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Yuk Hui, referring both to climate change and its accompanying social upheavals, writes that ‘to confront the crisis that is before us’, humans will have to rethink the idea of technological universality and how it constructs our relationship to each other and to the natural world. For architects, this means considering how much architecture today is constrained by a singular technological paradigm, and how architects can think the many technologies of architecture differently.This essay considers architectural cosmotechnology through discourses in global speculative fiction (SF), fictions proceeding from different ways of understanding and being in the world, to explore the future implications of these fictions for architecture and other technological practices in contrast to the hegemony of global modernism – what I have called cosmotechnologies of community and collaboration. The short fiction of SF author Vandana Singh supplies an image of architecture that proceeds from different images of and concerns about the future, and is an exemplary practice in cosmotechnology. She reframes existing technologies and invents new technologies in a mode of practice that centres the experience of diverse cultures in technologies of community and collaboration where architecture becomes central to new ways of being in the world.

Space tourism is rapidly advancing in both feasibility and popularity, yet architects still lack established frameworks for designing in outer space. Science fiction films increasingly depict expansive space megastructures with biophilic elements that are not only visually captivating but also serve as conceptual experiments for potential future habitats beyond Earth. This research employs a two-phase mixed-methods approach: first, a visual analysis of scenes from the film  Passengers , using Kellert’s biophilic design framework to identify and quantify design elements and attributes; second, a comparative analysis of three recent biophilic design frameworks. The paper introduces the Biophilic Architecture Integration Model (BAIM), a tailored framework for designing in extreme environments, such as outer space, offering guidance for future architectural projects in artificial and challenging settings. By exploring how cinematic portrayals of space settlements shape our perceptions of life beyond Earth, the study highlights the significance of these representations in influencing our understanding of nature in futuristic contexts. Ultimately, the paper calls for expanding biophilic design beyond Earth-based architecture, advocating for its incorporation into speculative designs in cinema and artificial environments.

In the post-Hiroshima era, atomic cities—designed to survive a nuclear attack—remain in the science fiction realm. Yet Hungarian émigré Paul Laszlo, a successful architect in Southern California suburbia, had a utopian vision for a futuristic, paradoxically luxurious atomic city he called \"Atomville,\" never built but nonetheless seriously proposed. Laszlo was one of the very few architects known to venture into atomic survival on this scale. This article focuses on why the architectural profession for the most part ignored the issues raised by the atomic bomb, and on Laszlo's role as an outlier. It also deals with the genesis of Atomville and its place among the many unrealized ideas put forward in the 1940s and 1950s for urban survival, including underground buildings, urban dispersal, linear cities, and cluster cities.

Most of an architect's life is concerned with that which has not yet taken place, both foreseeing the near future and expressing an intention of how this future world should be remade. However small the intervention, all design proposals are utopian works. With this in mind, this article is a celebration of the utopian potential of reading science fiction (SF); to make the familiar strange, to reveal fears about the future, to confront us with ourselves, and to shape the world we inhabit. It is an unabashed call from an architect and avid SF reader, for architects to raid the bookshelves for the most lurid cover and glaring font and lose themselves in the exuberant worlds of science fiction.

Is Architecture still alive? Yes, Architecture is alive, and it exists in context! To rediscover the beating heart of architecture it is imperative to understand the contextual milieu within which it exists. Architecture and context have always had an intimate relationship with intricate plots, where cultural, political, economic and technical demands inseparably merge. Context is an unfinished choral text from which architecture takes meaning and energy. In turn, Architecture contributes its own \"episodes\" to the contextual narrative. Context is like a cloud, whose precise form develops from a previous form at a given moment and is doomed to fade and transform within the imminent future, thus leading to a continuous evolution. Understanding the dialectical relationship between the structure of the context and the formal structure of architecture is a pressing, necessary question to revive architecture and make it fertile again. Architecture, its transdisciplinary role saved by the shelter of context, in turn graciously sets context as the focus of its own interests. Architectural design uses the built environment as a quarry of data to inform future projects, both from a conceptual and a physical point of view. Understandably, the most physical component of context is the environment, both built and natural. Today, more than ever, the built environment asks for sensitized design and the multifaceted character of architecture. Architects, as professionals, should be able to consciously read, interpret and fix. Architects are needed for their learned capacity to envision, thus pairing-entwining-theory and practice. In other words, they are needed to promote concepts and ideas that can help the built environment evolve toward an accessible and enjoyable place where life can happen. The built environment is and will be the target of architecture, whether we speak of the natural expression of the rural environment brutalized by intensive exploitation, or the urban environment traumatized by a century of economic speculation. Architects can continuously reshape their ability to read the built environment as an opportunity to contribute a verse to its narrative plot. Under these conditions, reading, understanding and interpreting the built environment become critical design tools. There are multifarious tools used to read the built environment. They range from the analogical and traditional to the most advanced and digitally precise. All of these instruments are necessary for a correct understanding of the project. Yet, they are not enough. The fundamental tool for reading the built environment is physical-haptic-experience. Teaching one to read the contextual narrative means promoting the importance of the contextual experience, to become a user of architecture and to be able to impart a language of architecture and as such, fiction is perhaps the most acute means to infiltrate mass media culture and the dominance of the ephemeral image. Architectural design is, in and of itself, a form of fiction. Teaching students to appreciate the built environment and to speak of architecture through its lexicon of words and drawings is the first important step toward a new awareness. This paper will explore unique methods and strategies in the form of unconventional design studio assignments and exercises that focus on the vital importance of context, and in so doing teach the public what architects can do for them.

