar Charging Station is a corrugated steel structure supporting a large photovoltaic panel that’s held high in the air on two massive silver arms. The Black Waves Solar Charging Station, also made of steel, has a more fluid, aerodynamic design, with ribbon-like sections of steel covered in photovoltaic panels undulating over the top.

The bright pops of color seen in the Red Charging Station and Yellow Charging Station stand out even from afar, drawing the curiosity of passersby for miles around. The Red version has zig-zag solar panels on top, while the Yellow version features an eco-friendly concrete composite dome, with a series of circular disc-shaped solar panels mounted on its roof.

The only one that isn’t designed to be entered is the Solar Wind Charging Station. “Instead, people can drive alongside of the station to charge their vehicles,” says Jantzen. “It is also made of steel with a large curved shaped photovoltaic panel mounted onto the overhang. In addition to the solar panel, it also has a large vertical axis wind turbine incorporated into the design. Both the solar panel and the wind turbine make electricity from the sun and from the wind to charge the electric vehicles directly, and/or with batteries they continually charged.”

Thus far, these sculptural EV charging stations are just concepts, but perhaps they’ll spark some creativity as new charging stations continue to pop up around the world.

The post Michael Jantzen’s Artsy EV Charging Stations are Impossible to Ignore first appeared on Dornob.

The name 2526 refers to the number of hours Gao invested in the creation of the two polymorphic robotic garments, from her earliest sketches to the final stitch. Inspired by NFTs, digital fashion, and virtual clothing, the garments are real, worn by actual models, and crafted from materials like glass, silicone, organdy fabric, and electronic devices. They truly take futuristic fashion to a whole new level, resembling alien creatures or some strange extension of the human body that hasn’t been invented yet.

“If the role of the fashion designer is to imbue a form and a function to materials intended to dress the body, we can wonder about the question of the immaterial garment and the virtual body, devoid of substance, and their level of reality, when the digital has become a real ‘second nature,’” says Gao. “As our jaunts into the metaverse become more recent and less surprising, digital fashion inevitably unfolds into an infinity of possibilities and uncertainties.”

In 2019, Gao debuted a previous robotic garment collection called “Flowing Water, Standing Time.” These translucent and transparent garments are also capable of chromatic movement, recognizing the colors in their immediate surroundings, and responding in liquid, chameleon-like ways. Color sensors, light sensors, and tiny cameras linked to a raspberry Pi computer analyze the wearer’s environment and translate that information to the garment via a series of actuators and magnets, causing the fabric to ripple.

In this way, the wearer almost becomes secondary to the garment itself, which has gained a sense of autonomy. The wearer can’t control what their own clothes are doing at any given time.

“This project was inspired by neurologist Oliver Sacks’ novel The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, in which he relates the story of Jimmie G, a 49-year-old former sailor convinced of being aged 19 since having left the Navy,” says Gao. “Shocked by his own reflection when Sacks hands him a mirror, Jimmie reverts to his 19-year-old self as soon as his gaze leaves the reflective surface. Having lost any sense of temporal continuity, Jimmie lives as a prisoner to this single, perpetual moment, oscillating between a presence to the world and a presence to self.”

“Much like Jimmie G, the garments evolve between two states and display perpetual metamorphosis as they react to the chromatic spectrum. This traveling between opposite states — from immobility to movement — does not operate as a dichotomy. Upon the field time, which injects energy into the very core of inertia, fluctuates the intensity animating each garment in its unique way. These two states are mere dropping-off points among an infinite array of possibilities.”

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The Pioneer station will have a capacity of 28 guests, with areas for work and recreation. The Voyager will be much larger, with room for 400 guests, and will open sometime in 2027. Both space resorts will offer some semblance of gravity for patrons, thanks to their spinning circular designs.

“The station rotates, pushing the contents of the station out to the perimeter of the station, much in the way that you can spin a bucket of water — the water pushes out into the bucket and stays in place,” said architect and Orbital Assembly COO Tim Alatorre in an interview with CNN. This engineering will allow for comfortable dining and bar experiences as well as traditional sleeping positions.

However, the fun of weightlessness will still be an option for extraplanetary travelers. The gravitational pull will decrease as one moves along the station’s spokes toward the center. The degree of gravity will also depend on the hotel’s rotation speed.

“The interiors of Pioneer station, in particular, are designed to function in both zero gravity and partial gravity,” Alatorre explains. “They are highly flexible to respond to the needs of a variety of tenants on the station.”

The Voyager plans also call for a zero-gravity basketball court where guests can fly through the air and dunk like their favorite NBA stars.

In terms of the length of stay, the company envisions guests coming for a long weekend among the stars. “We expect the duration to be as little as four days or as long as two weeks,” says Rhonda Stevenson, Orbital Assembly CEO. “It depends on cost and also the ability to acclimate to a space environment.” Both space inns will include office areas for those seeking longer-term accommodations.

