JacobCoffinWrites @ JacobCoffinWrites @slrpnk.net

I write science fiction, draw, paint, photobash, do woodworking, and dabble

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2 yr. ago

Editing to add this link from another comment because I had no idea that (of course) there's organized opposition by entrenched interests to prevent anything for the public good https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/06/dark-roof-lobby-white-reflective-roofs-laws-lobbying-urban-heat-islands/

I don't think the current roofs are painted black - they're naturally black because roofing tar and asphalt shingles are black by default (a lot of sheet metal roofing is too but you can at least get that in most colors). So it's not a matter of swapping out paint but adding something new. It also adds a new maintenance cost - keeping the white roof clean/maintained. Paint flakes off, tarps etc wear and become tattered, dirt and pollen collect on the surface. None of this is a dealbreaker by any means but our society seems to run on defaults and there's a lot of inertia in construction and a lot of pressure on builders to keep materials costs down (even if doing so costs the owners or occupants more in the long run).

I hope this continues to take off because it really is a big improvement.

Such a great project!

Sounds like 'installed' might be overselling it a little unfortunately - given that jerks carried them off. There are a few types of epoxy that could help. Pretty sure even JB Weld will stick wood to concrete. And they make some amazing specialist adhesives. It won't stop the city but might delay the NIMBYs for a day or two. (Especially if they're as old as I am and they throw their back out trying to pick it up the first time).

There are some interesting projects turning them into pedestrian bridges and roofs for bike racks.

Seconding this - if I ever move back home I'll be looking for some kind of little electric kei truck for hauling trash and supplies. Most of my driving when I lived there was under 50mph and over fairly short distances.

Thanks so much, that's great to hear! And thanks for all your input! Sorry the text is small, I work on a knockoff wacom-style tablet so I get used to looking at it zoomed in and from pretty close to the screen.

Feel free to post it anywhere, I'm always delighted to find out when these images travel around a bit on their own.

Thanks so much! This was a fun one, I always loved these kind of diagrams/wimmelbilder type pictures and had a lot of fun trying to make one.

Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions!

Thanks!! That's really good to know about Bald Cypress! That was my first guess for selecting trees. I ended up picking them and black willows, just based on range and look but I'll take your advice and leave the willows generic. I think these chinampas are kind of overgrown at the moment, but I figure the trees don't cover the entire thing, just the corners. I was able to find some roots to reference (mostly from washouts or other exposed roots) and tried to get the details right for cypress and willow (but I'm not an arborist and had trouble finding info on depth). Let me know what you think!

chinampas

Hi, I've been reading up on chinampas to try to get the details right and I was hoping to borrow some of your tree knowledge. Most sources mention a willow (Ahuejote (Salix bonplandiana)) and a cypress (Taxodium mucronatum) as the trees they used to reinforce/replace the underwater fences for soil retention. I'm sort of doing this picture as if its in New Orleans (for some of the buildings and other details anyways) and I think that's outside these specific trees current ranges. I was wondering: can I swap in any other cypress or willow since there are some native to Louisiana or would some cause problems?

Here's what I've got so far:

I'm probably not showing enough alternating layers of plant matter and mud, but I'm hoping it gets the point across. I've tried to find good sources, so far these diagrams are my favorites:

Some seem to show floating islands or like, a floating top layer with water underneath, inside the reed wall, which seems weird and inaccurate from what I've read. At this point, I mostly just want to get all the trees added, make sure they're realistic, and find some accurate roots to include to show how they reinforce the earthworks. From what I've read it sounds like willow and cypress just kind of put roots everywhere (I'm used to being able to find clearer diagrams for trees like pines and oaks, but have struggled to find good drawings for these. Also might add cypress knees in the waterways where they're really well established, we'll see. Then I'll start cleaning up the image and getting everything to match aesthetically.

Thanks, I'll definitely include that kind of dock/railings, still figuring out how to add greenery. I might shuffle the buildings around to make some room for a park

The question of how to make migrations as pleasant as possible and rebuild as much of the physically embodied culture that was left behind as possible is one that is very relevant right now, so I would love to see you make a postcard of a migrant town, if you don’t already have one. If you can show how even migration can be a place of solarpunk joy, then suddenly the people of New Orleans do have a realistic joyful future despite the bleak prospect of evacuation.

