Eco-Smart
Urban Living
fall 2021 | design V | lotfi-jam, w/ thuan la
inside the amazon echo
What is the city of today?
And what is the city of tomorrow?
Apple
Amazon
Green Roof
Commercial Center
tech headquarters
With urban buzz words centering on sustainability and technology, we first looked at Silicon Valley, home to large tech corporations such as Google, Amazon, Meta, and Apple (GAMA), to understand the current forces shaping cities and our ways of living.
While GAMA products, such as the Amazon Echo, can let users seamlessly access entertainment, customize smart appliances and monitor home security, they also extract large amounts of private data (often without user consensus). Instead of processing data locally, these devices are shells sending and receiving information from centralized data centers. This reveals that “cloud” computing is in reality very physical, and new technology is not so altruistic.
housing and social hierarchy
Silicon Valley, home to GAMA and many other tech companies, is also marked by income inequality and severe lack of affordable housing. While top tier executives can easily earn millions, many non-tech related service providers do not make a livable wage.
Ithaca Eco-Village
To seek an alternative from the mainstream technology based lifestyles, we researched the Ithaca ecovillage. It is a consensus-based community that focuses on reducing environmental impacts through self-sustaining methods such as local food and electricity production. The ecovillage is divided into 3 groups, each including housing units, community spaces, lake, and garden.
Synthesis
population density
This project looks beyond muddy rhetoric of ecology and technology and redesigns Ithaca with the technological visions of Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple, while also staying true to sustainable practices we found at the Ithaca Eco-Village.
Silicon Valley now
Ithaca now
Ithaca 2100
Ithaca Land Use (projected 2100, based on SV)
GAMA Master Plan
Google: web-based, nodal
Rocket Launches
Meta: virtual, individualized
hyperloop connects all sites
Amazon: logistical, grid-based
Apple Village
Canals run through the 15 minute cities, and are bordered by bike lanes and walkways. Everything is at the human scale, and community ties are strengthened through local town halls and urban hydroponic farming. Data processing is completely local, and underwater data centers greatly reduce the energy and water needed for cooling.
