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My favorite futurist is a gentleman named Jacque Fresco. Headquartered in Venus, Florida, Jacque and his partner Roxanne Meadows have been developing viable ideas for the future, not dissimilar to what Gene Roddenberry envisioned. I learned of Jacque and Roxanne one night while watching Mega-Structures on the Discovery Channel, and was captivated by their outlook of an optimistic future. This is one of the prime elements missing from the later Star Treks after Gene passed on. Gene really had a vision of the world of tomorrow, and that’s what made Star Trek.
I became fast friends with Jacque and Roxanne and made a number of animated sequences of their designs. Here are a few frames for your kind examination. If your interest is piqued, check out The Venus Project: http://www.thevenusproject.com/intro_main/essay.htm
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Hey, James Cawley should think about using one of these ideas in a Phase II episode.
Maybe he could have Walter Koenig and Mary Linda Rapelye star in it too…that would be the bee’s knees. 
(::ducks for cover::)
Hi Doug,
I’ve seen the 2nd image somewhere before, and I thought it was in a Star Trek: Phase II episode. It really caught my eye and is beautifully rendered!
Yes, I loaned the City in The Sea to Max Rem. He used it in an NV episode.
Sorry to crap up your blog with prequel grousing, but this makes me wish they had hired this guy for the new Trek movie. What’s shown of San Francisco in the trailers is just a bunch of generic futuristic skyscrapers along the north shoreline with the Golden Gate Bridge as the only recognizable landmark. Not a terribly convincing built environment for such a seismically-unstable place. Of course, perhaps 23rd century buildings utilize structural integrity fields?
These look both pretty and viable. As step back, even, from the actual work being done in Dubai and China.
These big communities are nicely reminiscent of the sprawling Syd Mead future cities, and even some of the “arcology” concepts from people like Paolo Solari, though done in distinctly different styles. Wish we could do these sorts of things here, though they only seem possible these days in places like Dubai. Or maybe Disneyland (on a smaller scale).
But we can still imagine.
Oh wow. I love the “Sea City”. It reminds me of the Jetson’s actually. But the sweeping tower “sails” in the third image are really nice too. I think I am going to make a quick click over…
And I have to admit that I always wanted to see more of Earth in the 23rd and 24th Century. We basically got a few small establishing shots or a park but we never really saw much of anything. Was it that hard to portray paradise?
(I just noticed that I am still signed in on WordPress.
Oops… now I am going to be all dark grey… and I can’t remember if it links me. Sorry!)
-Bryant
bryantwmd said “And I have to admit that I always wanted to see more of Earth in the 23rd and 24th Century.”
I’m with you Bryant, always wanted to see more of Earth’s future architecture on Trek, and not just San Francisco or Paris…
Very nice photos of a definite future that is clean and livable.
Beautiful. It’s a great idea to establish these cities at sea. After all, Earth is mostly water.
>And I have to admit that I always wanted to see more of Earth in the 23rd and 24th Century. >We basically got a few small establishing shots or a park but we never really saw much of >anything. Was it that hard to portray paradise?
Here here! The images here would be great starts for more of Earth in Trek.
I, too, have always been interested in future & “alien” architecture styles. Some years ago, during one of the rare moments that my then-girlfriend’s roommate spoke to me, I asked her a question about architecture, as she was a student in the local uni’s program. I told her it bothered me that with all the advanced structural materials available, that with all the advanced artistic talent available, with all the “future thinking” going around, the way humans build structures is not noticeably different than it was millennia ago. Pluck a Roman citizen from, say, Lugdunum, & plunk him down in today’s time & he’ll recognize the buildings as they are; barring advances in materials, there hasn’t been much of a change. I know it’s easier to make slab-standard right angles but it’s also stagnant, & no one seems to be able to defeat Nimby Syndrome. Would that more people realize these wonderful designs.
(I never got an answer from the roommate, unless you could a glower, a huff of exasperation, & a flounce out & into her room as an answer.)
This kind of thing was indeed missing from Trek after Roddenberry’s departure from active involvement in the shows, but it is nice to see that JJ Abrams’s Trek seems full of vast megastructures and genuine futurism. As controversial as the construction of the Enterprise on the Earth’s surface is conceptually, one has to admit, it makes for a very striking image and reinforces the large scale look they appear to have given the new film.
Beautiful renders of truly beautiful concepts. I agree with Ian. This approach to style and distinct structure would have been a great addition to any Trek production.
This reminds me a bit of some of the stuff that used to show up in “Future” magazine. Anyone remember that one?
Guys, if you like Mr. Fresco and the work of the Venus Project you must check this out:
The Reality of Fantasy: The Venus Project
http://magazine.chictoday.com
This immediately springs to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Al_Arab
Looks certainly more like Trek than those structures that can be seen in the new Star Trek trailer.
Great stuff. I had been looking at TVP a few times already from link in the blogroll list. Nice work dude.
PLL,
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WOW! That second image looks alot like a project I started to block in a few years ago. I haven’t really worked on it mainly because I haven’t come up with convincing water. Only differences are my opening is bigger and without the towers but I have a center tower that is connected to the outer donut with the connection below the water. I guess I’ll have to rethink my design.:(
These are really cool looking.
http://www.dezeen.com/2008/06/06/dubai-opera-house-by-zaha-hadid/
This struck me as pretty bold, inside and out, even for Dubai. Really beautiful and not completely at odds with the surrounding environment because of the way it mimics the dunes.
The planes and ships at the website remind me a lot of the work of Luigi Colani and Norman Bel Geddes. Very cool stuff.
Wow! This is absolutely awe inspiring!
I miss seeing this sort of architectural elegance in visions of the near future I remember from Starlog and Future Life magazine, not to mention the L-5 Society. It was a treat to see that sea-city featured briefly in New Voyages.
I remember watching Jaque Fresco movies in school in my yonger days between the ages of maybe 7 and 8 back in the 80s sometime..Then sometime after, schools decided not to show his idea anymore..Then i came to learn about him again through a movie i watched on the net called ZEITGEST and then i realized the schools stoped showing it because it wass just simply to much information for kids and that just devistated me to learn this…I have 2 beautifull kids now and they have been bouth considered exeptional students and theirfore need help acording to the school board…I think Jaque,s idea is what we need implemented in our society..