The Speculative City

Large cities are centres of innovation and prosperity, where different cultures, ideas and knowledge collide and are shared. They are places where people live in proximity to one another with access to amenities and opportunities, and with greater freedom of choice than is often found in smaller settlements. Yet many cities have a reputation for being polluted, crime ridden, congested, socially isolating, and lacking in open green space. As the world urbanises in greater and greater numbers, the creation of cities that are good for people and the environment is more important than ever. Further, many of the world’s cities are currently unsustainable in their growth and design, and there tends to be negativity and a lack of hope about how to urbanise, including in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). Ideally, contemporary cities should create wealth and prosperity, foster creativity, lift people out of poverty, foster opportunities for happiness and social connectivity, and create environments that are more environmentally sustainable and resilient to disaster. Continuing to rely on prevailing urban design approaches in this country limits possibilities and insights – including opportunities for abstract thinking, speculation, or ideas derived from first principles – that can inspire and help encourage new ways of designing. This design-led research is interested in the optimism and ambition of utopian visions and proposals, and what they can reveal about how we may design, build, and live in cities in the future. The research asks questions about what a new large metropolitan city in NZ could be like, where it could be, and how it could benefit not only its millions of inhabitants, but also inspire critical debate on the future of urbanism. As such, this research aims to identify applicable insights from designing a hypothetical urban utopia in NZ today, focusing on how this design differs from current cities and how its outcomes could enhance future urban development.