This is a heavy topic with some pretty high stakes but it's going on my list. You're right that it's something worth rendering, it's art we might need, though TBH I hope someone better qualified than me gets to it first.

If you'd like to discuss how these places and experiences should be represented sometime, I'd definitely be interested. I know I'm usually unqualified to make these scenes (aspirational fiction requires so much more knowledge to do well and solarpunk scenes often involve a terrifying mix of civil engineering, history, cultural knowledge, plant knowledge, city planning, accessibility outreach, vehicle infrastructure, and more) but I'm profoundly unqualified to say much of anything about the experiences of refugees and migrants. That'll be something to work towards through research and conversation, and perhaps to carefully reference in small scenes in prose fiction etc at first. References to Little New Orleanses and similar neighborhoods seem like a good place to start, with more detail in time.

Thanks for talking about this stuff with me. I really appreciate it!

That's something I've been wondering about - I live in a place with lots of ledge to anchor foundations to (or to get in the way of basements, depending on your situation and budget). I know skyscrapers drive in huge piles for support which I think aims for that supportive material underground? I know from researching bunkers that in other places the ground is kinda moving steadily, which can roll or twist unprepared or poorly designed structures. I've seen that New Orleans for example has some skyscrapers but just having them doesn't necessarily mean building them is a good long term plan and that the ground will support those kind of structures.

This is so cool! Thank you - this definitely gives me a place to start

I don't disagree - I don't tend to have much sympathy for folks who build in flood planes and end up getting wet, but then again, I'm blessed to live in a region largely free from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, volcanos, and floods. I suppose much of the United States wouldn't pass my ''so don't build there, idiot'' test. The folks who do obviously look at those risks differently than I do, consider their needs, their love of a place, a lack of available housing, opportunities, etc, and probably dozens of other factors when making that decision. I definitely understand loving a place and wanting to preserve it.

I think we've also seen the way culture fragments and changes and is lost when its place vanishes. I don't know that a New Orleans diaspora would be able to preserve or rebuild everything that makes the city special to the people who live there now, and I'm not comfortable just kind of telling them to deal with it, even if it seems inevitable to me now.

I'm not sure what degree of realism I'm aiming for in this art, even after a doing this series for a year. My outlook on our near term future, (when I let myself think about it) is quite bleak. The postcards are kind of an attempt to focus on the potential for something better, to talk about possible options, and to emphasize the aspects of solarpunk I love and to introduce people to them. I want the scenes to feel aspirational and attainable. And in a place (country/national discourse) where a large swath of the population is fearfully/enthusiasticly examining any leftist media for glimmers of top-down, authoritarian conspiracies, I'm aware that pointing out ways things are going to get bad looks to them like a celebration of the end of their comforts etc. And that that can drive people away from solarpunk and from possible solutions. So I don't know, I guess from a messaging standpoint, at the moment, I'd rather emphasize adapting to changing conditions and reconsidering our current ways of doing things in order to talk about those impending problems and what we'll do in response. I've done some other scenes of deconstruction and rewilding but I try to keep them mostly to cultureless mcmansion suburbs rather than working class cities. I'm not really comfortable shrugging and saying it's pointless to try to preserve what we can of something parts of the audience care about.

I want to emphasize that I'm talking about the tone of this particular postcard art series, and trying to find my own goals for it, and that I don't think you're being unrealistic, exactly. I'll keep the difficulties of the preservation aspect in mind.

I've seen raised houses but not many versions of bigger city buildings - if you find any I'd love to reference more examples in the art!

I've seen a few examples of parking garage conversions. I think all are top-down professional things so they don't have the same range of materials or casual attitude towards building load as this one, but some look a bit similar.

https://www.axios.com/2019/10/30/the-future-of-parking-garages

https://www.reddit.com/r/repurposedbuildings/comments/zoaec8/parking_garage_turned_into_44_apartments_in/#lightbox

There's also this interesting one that goes less dense on the interior space in favor of more common areas, almost like tiny yards to go with the tiny houses: https://www.axios.com/2019/10/30/the-future-of-parking-garages

Breakers are a good idea (or making it clear the channel is a narrow one). I'd like to show water agriculture and a ferry too if possible. One of the reasons I struggle with cityscapes is the scope creep - I keep wanting to add one more ideas until the image is overcrowded, awkwardly arranged, or has a funny aspect ratio. Then again, this sort of perspectiveless side view is a personal favorite because it simplifies the art tremendously. Maybe I'll try doing a set that can be arranged together horizontally to form one wide image...

