CLOUD09

The History Channel: The City of the Future Competition 2006

On October 2, 1609 the Dutch ship “Halve Maen”, captained by Henry Hudson, sailed down the present Hudson River and made the first recorded sighting of the virgin Isle of “Mannahatta”,the Lenni Lenape name for what would eventually become Manhattan.

Five hundred years later, in 2109, a cloud hangs over Manhattan. It is a cloud of light, a manmade cloud of crystal; CLOUD09.

CLOUD09 is where the international citizen of the future goes during his business day. Work of the future will be more of an intellectual enterprise, with information the key to productivity. CLOUD09 is an open source network, an information gathering and sharing interface. It is a luminous cloud of intelligence with open views to the horizon. CLOUD09 covers Manhattan in its entirety. It is lightweight, yet strong; a crystalline structure from the aero-gel family. It is a floating city of crystal, the new city of the future.

In many respects CLOUD09 represents the office building of the future. As seen in the film “Minority Report”, holographic images and information are seamlessly presented to users, allowing for multiple and simultaneous information, interaction and communication. Meetings are assembled as easily as present day web searches, calling up participants from vastly disperse geographical locales into one virtual forum. Business travel, as we know it today, will cease to exist. Travel will be reserved for strictly recreational purposes.

Below CLOUD09, the terra firma of the Old City of Manhattan gradually entropies, 1970’s style, into a hybrid landscape, part urban refuge, part nature preserve. Indeed, the entire Island of Manhattan becomes the new “Central Park” for the larger Metropolis of New York City. By 2109, the New Jersey counties of Hudson and the eastern sector of Bergen will have been annexed as part of New York City due to the increasing population of New York City, creating a central position for this new garden “Island of Mannahatta”. If not exactly a “reverse Eden”, this future Mannahatta is somewhat akin to a verdant “back-to-the-future” landscape. Not unlike a grotto, the Island of Mannahatta represents the transformation of the manmade through its gradual consumption by nature.

High speed "lifts" or “vrams” (vertical trams) operate like a vertical subway system, moving people and goods back and forth between the ground and the sky, as well as providing the structural, utility and communication support for CLOUD09. While traveling upon the vrams, occupants take in the wide, inclusive panorama of New York City circa 2109; it is in many ways a superior commute compared to the subterranean subway ride endured by most New Yorkers today. Climate, access and transit remain at manageable levels to insure the optimum operation and efficiency of CLOUD09.

This proposal for CLOUD09, while positing an idea about work and recreation on a scale vastly larger than is currently present today, is actually derived from existing trends evident in the Manhattan of today. The rise of the information-based economy, the growth of immigrant populations, the development of the outer boroughs, and the increasing sophistication of recreational activities all reinforce this prediction of the New York City of the Future. The seeds of this future exist today and are evident everywhere around us. Indeed, in many ways, today we are all living in the City of the Future.