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Fiction By Bruce Sterling
Renderings By Greg Lynn FORM
January 2003
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The Ark of the World's glass and steel roof (above) is visible
from the ground floor through a second-floor cut out. The entry
canopy (in red paint on the scale model, below) is made of
concrete with digitally customized patterning.
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Building Facts
Ark of the World Museum
Project begun in 2002
Costa Rica, Site not yet decided
Greg Lynn FORM
Clients: Abel Pacheco de la Espriella, Rodolfo Coto Pacheco, Carlos M. Lachner
Still in the planning stage, the project will be a multidisciplinary
museum and cultural center addressing natural history, ecology, and
contemporary art. The design is inspired both formally and symbolically
by the country's primary rainforest. |
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Milton's daughter sobbed aloud as she clutched
the chaise longue. "But why can't I take the chair? I grew it myself from a bean!"
"Gretel, there's no room for that thing on your flight. Besides,
a chaise longue isn't a 'chair.'"
Gretel flung herself in anguish on the biomorphic furnishing. In her
frenzied teenage grip, the chaise gave a deep pneumatic moan and sentimentally
changed color. "But I love my big bubbly sofa! And Mom's got
the stupidest dead furniture in Jersey! My bed at home's made of wood,
Dad! I'm your only daughter! How can you make me sleep on wood?"
Milton checked his wrist monitor. He knew that watching his child's internal
metabolism was a pretty cheap substitute for genuine fathering skills. However,
Gretel was 14. Her hormonal storms were pegging the behavior meter. "Gret,
you're hyperventilating. Let's walk around the Facility one last time before
you go. A nice memento for you, that's just no problemo, okay?"
Profoundly unmollified, Gretel lunged into her walking boots. A month
in this Texan desert outpost had been quite the growthful experience for
a girl from the megalopolis. She'd swiftly adopted Milton's mannerisms--his
absentminded hacker's stare, his habit of patting the red bark on the giant
biomorphic cisterns. Milton would miss the kid dreadfully. The Facility
was a majestic but lonely place, with its veiny dragonfly roofing
and storage tanks shaped like swollen sequoias. It had taproots that went
down to solid granite. It stored enough clean-power hydrogen to detonate
Dubuque. The Facility fed and clothed Milton. It also lit itself, warmed
itself, harnessed solar and wind power, and recycled every nutrient. The
building had a baroque attention to design detail that rivaled Cinderella's
midnight pumpkin. Still, it was basically a Texan energy refinery.
Not quite the place for a gala soiree.
Every deer and javelina season the Facility booked in some drunken hunters.
Then the kitchen appliances would perk up and the food would taste more
like real food. Most days, though, stuck on his patrol inside this high-biotech
marvel, Milton was a lighthouse keeper. Just him, the Marooned Genius on
the Forbidden Planet, and the maintenance software.
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For more images, please see the January 2003 issue of Metropolis. If you
don't have an issue but would like to buy one, please contact us at
talk2us@metropolismag.com. |
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Gretel never seemed lonely. She liked her teenage friends much better when
they were stuck behind computer gaming screens. Gretel had a definite
Mad Scientists' Beautiful Daughter riff. Stuck in some fashion spasm that
was either total vanity or total despair (most likely both), she had been
wearing the same dress every day. Each morning a fresh one emerged from
a wall in a sheet from a slot, as dainty as Kleenex. Dirty clothes vanished
down the composting toilets. The fashion choices available on the Facility's
system were franchised direct from Milan and bounced in by Chinese satellite.
But the sheer labor of those endless choices had bored or paralyzed Gretel.
She was finally figuring out that mass-customized home manufacturing
was way too much like work.
Occupation sensors popped to watchful life as the two of them left the manager's
quarters. Milton spent most of his working days inside the Facility's office:
the place was all skeins, screens, and thick paper panes, a little mossy
and gooey here and there, but with a nice origami feel to it--very crisp,
shoji, Shinto. They walked under the cabbagelike pergola, the dry, blistered
floor popping like Bubblepak under their boot heels. Gummy zippers
opened here and there in thick barky walls. Thoughtful gasps of flavored
mist kept them cool in the insufferable Texan air.
"I'll miss this big wonderful place, Dad!"
"I'm glad you had a chance to witness some modern industry, honey.
Someday the weird construction techniques they demo out here in the desert
will become contemporary urban policy. Yes, even in pokey old New York.
By the time you grow up to be my age, I'm sure you'll hate everything else."
"I'm ahead of the curve, Dad. I already hate everything else."
Life within the Facility had definite benefits, especially considering
the alternatives posed to Milton by the special prosecutor. Against his
better judgment--well, mostly--Milton had been sucked into a massive city
hall scandal involving phony revenue from automated traffic tickets.
He'd made an unusual plea bargain, but any engineer who could manage the
daily traffic flow across the Brooklyn Bridge had no problem administering
a giant Texas fuel turnip. Once he'd done his time growing and pruning this
place, Milton had plans to input some fresh biological juice into the Big
Apple.
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