Superimposed city

SUPERIMPOSED CITY – EXTINCTION OR SURVIVAL – Complex and conflicting parameters rule human life in the 21st century: wealth vs. poverty, public vs. private interests, work vs. leisure, human rights vs. civic duties, respect vs. exploitation, education vs. subjection, obesity vs. starvation etc. No difference remains between evolution and involution since both have opposing conflicting quota in each category. When good and evil are no longer recognizably different, the only possible consequence is extinction. But we are not ready for extinction. Instead, we will launch a magnificent urban project in which extremes become neighbours. – BEIJING – Beijing is the perfect location for this “clash and mash” of opposites. The most extensive metropolis in the world, with a GDP of 10% growth per annum or more since 2008, even during a world crisis. However, a massive increase in industry and traffic has produced permanent atmospheric pollution. The city is periodically battered by sandstorms provoked by the desert erosion to the North and East, and by deforestation. The climate is continental with hot, humid summers, made intolerable by pollution, and harsh winters. The urban sprawl increases, regulated only by city ring roads centred upon Tien’anmen, south of the Forbidden City, and close to another area off limits to the average citizen: the expensive and exclusive central residential areas. Underground another Beijing is growing. A network of converted tunnels, originally aimed to protect citizens when war seemed imminent with Russia, they are now home to many of the city’s poor. – EVOLUTION VERSUS INVOLUTION – What is the future for the children of this sprawling city? It is no easy matter being a child in China today. Look at Chongqing: a scientific laboratory, product of the attitude many Chinese parents have towards their only children. A hefty injection of money and psychological pressure has resulted in a hyper-competitive educational environment. So let’s free the children of Beijing into a beautiful space above the city. Let’s invest not only in the children but in the city they will inhabit. The project consists of a green urban development superimposed over the polluted city, grafted onto it but rising above the smog. This new temporary space will be inhabited by children and act as a laboratory for their creativity. It will consist of public spaces, public infrastructure, public transport and public education. The children of Beijing will no longer compete with each other – but their behaviour and attitude will compete with those of their parents, responsible for the present state of the city. There are two possible outcomes: 1) The children remain in their new green super-city, leaving the existing city to collapse into a Blade Runner inspired future; 2) The parents are inspired to regenerate Beijing in order to attract their children back down and the human species overcomes the danger of extinction.