Welcome to Superearth! Uma alegoria da tecnoutopia urbana

Abstract

This dissertation aims at exploring ways in which contemporary technology can be used in consonance with architecture, promoting social processes that encourage equality, justice and democracy. Towards that end, a mainstream concept of technological utopia - the O'Neill Cylinder - was chosen as a starting point, progressively deconstructing its inherent contradictions and practical limitations and substituting them with more plausible and concrete alternatives. The investigation is divided into three chapters: Super, Inter and Post. The first chapter outlines a cronological analysis of the relationship between architecture and technology in the modern era, focusing on the 20th century. The following section deals explicitly with the relationship between architecture and the internet, stemming from a conjunctural reading of contemporary urban theory. The last and final chapter introduces the concept of "Post-Earth", evocative of a future at the same time alternative and complimentary to that presented in the fictional technoutopia of the space colony.