While no daily price has been announced, it is likely to be prohibitive in the beginning. The Voyager Station itself will run $200 billion in construction and launching costs. Travel + Leisure reported that a three-and-a-half-day stay might be as much as $5 million. However, that may not be as outrageous as it sounds, as it currently costs $55 million to stay at the International Space Station for any length of time. And Virgin Galactic is planning to charge $450,000 for a trip into the Milky Way that lasts just 90 minutes.

Orbital Assembly maintains that space travel will eventually become accessible to enough people that prices will be comparable to those of cruise tickets. Alatorre assures, “The goal has always been to make it possible for large amounts of people to live, work, and thrive in space.” The Pioneer hotel especially will allow “people [to] start to experience space on a larger scale, faster.”

Interested vacationers can sign up on the company website to reserve a spot on the Pioneer station.

The post Need a Post-Pandemic Getaway? Check Out the Luxury Space Hotel Opening in 2025 first appeared on Dornob.

“The fashion industry produces 10 percent of humanity’s carbon emissions and creates a huge amount of pollution in the process of making textiles,” Holloway explains, adding: “By contrast, this project explores the promising possibility of root-grown textiles and imagines compostable and sustainable fashion. As fashions change, new clothes grow and old clothes are composted. Grown from root, inspired by marine life.”

Rootfull takes advantage of overlooked materials that exist literally right beneath our feet. Certain grasses grow roots that can reach over a dozen feet down into the Earth. Even common Bermuda grass, found in most lawns, has roots measuring eight feet. Holloway used wheatgrass for the series, cultivating the seed in templates carved from beeswax. Roots naturally grow into mesh-like structures, but Holloway guided them into templates over a 12-day growing period to get the shapes she wanted.

“The challenge is to sew, cut, tease, join, pluck, set, and reset until the root has found the optimal form,” Holloway writes. “Root is an exciting and versatile material where the most honest results are achieved by working with the natural flows of the fiber. It can be grown into large hanging structures or set and molded to form vessels, and it responds especially well to natural dying processes.”

“When freshly harvested, the roots are heavy and damp, and after 24 hours they dry out to become featherweight, and strong enough to support their own weight. The root forms a kind of botanical skeleton, trapping carbon, and therefore becomes a tiny part of the solution to the complex problem of climate change.”

Because of the nature of living materials, each piece in the collection is entirely unique, even if the same beeswax templates are used. In a sense, Holloway collaborated with Mother Nature herself, guiding the wheatgrass roots to produce visually interesting results. She’s even able to grow the roots into large mats much like a bolt of fabric so they can then be shaped into beautiful dresses. The silhouettes they achieve are truly remarkable, demonstrating the kind of creativity that’s possible when we stop limiting ourselves to harmful polluting materials simply because that’s what we’re used to using.

Holloway’s non-wearable Rootfull pieces have their own sense of natural elegance. Some of them really do resemble coral and sea fans, so why shouldn’t we display these in our home instead of contributing to the many threats to coral reefs? The pieces are also gorgeous as lampshades, with the light bringing out the intricacy of the woven patterns.

The post Zena Holloway Weaves Living Plant Roots into High Fashion Outfits first appeared on Dornob.

Dubbed “Moon World Resorts,” the idea is to recreate the Moon on a grand scale right here on our home planet, no rocket trip required. As Moon World Resorts co-founder Michael R. Henderson recently told CNN Travel, the moon is a “recognizable brand…seven and a half billion people know it, everybody loves it.” He hopes his ambitious idea will spur travelers everywhere to flock to the spacey, ultra-luxurious new hotel.

Though the project itself has been in development for nearly 20 years, artist renderings envision a futuristic space where guests can enjoy all the perks of a traditional top-notch resort while pretending they’e floating in a far-off space station. Of course, no trip to the moon would be complete without a space walk. A lunar experience inside the hotel will allow guests to simulate the feeling of actually walking on the moon. As Henderson says, “we will give you the ability in your lifetime to walk on what you believe will be the lunar surface.”

Unfortunately, as with most architecture projects of this scale and scope, Moon World Resorts has also come with its share of “tremendous technical challenges,” according to Henderson. He’s currently working with co-founder Sandra G. Matthews alongside “independent engineers and architects to make the concept a reality,” according to CNN Travel.

If all goes according to plan, the Canada-based entrepreneurs plan on eventually expanding Moon World Resorts to other continents, too. This will depend largely on securing licensees willing to invest in the project — but as we now know all too well, it’s pretty hard for rich people to say “no” to space.

