“if you use nature as a model and mentor, if you use modern designs and chemicals that are safe. Growth is destructive if you use energy not from the sun and a system of chemicals that is toxic, so it’s anti-life.”

“The China Housing Industry Association has the responsibility for building housing for 400 million people in the next 12 years. We’re working with them to design seven new cities. We’re identifying building materials of the future, such as a new polystyrene from BASF [with no noxious chemicals]. It can be used to build walls that are strong, lightweight and superinsulating. The building can be heated and cooled for next to nothing. And it’s silent. If there are 13 people in the apartment upstairs, you won’t hear them.”

“The Chinese are afraid urbanization will reduce productive farmland, so we’ll move farms onto rooftops. At least, that’s what I’m proposing. The farmers can live downstairs. And when you look at the city from a distance, it will look like part of the landscape.”

Don’t miss the original article here:
Designing the Future - Newsweek Technology - MSNBC.com

Thanks to Matt Linderman