This document discusses ideas around innovation and the future. It presents snippets from science fiction stories describing floating cities destroyed by debris and urban forests ignited by drought. It also shows images from space of the Earth and natural disasters. The document questions how we understand the future and suggests taking a systems-level, interconnected view rather than divisions. It presents case studies and diagrams exploring ideas like building in harmony with nature, pop-up towns, and experimental/adaptive/evolving settlements. The overall message is that innovation must work with complexity rather than against it to achieve sustainability.

1. INNOVATION
TSNIAGA ALL
ODDS >>>>>
@melissasterry
09.12.20
Greater Dandenong City

2. “You can see just a little peep of
the passage in Looking-glass
House, if you leave the door of our
drawing-room wide open: and it’s
very like our passage as far as you
can see, only know it may be quite
different on beyond”.
Lewis Carroll, 1871

3. Visions of
Beyond

4. Floating Cities?

5. © Image by Joshua Puppe illustrating ‘7pm GMT, March 23rd 2079’ a short story by Melissa Sterry 2019 www.futureinflash.com

6. “Ningaloo Floating City, Western Australia.
The sound of tsunami-warning sirens aside, the
gated-community atop the remnants of a reef had
fallen silent. Before dawn, its ocean-top glass
domes would be shattered by projectiles in the
form of anthropogenic debris of assorted
description that was travelling at speeds of up to
500 miles an hour across the Indian Ocean.”
7pm GMT, March 23rd 2079
© Extract: Melissa Sterry All Rights Reserved 2019 FutureinFlash.com

7. Urban Forests?

8. Image with kind permission of © Joshua Puppe 2018

9. “The City of London, England
Trees turned into torches, as embers cast adrift by
an East wind ignited the tinder-dry urban forest
with the ferocity of the fire of four-hundred years
earlier. The city’s fire hydrants fallen victim to the
several-year long drought, citizens fled frantically
by whatsoever means were at their disposal.”
3pm GMT, September 2nd 2066
© Extract: Melissa Sterry All Rights Reserved 2019 FutureinFlash.com

10. Flying everything?

11. …or not?

12. The
Odds

17. And
More

18. Shifting parameters
S
h
i
f
t
i
n
g
p
a
r
a
m
e
t
e
r
s
Shifting parameters
S
h
i
f
t
i
n
g
p
a
r
a
m
e
t
e
r
s
Shifting parameters

19. WARNING! by the
year x population
may not be y.
!

20. …the future is not
the sum of linearly-
arranged, exponentially
growing parts, statistics,
and binary decisions.

21. Speculations
are not data…

23. Utopias of escape… leave “the
external world the way it is”.

24. Utopias of reconstruction… “seeks
to change it so that one may have
intercourse with it on one’s own
terms”.

25. Modernism… the design blueprint
of 20th century urbanism…

26. Modernism… conceived of a worldview
that perceived it possible to bring order
to chaos socially and…
a utopia of that seeks to build beyond
the boundaries of Earth systems, thus…
unintentional escapism

27. How do we know
what we know?

28. Division of Labour
"Dīvide et imperā”

29. forms
archetypes
categories

30. ‘Industrial’
Intelligence

31. Time to pick another lens…

32. In the face of
complexity

33. Blue Marble, Apollo 17 mission, NASA, 1972
Eyes in the sky

34. Image: Earth Rise, Apollo 8 mission, NASA, 1968

36. Image: Hurricane Florence from aboard the International Space Station by Randy Arnold, NASA, September 2018

37. Image: Colour-amplified image of Hurricane Florence from NOAA’s satellite fleet , September 14th 2018.

38. Image: Hurricane Florence in 3D via MISR intrumentation system aboard one of NASA’s Terra satellite fleet by NASA, GSFC, LaRC-Caltech, and MISR Team, September 2018

40. “Smile for the camera”

42. 24/7/365
real to near-to-real time
360°

43. Image: Greenland wildfire burn scar view from Copernicus Sentinel, May 2017, processed by Pierrre Markuse.

44. Image: Kilauea Eruption event from Copernicus Sentinel satelitte fleet, July 2018, processed by Pierrre Markuse

45. Image: Iterations of langtons ant, dot cloud by Dakoder, 2016, CC Share Alike 4.0 International license
dot to
planetary
systems dot

46. Image: Ottawa captured by Planet Labs dove satellite fleet in May 2019.
Spot the difference…

47. Case
Studies
Joining
many
dots

48. Back to the
drawing
board

49. Image: Aptera, 2020 www.aptera.us

50. Image: The Tyre Collective, 2020 https://www.thetyrecollective.com/

51. Image:
Prof.
Hugh
Herr
presenting
his
bionic
legs
at
TED
2014,
under
CC
2.0
licence

52. Image: Gravicity, 2020, https://www.gravitricity.com/

53. Case
Studies
Some
I did
earlier

54. Q. can we align
our systems to
they of Earth?

55. as
Diagram © Melissa Sterry All Rights Reserved 2018

56. Rethinking [not
so] oppositional
relationships…

57. Recycling not
objects, but
cities…
Diagram: Panarchy as Creative Destruction, © Melissa Sterry All Rights Reserved 2018

58. Creation Destruction
Reorganisation Conservation
Release
Exploitation
Diagram: Panarchy as Creative Destruction, © Melissa Sterry All Rights Reserved 2018

59. Circle of Variability…
Diagram: Circle of Variability, © Melissa Sterry All Rights Reserved 2018

60. Diagram: Circle of Variability, © Melissa Sterry All Rights Reserved 2018

61. Building with, not against
nature’s cycles
Diagram © Melissa Sterry All Rights Reserved 2018

62. Permanency
Settlement
Temporality
Migration
Diagram © Melissa Sterry All Rights Reserved 2018

63. The original ‘pop-up’, low-carbon
biodegradable, locally-sourced
sustainable towns…
“Eat our dust
Archigram!”
“and off-grid!”
Diagram © Melissa Sterry All Rights Reserved 2018

64. Experimental
Responsive
Adaptive
Evolving
Cyclic
Symbiotic
Emerging
Connected
Site-specific
Self-organising
Diagram © Melissa Sterry All Rights Reserved 2018

65. “It’s [increasingly] complex…”
Old vs. New Paradigm Fields of Transdisciplinary Enquiry © Melissa Sterry 2018

66. Innovation against ultimate odds…
www.panarchiccodex.com

67. Find link under ‘magazine’ at bionic.city

68. Thank you.
melissasterry.com @melissasterry

69. Q
&
A