Dwell magazine and Inhabitat have teamed up to sponsor a “Reburbia” competition in which designers re-envision suburbia in ways that make environmentalists seem as scary and dingbatty as possible.
The finalists include a lot of inspiring ideas, but my favorite by far is the proposal to have menacing 3,000-foot-tall robots stomp into suburban villages, rip the homes out of the ground, and install them in bleak, Matrix-like hives.
“By radically retrofitting suburbs, the old methodology of horizontal sprawl is supplanted with a scheme of vertical-core sprawl freeing the suburbanite from the demands of automotive travel.” Unless, of course, the suburbanite feels like traveling from his prison tower to one of the neighboring prison towers. The project is green because the robots will drill into the earth to tap geothermal power, which is a great idea for suburban villages that happen to sited on top of active volcanoes.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention Vehiforce: “Generate Energy With Your Parked Car!” This isn’t some pie-eyed scheme to tap into the battery pack on futuristic electric vehicles. No, this ... Read more
