topos 107 | Utopia

TOPICS

In this issue the contributions address the renewed relevance of utopian thinking given the urgency of global environmental challenges. Among the questions discussed are the following: What can visionary and experimental architecture, landscape design and city planning concepts of the past and present tell us about attempts to shape the future? Can we learn something from utopian and dystopian scenarios in fiction? How to design new urban or rural areas and new landscapes – especially when it comes to tackling the big challenges of our time, urbanization, climate change, digitalization, and dwindling resources? How is digitalization already changing the way we perceive the built and shaped environment?

WINDOWS OVERLOOKING VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE
Approaching an ecological utopia for livable habitats

UTOPIANISTS WANTED
Why we need a healthy dose of utopianism

EXPEDITION 27
How a utopian vision for the Swiss National Exhibition 2027 died

“... ARCHITECTS MAY NO LONGER BE CALLED REM OR BJARKE, BUT GOOGLE OR ALIBABA”
Interview with Chris Precht on tomorrow’s architecture

AS ABOVE SO BELOW?
Creating underground spaces in Helsinki and Montreal

REALISING A FATA MORGANA
Greening the desert city: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

UTOPIA TO SOME, DYSTOPIA TO OTHERS
Viewpoint: What students can learn from utopias

“WE NEED DRAMATIC GREEN INTERVENTIONS”
William Sullivan calls for nature at every doorstep

UTOPIA FACTS AND FIGURES

CRACKS IN THE CONCRETE
Gibellina, Sicily: How (not) to revive a displaced town

VISIONARY ROADS
Darran Anderson on a future for sale, buyable utopias and the power of utopianism in dark times

“FLOATING CITIES LET US RETHINK HOW WE BUILD, LIVE AND WORK”
Interview with Alana Goldweit from BIG

COSMIC CITIES OF TOMORROW
What futuristic cities of science fiction tell us about their authors and our present

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF GREEN
Viewpoint: What if we started our own utopia

MAY AI BE WITH YOU
How AI can change the mobility of tomorrow

A SUCCESSFULLY FAILED PLAN
Vittorio M. Lampugnani on Ildefonso Cerdà’s utopia for Barcelona

THE DA VINCI FLOW
Why the Renaissance polymath’s ideas on the “ideal city” are still relevant today