A World Shaped by Architecture

I live in a world where architecture literally shapes my world. Basically, humans have made a whole new planet out of architecture. It’s the year 1020, I live on the planet Earth 2.0. (The scientists were feeling pretty creative when they named it weren’t they?)

Now you're probably wondering why I said it was the year 1020, considering the fact that I live on a planet entirely made by humans, I can’t be from the olden days, right? You see, the year Earth got smashed into tiny pieces by an asteroid, scientists saw it coming before it actually happened, so they lifted almost the entire human population out of the planet, only a week before the asteroid hit.

Twenty years later when the scientists realized that the entire human race couldn’t live in a spaceship forever, they decided to find a new planet. Of course, that failed because it turned out that some alien race had already occupied every planet we tried to create new life on. As you can imagine, humans weren’t the most welcomed species in the universe. Almost all alien life had heard about how humans polluted Earth, so we weren’t welcome anywhere. Finally, scientists decided to just make a planet themselves. I’m sure plenty of people were pretty skeptical about this, how do you just make a planet?

Anyway, the scientists somehow managed to make it, and a few years later humans moved in. They decided to restart counting all the years so the first year on Earth 2.0 was the year 1000. No, I don’t know why they skipped straight to the thousands instead of going; year 1, year 2, I’m just a kid.

Earth 2.0 is a pretty great place to live. Somehow scientists saved some seeds and made a huge building filled with plants, which feeds the entire human race. Our houses are spaceships so if this planet ever gets destroyed we can escape quickly. The houses are also all connected by these huge thick glass tunnels that lead off to different shops and houses. The main building where all the tunnels connect to is The Greenhouse, where the only actual nature on the Earth 2.0 is located.

We are allowed outside the buildings through this one huge glass door that is the only way out. Our school goes for trips outside once a week, otherwise you have to pay for it. Our area of the tunnels is called Area 3, there’s about thirty areas, ours is the smallest. Each area has its own door out, with guards guarding it. They have guards at the doors, because if they don’t people can just sneak out and no one wants that because then they can’t profit off the money they get when people pay them to go outside.

‘They’ are the council. A huge group of about fifteen men and women who run our planet. They’re rich, greedy and controlling. They’re the ones who decided we need to pay to go outside. They’re the ones who make us stay inside these tunnels. They’re the ones who can’t care less for our health and safety. All they care about is the money they get from our suffering.

So basically, they’re your average human.

However it’s so worth it to pay to go outside. Even if outside’s nothing like it would’ve been on first Earth. Earth had forests and plants everywhere, with fresh air and running water. At least, that’s what the teachers tell us, it could’ve been a desert for all I know. Anyway, outside on Earth 2.0 the plants and water are all artificial. Instead of fluttering leaves and dancing grass there’s glass artwork that only looks like trees and grass. The ground’s made of this strange brown material that makes up the entire planet. It doesn’t have any name I can pronounce, so me and my friends just call it Shatterglass.

Our only water is in The Greenhouse. Some genius invented a machine that can turn air to water, and scraps into air. Basically if we want water we walk down to The Greenhouse. It’s a four kilometer walk from my house, but it’s on the way to school so me and my friends can stop there on the way home to bring water back to the house.

So, that is my home. I’ve told you all I know about my world shaped by architecture. I suppose I could tell you about the hole in the wall I sneak out of to explore outside. I could tell you about all the cruel things the council makes us do. But why bother explaining all the mistakes and imperfections of this world?

Because when you live in a world crafted by humans. Not everything is perfect.

This essay was the winner in the Tamariki category of the 2023 Warren Trust Awards for Architectural Writing.

Photo: JR Korpa from Unsplash