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42 Ways to Live Inside a Closed System

From the depths of the ocean to the heights of the stars, New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture has a handful of approaches to self-sustained living.
Conshelf I, II & III​, Jacques Cousteau, off the coast of Marseilles, France, 1962­-63. Photo: Closed Worlds, 2016. Curated by Lydia Kallipoliti. Storefront for Art and Architecture

This El Niño season has seriously gotten us thinking about global warming. What will we do when Manhattan's underwater? What about when we destroy our planet with landfills and pollution? The Storefront for Art and Architecture’s current exhibition, Closed Worlds, proposes some solutions—42 of them.

The show, which opened on February 16 and runs until April 9, is the result of curator Lydia Kallipoliti’s research into historical examples of prototypes for closed systems, like space capsules, submarines, and office buildings, that encourage or necessitate sustained life without contact with the outside world.

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Sun-Dwellings, Peter van Dresser, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, 1976. Photo: Closed Worlds, 2016. Curated by Lydia Kallipoliti. Storefront for Art and Architecture

A closed system accounts for handling of all types of waste (human, digital) and capital (energy, light). A design competition taking these factors into consideration was held last year, calling for the most contemporary design of a new closed system. The winner, Farzin Farzin, designed a virtual reality installation, Some World Games, that allows viewers to explore the other 41 prototypes Kallipoliti discovered in her research.

On February 27, the Storefront will host a conference on the subject of closed worlds and systems in design and architecture with a long list of luminary lecturers. One catch, though: the conversation participants, who range from Walt Disney to Jacques Cousteau, Buckminster Fuller, and Neil Armstrong, are all dead. Performers will play their parts, assuming their mannerisms, dress, and way of thinking, to stage conversations about theories of closed world systems that never could have happened IRL.

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Clean Air Pod, Ant Farm, Berkeley, California, 1970. Photo: Closed Worlds, 2016. Curated by Lydia Kallipoliti. Storefront for Art and Architecture

Whether you’re interested in living on Mars, in the ocean, off the sun’s rays, or with an artificial exoskeleton, check out more information about Closed Worlds here.

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