Austeria
Architecture, Photography & more
During my masters at the TU Delft I participated in a workshop that was set up to think about possible designs or set ups for austere cities. Together with three other students we as a group were assigned the task of creating a conceptual city that had to be finished within a week. The workshop was connected to The Why Factory and the final supervisor was Winy Maas.
Without excess; simple; limited: an austere life
PHASE 1;
People live in little self-sufficient towns. They function as isolated communities, with little communication between them.
PHASE 2;
The population and the towns are growing. Next to meeting their own basic needs, each town develops it's own specialization, based on the natural resources that can be found in the direct environment.
PHASE 3;
The further growth creates surplus of location based goods, while other needed goods are getting scarce. Trading between the towns is necessary in order to meet the basic needs. A rail is built for transporting the goods between the towns.
PHASE 4;
The new connection between the towns makes it much more efficient to meet the basic needs, giving the people much more leisure.At the same time, there is an increasing demand for variation in jobs and living environments. Therefore, not only goods, but also people are transported by the rail. People can decide to live on the rail, which takes them to a different district every day. Here they can collect their supplies,get of the train to work or spend a longer period in the district. The towns are organized as a big city, with the rail as a part of this city that connectsthe different districts.
EQUAL RATIONS;
In a city without money a communal system with the equal division of goods is needed:The individual works for all and all work for the individual
DISTRICTS;
In a city that is autarkic, all resources are needed. In Snail city, the resources are spread out over 7 districts and goods and people are distributed between them.
WORK;
People work a mean time of 1 hour and 40 minutes a day. This means that production of goods is not very high and people need to live austere. There is a lot of free time. Job variations are obliged, but the hours are flexible.
UNITS;
All Inhabitants own a 5 by 4 m living unit with a flexible layout. They are combinable and be transported through the city with the rail. Here the concept of the snail comes out: your home is your transport. Other units of the same size contain the goods and waste.
THE RAIL;
The rail is a 100km long uninterupted train containing living units, garbage transport and unavoidable movement of goods. With a speed of 0,6 km/h (100km/week), people who live on the train are getting their goods on a weekly basis by passing by the 7 other districts. From this rail, a secundairy rail within the di erent districts is reachable.
TOWERS;
The towers in the districts, besides the rail, are the husks for the living units where people can stay for a time of choice. They are accessible via the secondary rail and are carried up with lifts. Products and waste units are delivered directly to eacht door.
FACILITIES;
Besides the towers the districts contain the district specialized resources and its pro-cessing. Next to that, all facilities needed are at the centre of all this: healthcare, safety, education, leisure and sports. All transport between these is done with public bicycles because distances are relatively short.
TIME & CHOICE;
Within this system there is freedom because everybody can choose his or her workplace and worktimes, their places to live and spend free time. It is simple to take your home everywhere. The only restriction is that they do their jobs.
ENERGY & WASTE;
Energy is not scarce, but kept to a minimum. The Rail does not need a lot of energy, it has low friction and only needed startup energy. All that is needed is supplied by wind, hydropower and solar power. Waste is also being kept at a minimum; all waste is seperated and sent with waste units to the district that can process it. Then it is spread out over the districts again.