Dan Brown's Origin illustrates the transformative influence of artificial intelligence, technology, and design on the creative process through a captivating intersection. This paper examines Winston, the advanced artificial intelligence featured in the book, as a symbolic architect that influences artistic and architectural creativity. This study examines the ways in which Origin challenges traditional human-centred notions of authorship and creativity, thereby redefining AI as a co-creator rather than an instrument, within the context of post-humanism theory. Technological determinism provides a framework for analysing the transformation of architectural and artistic sensibilities by AI-driven design, emphasizing the inescapable impact of technology on creative expression. The philosophical implications of artificial intelligence-driven design are examined in this study through an examination of significant architectural references, particularly the works of Antoni Gaudí, and the futuristic technical vision of the book. This fiction highlights Brown's vision of a future in which artificial intelligence is a significant force that re-envisions art, architecture, and creativity by situating Origin within the broader discourse on technological determinism and posthumanism. The book prompts readers to rethink whether AI-generated design and art are legitimate forms of creative expression. In conclusion, this probation posits that Origin not only epitomises contemporary discourse regarding the application of artificial intelligence in artistic creation, but also foresees a future in which design and technology will be inextricably linked, thereby eliminating the distinctions between human and machine-generated creativity.

This article looks back at a creative research project conducted in Geneva, Switzerland, which, by experimenting between art and science, sought to understand how citizen narratives can participate in the making of an urban plan. The approach presented here brought together geographers, architects, and novelists. Citizen narratives produced at writing workshops imagined the city of the future in ways that significantly contrasted with visions gathered from events organised by public authorities. These narratives were taken up by the novelists, who helped produce a piece of fiction containing the power to reveal the qualities of the present. This piece has since become a novel. By discovering what their future city could be, participants in this project were led to identify the places that should be preserved. Their narratives thus helped identify an ordinary heritage that could be included in an urban planning document. This reflective look at a project that gradually took shape could be useful to anyone wishing to conduct creative research in urban planning, particularly from the perspective of a more inclusive city.

The woman known as “Tree of Pearls” ruled Egypt in the summer of 1250. A rare case of a woman sultan, her reign marked the shift from the Ayyubid to the Mamluk dynasty, and her architectural patronage of two building complexes had a lasting impact on Cairo and on Islamic architecture. Rising to power from slave origins, Tree of Pearls—her name in Arabic is Shajar al-Durr—used her wealth and power to add a tomb to the urban madrasa (college) that had been built by her husband, Sultan Salih, and with this innovation, madrasas and many other charitably endowed architectural complexes became commemorative monuments, a practice that remains widespread today. This was the first occasion in Cairo in which a secular patron’s relationship to his architectural foundation was reified through the actual presence of his body. The tomb thus profoundly transformed the relationship between architecture and its patron, emphasizing and emblematizing his historical presence. Indeed, the characteristic domed skyline of Cairo that we see today is shaped by such domes that have kept the memory of their named patrons visible to the public eye. This dramatic transformation, in which architecture came to embody human identity, was made possible by the sultan-queen Shajar al-Durr, a woman who began her career as a mere slave-concubine. Her path-breaking patronage contradicts the prevailing assumption among historians of Islam that there was no distinctive female voice in art and architecture.

The present paper proposes a reading through the techno-city visions as an attempt to jump into the timeline. The paper examines the experimental architectural works dreaming of the cities of the future in the context of being visionary. The paper interprets the techno-city design example sets within two headings: “Future city dreams” and “Future city dystopias”. The positive atmosphere of technological developments, covering the years the 1960s-1980s, creates future city dreams. Future city dystopias are visible in science fiction and architectural representations, especially after the 1990s, supported by computer technologies and increasing uncertainty. The techno-city visions discussed in the series, it is aimed to make visible the potential and expansions of the act of imagining and designing the future. Finally, it is aimed to put forward a discussion on the question of what the present \"visions of city of the future\" are. This text aims to understand the channels through which visionary techno-city projects are fed, their meanings, and the expansions they create.

This article explores how monuments must not be seen as independent or self-referential depositories of historical knowledge; instead, they must be considered highly significant historical, cultural and socio-political artefacts \"with important political implications\" (Bozdogan, 2001, p. 12). Elif Shafak's The Architect's Apprentice (2015) establishes Ottoman monuments as the 'sites of memory' that have the potential to narrate alternative or buried histories. The present paper investigates how Shafak's oeuvre helps revive the forgotten aspects of Ottoman Turkish heritage. It further delineates that these Ottoman monuments, as represented in the text, are nothing but the manifestations of the suppressed Ottoman heritage of the Republic of Turkey. The researcher attempts to undertake a close textual reading of the text by drawing insights from the conceptual framework of Pierre Nora's idea of 'sites of memory' and the discourse concerning cultural memory and forgetting. The findings of this research reveal that Shafak's oeuvre can be considered as a medium to understand how the imposition of 'perpetual forgetfullness' in the Modern Turkish Republic has defamiliarised the populace of the Republic from these Ottoman monuments, which are the material embodiments of the Ottoman memory and history. In this light, it becomes crucial to discuss these monuments as 'sites of memory,' for they have the potential to abridge the rupture between the forgotten Ottoman past and the Turkish present.