The Bionic City

Earth 2 Hub's review of Melissa Sterry's lecture to the Masters students at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Barcelona. 'In her lecture, titled ‘Building a Bionic City: The Place Where Science Fiction Becomes Fact’ Melissa illustrated a range of possible future city scenarios.  She highlighted how emergent disruptive technologies could dramatically undermine many of the assumptions being embedded into city planning on a global scale....'

Melissa Sterry will be giving a lecture on Bionic Cities for the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia's MAA Spring Lecture Series on Monday, April 23rd 2012. IAAC is a cutting edge education and research centre dedicated to the development of an architecture capable of meeting the worldwide challenges in the construction of habitability in the early 21st century. Based in the 22@ district of Barcelona, one of the world’s capitals of architecture and urbanism, IAAC is a platform for the exchange of knowledge with faculty and students from over 25 countries, including USA, China. India, Poland, Italy, Mexico and Sudan. Students work simultaneously on multiple scales (city, building, manufacturing) and in different areas of expertise (ecology, energy, digital manufacturing, new technologies), pursuing their own lines of enquiry on the way to developing an integrated set of skills with which to act effectively in their home country or globally. IAAC organizes the Masters course in Advanced Architecture in conjunction with the UPC Polytechnic University. Its Fab Academy is part of the global network of Fab Labs affiliated to MIT’s Center for Bit and Atoms. Since 2004 the IAAC has run the Advanced Architecture Contest (Self-Sufficient City, Self-Sufficient Housing and Self-Fab House). This year IAAC and HP presented the 4th Advanced Architecture Contest: CITY-SENSE: Shaping our environment with real-time data. City Sense promotes discussion and research that help us envisage what the city and the habitat of the 21st century will be like.

Earth 2 Hub™ aims to meet a need that is currently not met, giving new science and technology an immersive media platform which supports and drives new content creation, and new programmes for change, through which to deliver and build a sustainable future. By presenting new scientific facts and futures as they emerge, to a global community, Earth 2 Hub™ aims to harness The Art of the Possible and cause a positive decision for change to occur on an on-going basis. Find our more at http://www.earth2hub.com

Presentation given for Svenska Twitteruniversitetet (Swedish Twitter University) on February 16 2012 by @MelissaSterry, a design scientist, futurist and transformational change strategist developing The Bionic City hypothesis at the Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research group at the School of Design, Architecture and Construction at University of Greenwich, London.

The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) Novus NW and the School of the Built Environment (SOBE) at University of Salford's next CPD event will take place in the futuristic facilities of the THINKlab and explore the theme of 'Future Design Practices to 2050'. Senior SOBE lecturer Dr. Tuba Kocaturk will present 'Digital Zeitgeist' and Visiting Fellow Melissa Sterry will present 'Building a Bionic City: Future Sci Fact or Sci Fiction' with a panel session and drinks to follow.

Last week saw the second of a series of themed #Earth2Chat debates on Twitter – this time the discussion centred on issues relating to adaptable and resilient cities, and how pop-up culture can play an important role in the urban landscape of the future. Taking part in the discussion were Steve Oxley from sustain’ Magazine, Joe Peach from This Big City and futurist Melissa Sterry from Earth 2 Hub Ltd. The evening’s chat was far-reaching, but here we present a summary of its highlights.

Creating Resilient Cities in-Step with the Seasons by Melissa Sterry, Design Scientist at the Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research (AVATAR) group at University of Greenwich and Futurist and Curator at Earth 2.0 – a movement re-establishing a harmonious relationship between humanity and nature using science, art and digital creativity.

What Sacramento needs most is the development of a groundbreaking bionic city. See 'The Bionic City: A Natural Blueprint for Future Cities' in This Big City. Sacramento needs a large, well-funded sustainable innovation think tank and laboratory similar to Societás, or New Frontiers which has become internationally recognized for its work in developing new sustainability.

A weakness of today’s cities is that they were not built to adapt, says Futurologist Melissa Sterry. In this interview, Melissa presents her vision of future cities, and how Africa can thrive as it urbanises.

'Last week we reported on the groundbreaking new media platform Earth 2 Hub which aims to create a space for the world’s most creative artists, designers, scientists, and storytellers to explore and share their solutions to the numerous problems facing earth and its inhabitants. To shed more light on Earth 2.0 and the newly-unveiled hub, we talked to Melissa Sterry, who is one of the most well-known futurists on the planet. A design scientist and transformational change strategist for the built environment, utilities, manufacturing, design, publishing, media and communications industries, Melissa is also a PhD researcher at AVATAR – the Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research group, where she is developing The Bionic City – a sustainable smart city that transfers knowledge from earth’s ecosystems to create a mega-city blueprint that can withstand extreme meteorological and geological events such as flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, eruptions and earthquakes. Step on in for a fascinating glimpse of what our design and architecture future might hold.

Hosted by Tomorrow's Company, 'The Future We Want: a New Paradigm for a Sustainable 2050' conference, is part of the Rio+20 proceedings and will take place April 26th/27th at ICAEW's headquarters in London, supported by Lend Lease and Ogilvy Earth. Themes the event will explore include 'How do we live in the cities of the future?', 'How do we move around the cities of the future', 'What would Nature do'. Speakers include Bill Becker of E3G; Pascal Mittermaier, Head of Sustainability at Lend Lease; Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, Board of Directors at Interface; John Grant, Author of the Green Marketing Manifesto; Melissa Sterry, Design Scientist and Futurist, Earth 2 Hub; Leslie Dighton, Founder and Director of the Chairman's Club.

'Materials that are self-repairing, regulate internal environment, and communicate with their surroundings - dive into the ocean and you will find limitless examples that indicate how the ilk of smart materials could shape the city of the future. Your diving guide is Melissa Sterry'... March/April 2012 issue of sustain' magazine.

Interview with Melissa Sterry about the future of futurism and her work in the field for URBN FUTR's Back to the Futurist series, which will feature radical young futurists and future-thinkers Mitchell Joachim, Natalia Allen, Noah Raford, Dr. Rachel Armstrong and Liam Young.

Last week, the @ThisBigCity and @Earth2Hub teams co-hosted the very first #Earth2Chat on Twitter. As it was Urban Asia week on This Big City, we were discussing sustainability in Asian cities, and despite the frenetic pace of questions and answers, we kept track of our favourite moments. And here they are! Participants include @MelissaSterry @fairsnape @leonardchien @futurecapetown amongst others.

In June, futurologist Melissa Sterry wrote an article for URBNFUTR entitled “Building the Bionic City: The Ultimate Smart City“. The subject of Melissa’s focus is so intruiguing; we had to know more. In this interview with Urban Times, Melissa tells us more about bio-mimicry, smart-tech, and her vision of the cities of the future and a better world. Which leads us to Earth 2 Hub, the groundbreaking project with which we have affiliated. Its going to cover all this and more and we are very, very excited!

Futurologist Melissa Sterry's presentation for the CRG Exchange Seminar 22nd September 2011, London.