2100: A Dystopian Utopia / The City After Climate Change

By Vera Kimura/StudioTEKA

Fast forward to the year 2100. New York, along with Phoenix, Beijing, Sao Paulo, Manila, and many more of the world’s most populated cities, is irrevocably changed. Much of the earth’s great middle swath is subject to droughts, wildfires, and desertification while increasingly frequent super storms plague coastal areas, destroying precious agricultural lands by bringing seawater far inland. Where in the world shall we live, and what will our built environments be like? How can we change our way of life to be more in keeping with natural systems and processes? Through 2100: A Dystopian Utopia, Vera Kimura and StudioTEKA visualize possible design solutions to suggest the profound adaptability and possibilities of the design field to meet environmental challenges in the future. The issue is framed by noted sociologist, Sara Salinas, with her preface and advocacy of "delegating back to the environment."

Vera Kimura is a registered architect and the Principal of StudioTEKA, which she founded in 2003. Based in New York city, StudioTEKA is a boutique firm that engages in both built and research based design work.

"It's good to see that the onset of rapid global warming is nudging creative minds into action. Job one is to make sure we prevent as much change as possible, but that which we can no longer prevent will require us to adapt, and here are some provocative plans to stir your imagination!" ---Bernard Molnar, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

"Vera Kimura makes an intelligent extrapolation on how metropolises and cities will have to adapt to the inevitable climate change. She assumes we are not going to be able to stop what we have already triggered. Neither the population nor the political institutions are making the necessary efforts...This is a book that should not be missed for those that will live more than 30 years; it’s a guide to metropolitan survival." ---Pablo B. Ortega, author of The Art of Shaping the Metropolis

"2100: A Dystopian Utopia is a futuristic speculation of a special sort, combining and overlapping examples of the latest climate research and predictions with radical design solutions based upon emerging technologies. The book is indeed utopian in seeing the best in human potential rising to the challenge of a dystopian threat. It sounds a powerful call for architects to take an active role and respond to climate change’s most dire scenarios with provocative design solutions. As we should. As we must." --- Wendy Dressler, Associate AIA, Professor & Chair PennDesign, Principal of Archi-Tectonics

UR03

256 pages, full color, softcover, 8” x 11”
ISBN 978-0-9960041-1-4, printed in the United States, 2017.