Thanks for the rec on Bangkok, that's a really good idea and I've got a bunch of reading to do. Are there any favorite water bus designs in particular (or anything else) you think I should make sure not to miss? Thanks again!

Thank you for the name (genre?) recommendation! I had a sense of the kind of image I was referencing with these but not a name for it. Often, looking up the type of art I want to make solarpunk versions of is a huge source of inspiration and one of my favorite parts of the process! I enjoyed stuff like this as a kid but I don't know if I can think of a name for it. It's fun to look through them again!

And thanks! I definitely enjoy trying to show reuse, repurposing, and a mix of old and new.

Good point on the dolphins!

The amphibious public transit idea came from another discussion where someone suggested them so they could double as a fleet of rescue/evacuation vehicles. They basically wanted sturdy buses that wouldn't stall when traversing a few feet of water, and which didn't pose as much risk of getting stranded. I don't know if that makes them any more practical or if a flood-prone city would just maintain a fleet of buses and a fleet of boats for rescue situations. Duckboats would almost definitely be harder to maintain than either one separately, but they might justify the cost if it means they're getting their money's worth by using them normally for public transit?

I think you're absolutely right that a ferry connection would be easier to set up and maintain.

I'll look into Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead though to be honest, I don't really play games. I might be able to convince my SO who does to take a look though - I sometimes watch them play.

I've heard the wisdom around boats before, but I was thinking of houseboats because that's a thing some people do IRL, and I like to include different lifestyles in the art when I can. TBH, given some of the drama I've read around rich people trying to get houseboats banned from mooring in public waterways near their private beaches, I was under the impression it was an economical way to live, though that might just be the case in some modern-day ultra-expensive coastal cities.

Ropeways are something I mostly know from ski mountains (my area is lousy with them) but I was surprised to learn about how much they're used elsewhere for public transit - rich areas like the Alps definitely use them, but they seem to show up a bunch in the Middle East, South East Asia and Central America, where I don't know that they necessarily guarantee rich surroundings (there was a somewhat famous rescue a year or so back in Pakistan when one broke while high over a valley). I don't doubt the mechanical complexity (see: recent accidents), and I'll admit I'm probably too fond of them as a concept for steady public transit that crosses rough terrain well, but I don't know that alternatives like entire train lines or buses would have a lower impact. For all I know they do. I aim to balance the environmental footprint (including largely unseen parts like manufacturing and maintenance) against depicting places people might like to live.

100% with you on the fertility of the soil in river basins, and depictions of homesteads/uses of heat.

I respect folks who can picture the very long long term future, but to be honest, even positive depictions of it don't feel very actionable to me. I'm not a scientist, researcher, inventor, so the hundred-thousand-year future feels pointlessly out of reach, especially with how bad things seem likely to get in the near term. I want to make stuff that inspires at least a little hope and ambition for today and tomorrow - and to depict scenes that make people think think, “why aren’t we doing that?” or “could that work?” I think the aspirational goal is the same, I'm just more focused on doing the best we can in the next few years and emphasizing any positive progress over perfection.

Thanks for all your input, I really appreciate it

That's a really good point! People need a reason to use them despite the cool factor. I'll have to think on that.

I was kind of picturing these as a network of wide balconies/bridges/extra-wide fire-escape type walkways rather than full levels (not that the sketch made that clear) which would mostly be used seasonally. Like they might see some use for shortcuts etc when its dry but if the place floods for weeks or months(?), they'd be important for getting around. During that time the lower streets might be treated a bit like canals and each building an island. I'm kind of trying to imagine designs where what would be a city-wrecking flood today surges up and everyone grumbles about it but otherwise basically goes about their business.

I don't know how feasible that is, or how well a given society would maintain a public resource that sees sporadic use much of the year, but that's the hope. I'm going to look up the elevated walkways you mentioned, I'm very curious about differences in their implementations and if there are any positive ways to incentivize use of a separate level (rather than just taking the ground away). Thanks for bringing that up!