For his part, Henderson remains hopeful that Moon World Resorts will eventually get past the conceptual stage and become a full-on reality. He believes that the first hotel could open as early as 2027 as “a destination in its own right,” drawing visitors from around the globe who want to experience the thrill of the final frontier from the comfort of the planet they know and love.

The post Dubai’s Moon World Resorts Take Us One Step Closer to Space Travel first appeared on Dornob.

Beginning with the 2024 Alpha5 Plasmatail, a DeLorean DMC 12 that takes the company’s Back to the Future star to the next level, the company’s newest electric model is even more impressive, with a purposefully over-the-top Robocop allure. Dubbed the Omega 2040, the concept envisions an uncertain future not only dominated by electric cars, but one where an increasingly harsh and rugged landscape necessitates a pivot from purely style to form and (more importantly) function.

Described by DeLorean as taking its inspiration from “Baja-themed off-road racing,” the Omega 2040 looks more like an all-terrain vehicle at first glance than it does the DeLorean you know and love. With its high, lifted body and jumbo wheels, the EV looks ready to jump into a Mad Max-level wasteland fully charged and ready to rumble.

Known for delivering forward-thinking car concepts for over 40 years, the DeLorean Company certainly knows how to deliver when it comes to creating vehicles that even now look futuristic. A somewhat iconoclastic model that toes the line between sleek, polished virtuosity and rugged off-road appeal, the Omega 2040 is an aesthetic hybrid of sorts. Smooth, aerodynamic lines suggest an EV built for stylish speed and quasi-coupe design, while the highly-stacked body and monster truck wheels show that the car is a lot more than just good looks. Add in DeLorean’s distinctive gull-wing doors that so impressed Marty McFly, and the vision is complete: an impressive minimalist construction built for both speed and style, destined to navigate a post-apocalyptic world with aplomb.

According to DeLorean, the Omega represents a “complete departure from traditional automotive design,” and just one look is enough for any aspiring auto aficionado to see that this dynamic EV is not cut from the same cloth as its contemporaries. Ready to ride into the uncertain future ahead, the all-electric DeLorean Omega 2040 will undoubtedly navigate the roadways of the future with both LED-lit style and all-terrain, off-road ruggedness.

The post Delorean’s Omega 2040 Concept is Built to Endure a “Rugged” Future first appeared on Dornob.

Below are some stunning examples of global retailers embracing fresh, forward-thinking aesthetics to make a big statement:

Hug Concept Store — Chengdu, China

High fashion is the perfect template for this inventive and iconoclastic mashup of neutrality and sparse, avant-garde surroundings from Atmosphere Architects. Stark and spacey with bold pops of the brand’s signature blue hue, the background exudes 2001: A Space Odyssey vibes while serving as a stylish, sumptuously sparse setting that puts the attention squarely on the designer wares.

KIKS — Beijing, China

A rollicking redesign that’s big on planetary power, this stylish streetwear brand’s new store resembles the solar system itself, complete with colorful curved walls dotted with trendy merchandise that seems to orbit the space around you. ROOI Design & Research really pushed the envelope here with a movable, ready-made retail universe that draws in customers with its own kind of gravitational pull.

AKRIS — Washington, US

Swiss fashion brand AKRIS raises the bar with a no-limits layout from David Chipperfield Architects. Here too, the focus is on the clothing and accessories. But these wares almost seem to float magically outside of time and space, thanks to a specially designed system of cables supporting both shelves and hangers from behind the scenes. A trendy neutral backdrop completes the illusion, with a touch of sophistication in the form of chic limestone flooring.

Cris Belos — Belo Horizonte, Brazil

This luxe, elevated boutique by the London and São Paulo-based Carolina Maluhy + Partners is dominated by creamy neutral tones and curvy, imaginative touches that exude a futuristic fashion house vibe. Consisting of four connected rooms (each more sweeping than the last), the sprawling space has no shortage of elegance: simply look to the sweeping staircase or the airy, incandescent ceiling if you don’t believe us.

Bala — Soho, New York City

Consumer engagement and sensory immersion go hand-in-hand in Bala’s first-ever retail space. Designed by Madelynn Ringo of Ringo Studio, the playful space is brimming with pretty pastels and gorgeous geometry. An experiential store where guests are encouraged to embrace the products’ textures, weightiness, and above all, playfulness, the vivid hues and soft, inviting atmosphere embody the brand’s aesthetic perfectly.

These forward-thinking retail stores prove that the industry really is looking ahead when it comes to inspiration. Fun, futuristic, and above all, fashionable, these trendy spots are riding the wave of fresh aesthetics that encourage guests to get lost in the moment.

The post Looking Ahead: These Retail Stores are Futuristic and Fashionable first appeared on Dornob.

