In 1516, British author and statesman Sir Thomas More published the book Utopia. The title was a play on the Greek words for the “good place” (eu-topos) and the “no place” (ou-topos). Utopia described an imaginary island where an ideal society developed. In contrast to the British feudal system of More’s time, where the land-owning aristocracy ruled over an impoverished common folk of farmers, craftsmen, and traders, Utopia depicted an egalitarian society where private property did not exist and where resident utopians lived free of violence, sexual discrimination, and religious intolerance.
In the several hundred years since, activists, designers, industrialists, and religious leaders have produced hundreds of utopic visions, many imagined but some fully realized. Regardless of the final form, each is a creative vision of what a different social, political, and physical reality might look like.
From more inward, faith-based configurations to grand urban schemes, utopia remains synonymous with transformation.
Transformation is precisely what the climate research community is calling for when it comes to the climate crisis: a specific kind of solution tasked with doing it all, from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to adapting to and protecting us against worsening weather patterns. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that attempts at these all-in-one design schemes are proliferating. Design experts are heeding the call from scientists, policymakers, and the people demanding reduced reliance on fossil fuels and resiliency against climate catastrophe.
In recent years, there’s been no shortage of glossy proposals for zero-carbon cities, carless cities, linear cities, modular cities, and even floating cities, all of which promise to revolutionize life as we know it. But are these plans truly utopic? This question has guided my research over the last several years while I examined the rise of utopic visioning, specifically as it pertains to the climate crisis. I have termed the products or outcomes of this thinking “climatopias.” Climatopias are aspirational schemes for climate change that propose a mitigation and/or adaptation solution for the built environment and, critically, include a vision for sociopolitical transformation. This is what makes them utopic. Like all utopias, climatopias are neither inherently good nor bad; this falls to the beholder’s eye. Many such proposals invoke concepts of utopia in their marketing materials, with some outright self-describing as such.
To architects and urban planners even 30 years ago, this would have been unseemly; throughout the postmodernist decades of the 20th century, utopia was roundly criticized for being a dangerous modernist fascination that emphasized the purity of design over human lives. It was largely rejected and eventually supplanted by our growing cultural interest in dystopias throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s (think Bladerunner). But as anyone thrifting for midcentury modern furniture knows, what goes around comes around. Utopia has once again returned to favor, running headfirst into a desperate public seeking to save ourselves from ruin.
The problem, however, is that many of these modern climatopia proposals fail to engage with the very qualities that make a utopia utopic: deep and sustained consideration of the social, economic, and political dimensions of human life. Our current technological landscape has further compounded the problem given photorealistic rendering capabilities that allow sensational imagery of alluring, climate-resilient futures to proliferate (a term that critic Kate Wagner has aptly coined ‘PR-chitecture’). A climatopia thus becomes synonymous with a sleek car-free city in the desert rather than a proposal that actually addresses the underlying drivers of vulnerability and climate risk.
Asking this of architecture and urban planning alone might seem absurd or unfair. But there’s a rich history of architectural and planning proposals that prove such designs can exist and indeed once did. Examples include the work of 18th-century French philosopher Charles Fourier, who proposed a communal form of living and working in the countryside called “phalansteries;” urban planner Ebenezer Howard’s 19th-century garden city layouts; and architect Paolo Soleri’s “arcologies” from the 1970s. All of these reexamined the role of property ownership, labor, social interactions, and access to nature in the quest for healthier, more equitable futures. Though some failed or fell short of their initial ambitions, they considered—and imagined—a more political architecture.
Despite bold assurances of utopian transformation, futuristic imagery distracts us from the deep-seated change required of society. Several recent design projects illuminate this issue. Oceanix City is a modular floating city concept unveiled in 2019 for coastal communities suffering from the impacts of flooding and sea level rise. While the concept of a floating city is indeed radical, and though its striking visuals certainly look utopic, the fundamentals of the design do not indicate that it would support attainable transformation for relevant populations, many of which are involuntarily pushed out of their homes. Similarly, Saudi Arabia’s The Line, a proposed linear city in the desert powered by renewable energy, claims to be a “revolution in urban living.” As far as city typologies go, it is unprecedented, but the emissions savings from being operationally zero-carbon are no doubt undone by the construction of such a city in the first place. Furthermore, the project shows scant interest in economic and political transformation for inhabitants, current or prospective. (Last time I checked, these are requisite features of a revolution.)
One recent proposal that has set out to consider a more comprehensive set of societal dimensions is Telosa. Conceived by tech billionaire Marc Lore and announced in 2021, Telosa is a proposal for a net-zero, carless city in the American Southwest that will operate according to a more equitable economic and political model called “Equitism.” As the value of the land grows, the profits generated will go back into the city rather than into developers’ pockets. Matters of governance and decision-making are to be participatory and transparent. While ambitious, the project is still without a confirmed location three years later.
As we seek answers to the challenges of building toward transformation, there may be other places to look. They likely won’t have sophisticated digital footprints like Oceanix City or The Line, nor will they necessarily be new buildings. But like utopias of yore, they may hold the potential for deeper change to the systems that perpetuate both climate and socioeconomic injustices. A more political architecture for climate change, or a true climatopia, must do more than design. It must engage with systems and processes, for this is where design gets its strength as a socially, economically, and politically transformative act. It will not shy away from the messy collaboration needed to create and sustain community. Affordable and participatory approaches such as cohousing, cooperative housing, community land trusts, and other alternative economic ownership models are powerful examples, many of which also consider their materiality and embodied carbon footprint. Tomorrow’s climatopias will emphasize retrofits, adaptive reuse, and infill approaches.
Fortunately, even in the thick of late-stage capitalism we do not have to look far for proof that such radical models can exist. Projects like the Grand Parc social housing retrofit in Bordeaux, France, by Pritzker Prize winner Lacaton & Vassal are powerful examples of how to save a building from the landfill while preserving the dignity and economic security of residents in the process. Where new construction is required, we can look to examples like the network of mass timber housing cooperatives springing up across southern Spain by the group Lacol, which demonstrate how low-carbon, participatory design projects can guarantee affordability and connection. These are not just possible but also highly desirable. Frolic, a novel cooperative housing initiative based out of Seattle, offers a similar model of co-ownership and co-living that allows homeowners to shape the future of their own neighborhood. The Florida Keys Community Land Trust, established in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma on Big Pine Key, recently completed 31 units of affordable workforce housing by way of colorful, elevated, hurricane-resistant homes.
If these still feel tame, one can always turn to fictional and speculative climatopias for a stronger dose of inspiration. Here, there is no shortage of radical visions provoking us to think critically about our past, present, and future. Leeside is a fictional story about an American “receiver city” for climate refugees. Planet City is a speculative future that explores the idea of a global, intergenerational retreat to a single mega city. And why not? After all, utopia is at once the good place and the no place. May we tap into both as we seek climate transformation.
Dr. Alizé Carrère is an adaptation scientist and filmmaker whose work focuses on the human dimensions of climate change.
