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CV08 Suburb-Eating Robot Concept
CV08 the suburb-eating robot is an Andrew Maynard Architects concept that answers the question "What do we do with all those wasteful suburbs when gas costs ten dollars a gallon?" (Of course, here in the US, we might equally well ask "What do we do with all those neighborhoods full of foreclosed houses?")
(CV08 suburb-eating robot)
According to the firm:
Where will suburbanites live when there is no other means of circulation to their homes? What will we do with our abandoned and decaying suburbs?CV08 is a robot that consumes the abandoned suburbs through its front 2 legs. It processes the materials and fires off compacted recycling missiles to awaiting recycling plants.
Pretty neat idea, and I like the graphics. While this concept might work in Australia, I think that the USA will need something a bit more, well, massive.
Consider the traction cities from Philip Reeve's 2003 novel Mortal Engines:
It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.In happier times, London would never have bothered with such feeble prey. The great Traction City had once spent its days hunting far bigger towns than this, ranging north as far as the edge of the Ice Wastes and south to the shores of the Mediterranean. But lately prey of any kind had started to grow scarce, and some of the larger cities had begun to look hungrily at London...
(Read more about Reeve's traction cities)
I was particularly pleased to see that Andrew Maynard Architects recognized the essential flaw in American-style spread-out suburbs. Suburbs represent a massive investment in an infrastructure that is completely dependent upon cheap oil.
In a related vein, you'll also want to read about Smart Homes And Municipal Darwinism and Garbage-Eating Factories Now, Voracious Cities Later. Finally, see this real-life building-destroying demolition robot.
Via Robots.net.
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