When machines can produce stunning masterpieces that mimic a human’s signature style, that artist’s work can suddenly seem less valuable. But a recent project by Manas Bhatia shows us one way in which artificial intelligence could enhance our creativity instead of replacing it. Envisioning what organic architecture of the future could look like, “Symbiotic Architecture” breaks through our understanding of what’s actually possible and asks us to think about our built environment a little differently.

Bhatia, an architectural designer based in India, uses the AI art generator Midjourney as a tool to overcome his own conscious and subconscious assumptions. He’s particularly interested in finding sustainable solutions that are able to withstand climate change by acting more like natural structures than artificial environments. For Symbiotic Architecture, he asked the program to combine an apartment building with Hyperion, a towering 380-foot redwood in California that’s considered the world’s tallest-known living tree. He entered combinations of words like “giant,” “hollowed,” “tree,” “stairs,” and “facade,” continuing to alter the prompts until he got the results he wanted.

The final digital works of art produced by the program are nothing less than stunning, even if they seem completely impossible in the real world. Massive coastal redwoods the size of Hyperion and even larger are pierced with glass-clad dwelling units stacked on top of each other. Little sprouts of leaves pop up here and there between windows and balconies. The images give us an idea of what the world might look like if human dwellings were more like those of ants and other creatures that build their homes from the world around them. The idea is that the structures we live in breathe and potentially even grow as a part of nature instead of attempting to be separate from it.

Would we really want to insert architecture into existing groves of sensitive, slow-growing, and endangered redwoods? Definitely not, but that’s not really the point. Just because our existing construction methods, materials, and technologies aren’t capable of producing safe and durable buildings that look like this doesn’t mean we can’t develop new ones that can. Working backwards from fantastical ideas could produce amazing innovations that allow us to burst out of our minimalist architectural stagnancy. For instance, it’s not that hard to imagine something like a naturally reproducing fungus-based material growing to a desired shape and size around a framework of modular living pods with an appearance resembling these giant inhabitable trees.

“The project began as an AI-based investigation into the interactions we have all had with nature, such as appreciating a tree’s shade on a hot day, reading a newspaper in a courtyard under a tree, or simply hanging out in a park to take in the changing hues of the leaves,” Bhatia explains. “Building on these observations came the idea of a ‘utopian future’ in which buildings are not machines made of steel or concrete…Instead, the structure is alive and has the ability to grow and breathe.”

The post Symbiotic Architecture: Artificial Intelligence Envisions Living Housing Built into Redwood Trees first appeared on Dornob.

ZNera Space sees the Downtown Circle as sustainable and self-sufficient vertical urbanism. The mega-complex stands an incredible 550 meters (1,804 feet) off the ground on five relatively narrow supports as an alternative to a bunch of unconnected skyscrapers. Containing housing, retail stores, offices, and schools as well as public spaces like parks and museums, the ring-shaped tower even has its own transportation system. Theoretically, residents wouldn’t ever have to leave the tower if they didn’t want to.

Downtown Circle contains five levels, including two main rings held together by a continuous green belt the architects call Skypark. Spanning the multi-story vertical space between the structure’s two rings, the Skypark is its own self-contained ecosystem full of swamps, waterfalls, canyons, sandy dunes, and tropical vegetation. It also incorporates rainwater harvesting, solar power, and agricultural production, so the community can grow some of its own food and produce its own energy. And with full-size trees capable of storing carbon, the Skypark also helps to offset the ring’s greenhouse gas emissions.

To get around the ring, residents and visitors will travel in a fleet of suspended peripheral pods that transport them from one node to another. The vessels follow tracks along the structure’s bottom tier. An elevated heliport on the roof of the inner ring lets inhabitants travel down to the city and back up again. An outer layer of louvers protects the facade from intense sunlight and helps reflect light to areas that get shaded by the geometry of the building throughout the day.

“We wanted to go down to the basics of how gated communities were established as a very horizontal built environment,” says Najmus Chowdry, co-founder of ZNera Space. “But you can’t have that here because of the dense urban fabric of Dubai. The best way to explore and practice this concept was in downtown itself.”

“The concept was of a vertical city,” says Nils Remess, the firm’s other co-founder. “When COVID-19 hit hard, we thought a lot about sustainability and how can we change things and how we can create better urban planning. We looked at aspects such as garbage disposal, food production, traffic problems, and pollution. We put all these things together and came up with a concept.”

Concepts like the Downtown Circle could definitely help with the challenge of packing more people into cities as the global population continues to grow amidst the threats of climate change. One thing few of them seem to address, however, is the question of whether such structures would contribute to further segregation of economic classes within cities, leaving poor residents on a ground level that would feel downright subterranean when shaded by megastructures that elevate richer people into the sky above. In that case, higher-density cities will only feel livable for some people and not others.

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