Developing a masterplan for the planet could entrench existing inequalities and make climate change worse, according to the architect behind the new Planet City movie.
Architect Liam Young described the Masterplanet project by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) as "a continuation of the colonialist project that has already masterplanned the planet in its own image".
Instead, Young has presented an alternative vision of a future planet Earth in Planet City, a short animated movie depicting a dense metropolis for 10 billion people that would free up the rest of the planet for rewilding and the return of ancestral lands.
"It is just worth calling out the differences between these types of works," Young told Dezeen.
"The imposition of singular visions by starchitects just repeats so many of the mistakes that have got us into this situation in the first place." ?
Top and above: Planet City is a concept for a city for 10 billion people
Both Young and BIG, which is led by architect Bjarke Ingels, propose conceptual solutions for a world with 10 billion people, which is Earth's projected population in 2050.
Young's Planet City proposes a self-sufficient, multicultural city occupying just 0.02 per cent of the planet's surface.
Contrasting visions for a world with 10 billion people
By contrast, BIG's Masterplanet concept involves scaling up existing infrastructure to cover the entire planet, including creating a single global power grid and an international netw...