Sonny Astani is the type of person who gets called a "business maverick". He also seems to enjoy watching the odd sci-fi movie. His latest plans for LA involve a $36.5m redevelopment that will use of one-way LED windows (I'm paraphrasing here ever so slightly for the benefit of the layman) to invoke the skyscraper billboards of Blade Runner. So from the outside, the entire building will run video adverts, like a giant Piccadilly Circus, while residents will be able to look out on the panoramic views unhindered.
What Astani conveniently glosses over is the fact that Ridley Scott's vision of a future LA was meant to be dystopian, not a convenient business opportunity. The twin-tower Concerto project certainly has a boldness about it, and Astani happily admits the source of his inspiration. But it raises the question of what other architectural models we could look to sci-fi to supply us with. Geoff Manaugh of futuristic architecture blog Bldgblog often lists the best fantasy-inspired buildings on his site. So, for visions of our future realities, here are five of my favourite sci-fi cities:
1. Washington DC in Minority Report (as visualised by Mark Goerner).
2. Judge Dredd's home town of Megacity One.
3. The floating mining town Cloud City, from The Empire Strikes Back.
4. The three-dimensional traffic solution for New York City, as shown in The Fifth Element.
5. The "city planet" of Coruscant, imagined by Ryan Church for the Star Wars prequels.
