" an international contest for the best design plan of a Mars city state of 1,000,000 people "

Off-world settlement - with its contentious and contested use of the world colonisation - as a Utopian model that dreams of a tabula rasa and eschews history and precedent to its detriment. Can a greater understanding and reference to the history of urban design and architecture's attempts at world-building expand the discussion beyond the technology and function alone?


[[https://nexusaurora.com/|Nexus Aurora]]: An open source project with large multi-national team - 50+ members, 5Gb of renders and models, 60,000 group messages

<wrap hi>//coordination of team an impressive feat in itself - decision making and debate as a microcosm of same challenges on Mars, likely influenced proposal in healthy ways - a more open version of the New Spacer era?//</wrap>

Imagines an industrial base providing a foundry for materials to future interplanetary settlers - arguing tourism alone as an economy is unrealistic. 

<wrap hi>//Extreme ISRU... questions about realities of interplanetary expansion? Strip mining as necessary evil? Compare with current debate about planetary protection//</wrap>

Aspires to a communitarian society acknowledging the joint role of indepedent cities and the state, with the recognition that settlers can enjoy rights to welfare through a Martian version of [[UBI]] that could include shelter, food and air.

<wrap hi>//Welcome inclusion of discussion about state and individual - allows more serious examination of economic policy and controls, resilience to oligarchy - critical leverage to create debate about welfare rights - pushes back against [[https://www.marssociety.org/news/2020/11/15/wokeists-assault-space-exploration/|the neo-liberal accelerationist positions]] associated with some figure heads of the field...//</wrap>

Living proposals that 'reject the concept of cities built of tunnels and underground habitation' and hold on to the value of sunlight and walking in community spaces.


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Bristol Martian House project:

Taking your environment with you: https://www.bldgblog.com/2007/02/mars-bungalow-and-the-prison-of-simulation/