Today's blog is about the FUTURE. In a way, I feel like we are already living in the future. I mean, we live in a world where anything is possible....literally. How often do we find ourselves in some inconvenient or irritating situation and say to ourselves, "Man! If only someone would invent a machine that would ___________!"? Nowadays, a passerby might very well reply, "Oh, they are working on prototypes for that in Japan right now."
Seriously!(1)
Just take a look at this mobile home that you can buy now. It is
called the "I-House" and it looks like the future. It has all sorts of green bells and whistles like a water catchment system, dual flushing toilets, tank-less waterheater, etc. The coolest part is that you can add this extra part onto it called a "flex" room. You can add as many of these on as you want and make a giant I-house complex.You can take a virtual tour and check out all its fancy features in detail here.
Although I think the I-House is very futuristic, it is small potatoes compared to what Joachim Mitchell is cookin' up with his uber smart brainiac buddies at his "ecological design collaborative" - Terrefuge.
Mitchell was on the Colbert Report the other day, and he seems....wAcKy(2). He has a head full of dirty dreads cascading down his back like a tribal warrior, was clad in a sport coat, and had an intensity in his eyes that implied, "You'll see, Stephen, someday we really will be living in houses made of meat, and traveling in nerf cars, and children will laugh again, and there will be NO MORE WAR OR HUNGER OR SADNESS!!!"
Here is a picture of what Joachim thinks our public transportation system should be someday:
As you can see, it is a large blimp that would be constantly moving at about 10-15 mph, and people would have to hop in the little seats that are dangling below and then hop off when they got to their destination. Pretty PHAT, huh?
To the left is a picture of what we could be living in someday - if we are lucky.
This is a meat house. It is made out of fabricated "3D printed extruded pig cells."(3)
This is a meat house. It is made out of fabricated "3D printed extruded pig cells."(3)
To give you an idea of the large scale of Mitchell's innovation, here is a depiction of what we could see in urban centers around the world someday:
It is a Peristaltic City. I couldn't understand the description enough to paraphrase, so I'll let Mitchell explain in his own words.
"Peristalcity" is a tall building made of a cluster of shifting pod spaces. The pod skins alter the volume locations within. This soft, pliable, sealed, and non-mechanical innovation encapsulates volumetric structures. Textile reinforced hoses execute a peristaltic action. Thus, the modules are enabled to create an articulated motion that is symbiotically connected to an urban armature.
By employing a dynamic spatial application against the traditional organization of core and space, we dissolved the dichotomy between circulation and habitable environments. We have eliminated typological stacking where experiences are vapidly suggested to be diversified by simply designating floors to particular social practices. Instead, we propose a spatial layout that establishes heterogeneous movements, and not just assorted practices, as the criteria for a dynamic assemblage.
Sounds pretty sweet, overall, doesn't it?
Since we are on the topic of sweet ideas about the future, I feel the need to comment that I also enjoyed Pixar's idea of future as depicted in the animated motion picture, Wall-E. I mean, sure our brains and muscles will atrophy, but we won't need them with those sweet floating pod things(4). Also, I love Joss Whedon's future, after Earth is pillaged, and space cowboys roam the new frontier on the edges of the known universe.
But let's bring it back to the present future for my closing remarks.
How awesome is it that I can communicate with all of you everyday via blog/facebook/g-chat/twitter, watch TV on the interwebs whenever I want, heat up food in mere seconds in the microwave, and control the weather with my psychic powers(5)?
Here's to tomorrow!
lovecare.
Footnotes:
(1) Check out Maggie Paino's innovative idea.
(2) Mixed Capitalization used for "wacky" emphasis.
(3) Meat home is a "victimless shelter" because no sentient being was harmed in the laboratory growth of the skin.
(4) Also, training for a marathon would be so much easier.
(5) No, I don't have a device that allows me to control the weather with my mind......yet.
that's a lot of thinking about the future. the future is overrated.
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