We Make Buildings Like Cities
There used to be a division between disciplines like architecture, urban planning, and terraforming, but in today’s most ambitious, large-scale projects all of these fields have collapsed into something much more like world-building.
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TWA is heavily involved in such future-oriented giga-projects around the world, operating from the idea that buildings can and should be as diverse – and often as big – as cities. We are engaged in some of the world’s most radically ecological projects, challenging conventional categories of building, city, and nature, ultimately proposing new ways of life on our planet. These are definitely not master plans with infill buildings, but rather very large buildings with the inner life of a city.
Our approach is rooted in the idea of cities as defined, dense objects rather than sprawling fields. Our model is the city-state, which is independent and bounded, with its own culture and spatial features, and lively internal abundance. The city-state model includes everything needed for communities, daily life, culture, work, and commerce. City-states are more like medieval cities than Baroque cities, in the sense that they develop based on circles rather than grids, they are dense rather than extended in all directions, and they are walkable, rather than built around automobiles. This comparison reminds us of the things we have come to bear in the modern city, things which fresh, 21st century world-building can reconsider.
Our approach is rooted in the idea of cities as defined, dense objects rather than sprawling fields. Our model is the city-state, which is independent and bounded, with its own culture and spatial features, and lively internal abundance. The city-state model includes everything needed for communities, daily life, culture, work, and commerce. City-states are more like medieval cities than Baroque cities, in the sense that they develop based on circles rather than grids, they are dense rather than extended in all directions, and they are walkable, rather than built around automobiles. This comparison reminds us of the things we have come to bear in the modern city, things which fresh, 21st century world-building can reconsider.
