Is This the Climate Change-Ravaged Future of Urban Living?
Design studio Superflux has created an installation of how future homes might look like considering the realities of climate change. Mitigation of Shock is an attempt to make the size and complexity of such change relatable and specific.
The installation first appeared as a part of an art show in Barcelona, where it transported its visitors into a London flat around 2050. Following extensive research and interviews with experts from NASA and Forum for the Future, the team of designers managed to build an entire future flat situated in the context of climate change and its consequences.
The newest project in the ArtScience Museum in Singapore takes its audiences to a typical Singapore home in 2219, equipped with tools that might be needed to source food and water and to move around the city. Superflux imagines that climate change will completely transform human existence over the next century. Hence, the fictional Singapore home faces the issues of “extreme weather conditions, economic uncertainty and broken global supply chains.” Various kinds of plants, fungi and insects can be found around the apartment, creating a self-sufficient ecosystem, optimised by computers. While on the bookshelf there are titles such as How to Cook in a Time of Scarcity.
The installation makes the visitors face the possible future. Yet, the creators don’t see it as dystopian as they believe they’re able to show that humans are able to adapt to even radically new conditions. It’s a “pragmatic vision of hope,” aiming to show that other worlds are possible and doable. Also, instead of leaving visitors utterly mortified, some methods and tools for not only surviving but also thriving in this new world are shared.
