Kirsten Zirngibl worked on this phenomenal illustration and environmental design for the Fantasy Flight Games for their “Netrunner” universe, The Worlds of Android. She shared with us her process designing Kampala, Uganda, 100-200 years in the future.

“In the cyberpunk future of the Android universe, Kampala in Uganda has become a large metropolis. Investment over the last 100–200 years has yielded a technologically advanced and economically vibrant city on the coast of Lake Victoria. When they ran out of room on the coast, the city began to create floating island colonies to house megarich office workers. The construction platform in in the middle of constructing a massive transportation terminal to accept passengers and cargo for transport off-world.”

In this future, Africa itself has has prospered immensely, in part due to asteroid mining. As rare earth metals were suddenly made less scarce, China and the US stopped competing with their supply and meddling in the continent, leaving local powers to dominate through the “Sub-Saharan League.” I figured that architects would express continental/League pride through architecture rather than just local heritage.

I love geometric art, and saw this assignment as a good opportunity to look at and play with traditional African designs. Fractals lie deep in African indigenous design sense, and thought it would be cool to carry that quality into futuristic architecture! I was inspired by this Ba-Ila floor plan, and these Ethiopian coptic crosses. I also looked at Ukhamba baskets, and Mande mud architecture for elements in this. The image features layered arcologies (the stripey forms in the background). Each stripe is a floor, as residents live near the edges for access to windows. Deeper within the arcologies are aquaponics and other life support/infrastructure systems. Fusion power is used extensively, so everything is fairly clean.

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