New Balance in 2090

60%completed by Jan. 2010, Using Googleearth and Photoshop

Introduction
Global warming happened in 1980’s. As Mark Lynas speculated, in only a few decades it completely changed the landscape of Earth so put human civilization into a grave danger. (Mark Lynas, 2008) Nonetheless, when global warming brought catastrophes, destroyed the old urban systems, it also brought new opportunities. On the ruins of the old world, many urban and architectural conceptions are carried out, such as 3d city, skycar city, hyper tower, and capsule dwelling etc.. As a record of people’s living condition in 2090, this essay will discuss global land use function, urban model and architectural form in this drastic renovation.

Four Stages of the new balance

Before the arrival of a new balance in 2090s, there were four stages in human race’ responding to global warming. The first one was a collective denial. At the beginning, global warming only impacted on the marginal zones of human living environment. The disasters caused by climate change appeared to be only a series of random phenomenas, so the majority of society was blunt to it. Even the minority had become aware of its possible disastrous consequences, before the reality came, the majority kept focusing on their immediate interests. The second stage was great chaos. When the gradual accumulation of local changes finally led to drastic global catastrophes which human could not interfere, the society was suddenly full of collective panic for the coming of doomsday. People lived in mass riots for taking advantage of society turbulence and local wars for living resources. The third period was a global migration. The weakness of human technology used to resist natural catastrophe completely exposed at that time. Climate refugees numbered in the hundreds of millions, therefore they had to migrate from the sanded field and flooded land to the last habitable latitude zone, which was between 40°N and 70°N. Finally, a new balance between the human and the nature came. Due to the rising of temperature, the high latitude area today has tropical climate. The relatively increased grain production finally is able to meet the demand of the greatly reduced world population. To locate the four stages in a time line, the collective denial happened in early 21st century, the great chaos broken out 30 years later, the global migration followed closely and the new balance comes in 2090 and is expected to last about a century.

Shifts of Global Landscape

90%completed by May 2010, Using Photoshop

A cause and effect chain
As Mark Lynas analyzed, when the catastrophe of Global warming happened, it followed a cause and effect chain. On the continent, evanishment of mountain glacier finally caused shrink or even exhaustion of main rivers. The break of rivers resulted in desertification of forests and farmlands in their basin perimeter, and lead to rapid expansion of desert. Simultaneously, in the ocean, massive melting of continental glacier caused significant rise of sea level, which lead to wide submersion of all coastal regions. (Mark Lynas, 2008) All of these eventually caused massive mortality in global population, large immigration all over the world, and changes in international land use. Although due to the complexity coming from the combination of climate phenomena, topography and geomorphology, the result of these changes seems to be unpredictable, the physical logic hides behind these phenomena is doomed.

Industry in Desert

Global scenario

The solution from science fiction disaster movies
In early 21st century, science fiction disaster movies were very popular. Various catastrophes had been simulated in these movies, as well as the possible response strategies. Some of them particularly suggested the feasible architectural forms and urban morphologies in different disasters, for instance, the villages on cliffside from The Time Machine, the underground town from City of Ember, the machine city from The Matrix, and the abandoned earth from Wall.E etc. . Ironically, when the global disaster caused by global warming actually came, the dramatic science fiction plot, which were the most forward researches in managing global catastrophic situations, became real. The implement of these utopian conceptions brings beauty and romance into the dystopian world. These new cities and architectures are artificial wonders in the recession of human civilization.

Global land use system
In the old world, land value was normally judged by criteria in various aspects, so the process of evaluation was relatively complex. However, the evaluation system has been largely changed. During global warming, most resources of cultivated land and fresh water in the world be consumed, so the need for food cultivation become the unbeatable factor. But other evaluation standards, such as the commercial value and the location dominance, are not crucial at all. In the new judgement system, the potential capability in cultivation becomes the most decisive factor in evaluating the value of a land. Hence, the remaining lands are categorized into three classes: the arable land, the social land and the industrial land.

The arable land
The first class land includes remaining farmland, arable land, high precipitation area and the lands with surface fresh waters or groundwater. They are reserved and protected as the last cultivation resources for the food consumption of the entire human race.

The industry land
The third class land is all kinds of desert areas, where the temperature is too high, lack of fresh water and food supply for human living. These areas are used as industrial production lands. Manufactories were planned and constructed in new way. Component-based and unitized design becomes the common practice in the extreme environment. Based on this principle, as the material input ports and manufacture units, a series of factory rings with similar structure were located near every mining deposit. At the same time, as the transportation component and output port, a conveyer belt was designed to connect all the factory rings together. From mining to product packing, artificial intelligent supervisor, remote-controllable machines and automatic production line were introduced and integrated into the system, to create an unmanned system. In this process, only few human members are settled on the conveyer belt within an artificial indoor environment, playing roles of higher supervisor and maintainer.

Completed in Apr. 2010, Using Photoshop
The closest Factory Ring is quoted from a drawing The Hub by Ian Grainger, the distant ones is quoted from a drawing Helios by Rudolf Herczog

New London 2090

60%completed by May 2010, Using 3dmax and Photoshop
The Walled Island is a re-combination of the Atlantis City in Stargate by Diston

The social land
The second class land is the areas with habitable temperature but uncultivable terrain. They are flooded areas, tidal plains, rocky mountains and the existed inland cities, which became main human settlements. In the existed inland cities, because of the inrushing refugees in huge numbers, population density rapidly raised. As a result, the urban form was completely changed from horizontally developed towns to vertically grown metropolis. New urban systems were quickly built on other terrains to accmmodate the overflowing population. These new cities have significant differences with horizontally developed cities in urban composition, which will be detailedly discussed later in a case study.