No, we didn't stay up all night watching Back to the Future: Part II on a tequila-fuelled rampage and wake up with a vision of a near future.
Ian Pearson did.
A full time futurologist, Pearson has described what he believes the UK capital could look like in 30 years time for UK construction company Hewden, and it's probably going to do nothing for those rising rent prices.
If you thought BTTF made some wild predictions, you ain't seen nothing yet. Here's what Pearson includes in his future London:
- 18-mile high skyscrapers, possible thanks to new advanced carbon building materials (the Shard is 0.2 miles high, by comparison)
- Spaceports, sitting at the top of these 18-mile high buildings
- Box-shaped driverless cars (seen above), because this will maximise the use of space, rather than our currently wasteful curvy cars
- Automated cycle-lanes that "will pull bikes along using linear induction motors and simple metal plates fitted to the bike"
- Buildings connected by a "nervous system" of sensors, controlling heating and security
- 3D-printed, prefabricated houses, built by robots
- House robots. Everywhere
- Building sites will still have some people working on them - but they'll be wearing super-strength exoskeleton suits for heavy lifting
- Artificial Reality displays covering every building
Some of which doesn't seem very practical.
An 18-mile high building would need some pretty fancy internal transport solutions, in addition to massively complicated waste disposal, food delivery - with Pearson describing them as "small cities in their own right".
It's not altogether different from what Metropolis, Futurama and Fifth Element have splashed all over our screens.
Here's hoping someone comes up with a proper, fly-anywhere hoverboard.
[Via: Evening Standard]
