Georgetown Steam Plant Science Fair
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THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
. . .
CIRCULAR CITIES
Daily life in a circular city is organized
differently than our current
day-to-day routines require.
For the modern citizen in a circular economy, the world around
us becomes more responsive,
more resourceful for our civic needs.
There is more time for family,
more time for friends,
and more time for adventure.
. . .
Education is at the core of the circular city experience. As students of the universe, we are seekers of truth,
driven towards a greater understanding of life on Earth, and the great beyond.
As scientists, artists, builders, and engineers, we understand the challenges now current in the 21st century. Calculating in evolutionary time, this is our survival moment.
Adaptation is key
. . .
Social Enterprise is the financial HUB
for the circular city experience,
diversifying opportunity for it's citizens
to follow their intuition, to chase
their dreams, adding a more dynamic
dimension to main street, redefining
the meaning of work, as play.
. . .
A Circular City is a high-tech
enterprise designed for economic
and Earth regeneration.
. . .
From home, a circular city is a network of Urban Villages that are creatively accessible and environmentally sound.
Forecasting through the lens of a just transition, access to meaningful work, affordable housing, and social mobility are non-negotiable rights.
Daily life in a Circular City is inclusive and co-creative by design.
. . .
Energy grids of a circular city are
interconnected microgrids:
renewable energy installations that are economically decentralized, community-centered, and are
developed as opportunities for creative
place-making, and civic art.
Energy cooperatives provide a mechanism for wealth building, embedding equity and urban resiliency into the very foundation of our shared energy infrastructure.
At scale, the global goal of a post-carbon energy economy is to ignite and inspire a renewable energy revolution that is both robust and open to adaptive change.
. . .
Urban mobility in a circular city are
integrated systems governed by
decentralized smart grids.
Some modes are conductor-guided, others autonomous, and when combined they provide an inclusive network of public options including streetcars, buses, trains, bikes, scooters, and a variety of other on-demand pickup and delivery services.
In a Circular City many of us
have abandoned privately owned
vehicles as a resource.
. . .
In exchange, mobility-as-a-service allows for a decrease in the demand for the paved infrastructure needed for car culture, allowing urban planners and engineers the space to rethink the underlying grid, providing the opportunity to de-pave our urban environment for the upgrade of
vital infrastructure services such as city-wide hydrologic systems, wastewater treatment, stormwater management, and for the remediation of toxic soils.
. . .
Urban Manufacturing in a Circular City is reliant on regional supply chains and industrial symbiosis.
Located in the heart of the urban village, FAB LABS offer the modern consumer just about anything and everything imaginable.
FAB LABS offer goods-as-a-service without the burden of private ownership, and provide end-of-life services for all things.
FAB LABS are Maker HUB's designed for utility and convenience.
Through the art of digital transformation, on-demand manufacturing offers the creative consumer a more meet-your-maker kind of experience.
For instance—with on-demand apparel manufacturing anyone can design an outfit for themselves and/or access an open-source database where fashion designers from around the world have uploaded their designs.
With Additive Manufacturing, we now have the ability to 3D print parts to fix just about anything that is broken, and/or make the prototype for just about anything imaginable. And, at the end of every-things life, all parts can be recycled, its fiber re-purposed into new feed-stocks to begin this process over again, indefinitely.
Most importantly, when on-demand manufacturing is partnered with maker movements, artisans, craftsmen and tradesmen, our local economies will no longer be dependent on our ports for the transport and warehousing of the goods and services our current economy is dependent on.
Notably, as we begin to alleviate our dependency on our seaports, we will begin to lessen our impact on our ocean ecosystems—allowing for their recovery and regeneration.
. . .
The circular city integrates agriculture into the very fabric of the Urban Village, ushering in the next great agricultural revolution. Inner city food security combines local solutions like the high-tech efficiency of vertical farming, aquaculture, and agrivoltaics while the rewilding of our built environment has opened up more space for regenerative urban farming practices and animal husbandry—each coexisting in a communal setting.
Resiliency in a circular city is driven by the need for more equity, creative diversity, and environmental justice.
. . .
Through investment in natural infrastructure like sponge cities, green cities, thriving cities, circular cities are revitalized and resilient cities, better prepared for the worst-case climate scenarios such as extreme droughts, wildfires, sea-level rise, floods, epidemics and global pandemics.
A circular city is first and foremost the applied logistics of a global circular economy—an industrial system based on three principles: design out waste and pollution, keep material flows circulating indefinitely, while regenerating and rewilding Earth ecosystems.
A circular economy is a return to the natural order of things, where waste becomes resource, and life on Earth can once again prosper.
Circular Seattle—Art & Industry