Phoenix

A visitor taking a walk through Phoenix’s farming district in 2100 passes through its familiarly quiet suburban streets, their array of mainly one-story houses retrofitted with sustainable technologies— algae farms on many of the roofs, solar devices, wind turbines, funnels, and belts. Just beyond the repurposed houses lie this outpost settlement’s farming pods, while in the distance, dew collectors can be seen in the hills above.

But this city of low-density development and sprawl1 is, in 2100, host to a particularly inhospitable climate and as a result, its population has been dramatically reduced. The city has undergone a process of green deconstruction, carbon-capture and renewable-energy installations have replaced much of the built environment, and only a series of small, self-sufficient outposts remains.

We have focused on one of these settlements as our case study site. Located in the Sunland Heights section, the outpost, having been the base of operations for an extensive urban-deconstruction and recycling project, has since become a center for renewable-energy generation and carbon-capture remediation. The technology and infrastructure for these high tech operations have been transported from Vancouver, Phoenix’s sister city, and assembled on-site. Surplus energy is generated, stored, and shared with Vancouver, a compact megacity. A phasing strategy enabled this to be an organized and orderly transformation, keeping pace with the progressive migration of Phoenix’s 4 million citizens to Vancouver and other compact megacities.

Carbon Capture Facility
As buildings became vacant, work crews immediately began the green-deconstruction process, which allowed for the recovery of at least some of the economic value of the built environment, and ultimately resulted in the resale and recycling of salvaged materials in local and international markets. Maintenance of new infrastructure, renewable energy generation, carbon sequestration, storage, and transport are the major activities remaining in this outpost since deconstruction, though there are still living quarters and recreational and commercial buildings for residents and their families. The extraction outposts in Phoenix are grafts onto the pre-existing urban fabric, with the modification and reuse of some buildings that have been adapted through architectural clip-on strategies.

Our master plan for Phoenix divides it into six sectors, while the case study outpost is divided into themed districts by type: water-collection, wind-energy, solar-energy, farming, and carbon-capture. In each of the five districts is a field dedicated solely to energy production. The water-collection district is responsible for providing potable water.

Even in 2015, Phoenix received a portion of its drinking water from the Colorado river, not having the resources to provide for its own citizens.6 By the year 2100, Arizona’s water resources are even scarcer. Within the district shown in the plan, there is a mountain range that is a source of water from fog and dew. As Rebecca Paul explains, “fog collectors filter tiny water droplets from fog clouds, causing them to coalesce. Each unit can collect 10–20 liters of water per day, and an array of several structures could easily supply a whole town with clean healthy drinking water, crucial in a site that has minimal water resources."

[Fog Collectors]
Large funnel-like structures along the street function as hybrid carbon-capture and water collectors. The structures are designed to provide shade and, by covering as much area as possible, gather the maximum quantity of water from the air, including from rain when it occurs.

The solar and wind districts produce and store sustainably produced renewable energy, and share it with other compact megacities in addition to Vancouver, as needed. The wind district has three components. One, a wind funnel, is attached to the side of a building and channels the wind to generate energy. The second is a hybrid of a streetlight, street-side bench, and wind turbine, which can be used to power street infrastructure. The third component is a wind-turbine field. The extraction outpost we are showing has approximately 139 wind turbines in the wind district, which in total can produce around 1.3 million kilowatt hours a year and power approximately 208 homes. Assuming that the technology will have advanced over the 85 years from 2015, the energy generated by the district will be significantly greater. The solar district contains some 22 acres of solar fields as well as solar cells and sails as clip-ons, and also makes use of the urban roofscape.

The farming district supplies the food, containing facilities for processing, packaging, and shipping produce. Three farming methods are deployed in this district. The first is a series of greenhouses placed against the side of the mountain, which make use of its shade to cool them. Another method enables residents to grow their own food by adding smaller growing spaces to houses. The final approach consists of larger scale vertical farms occupying a few acres of land. All together, these different techniques create approximately 5,560 square kilometers of agricultural area—enough to sustain the population at this outpost.

Lastly, the carbon-capture district contains a park populated by CO2-remediating streetscape devices, as well as retrofits to the pre-existing buildings in the form of carbon-capture clip-ons to their façades. An elevated pathway provides an escape from the heat and an enclosed and climate-controlled means of travel through the settlement. The pathway connects to public transportation, with pedestrians and bicycles above, and routes for electric scooters and cars beneath. It has dynamic glass to allow light filtration with minimal heat gain, as well as integrated solar-glass panels and wind turbines, so that its own harvested energy can be used to power the central cooling system. Interior and exterior lighting runs along its entire length. This elevated bikeway/walkway forms a cross along two major thoroughfares connecting the different districts. We imagine that the primary mode of vehicular travel for personal use is a kind of evolved electric scooter large enough for a few passengers. They can travel distances where walking or bicycling are impractical and even dangerous because of the heat. To get to the closest train and bus stop, one can either walk or bike along the elevated path, or travel below it via electric scooter or car.