Melissa Sterry started her lecture ¨Building A Bionic City: The Place Where Science Fiction Becomes Fact¨ with the question:
What is the city of the future?
A question that, as she says, humanity has been pondering for millennium.
” …Architects, planners and developers generally present the future city as an idyllic setting, comprised pristine buildings and infrastructure, with not so much as a piece of chewing gum stuck to the pavement… ”
Futurists, sci fi authors and filmmakers have envisioned and have presented different versions of future realities and future societies. Robots, Synthetic biology, extreme speeds, huge amounts of energy etc. are the compromising protagonists of these future mega-cities.
To the question : Can we transform cities into intelligent, interactive living organisms? Melissa had to say:
¨Theoretically we can create cities comprised smart materials and buildings networked to their environment, to one another and to both local and global infrastructure…..
….However, combination facts including economics and politics will likely prevent many ‘best of breed’ scenarios – some cities will neither afford such technology, nor perhaps want it – cultural specific responses can be expected.
This is a question humanity has been pondering for millennia.¨
Melissa Sterry is a Design Scientist and Futurist to the built environment, utilities, manufacturing, design, publishing, media and communications industries. Published in over 50 international titles, including sustain’ magazine of which she is an editorial board member, Melissa is Director and Head of Technology at 360 media group Earth 2 Hub Ltd, which aims to re-establish a harmonious relationship between humanity and nature using art, science and digital creativity. A PhD researcher at the Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research group at University of Greenwich, she is developing The Bionic City™: a sustainable smart city it transfers knowledge from Earth’s ecosystems to a blueprint for a metropolis with resilience to extreme meteorological and geological events.