8 Minutes, 20 Seconds: Housing After Banking. Encrypting the Sun

Energy generated by nuclear fusion of the Sun reaches the surface of the Earth in 8 minutes and 20 seconds.

8 Minutes, 20 Seconds envisions an innovative architectural design centered around renewable energy sources that utilize and cache forms of energy which are essentially inexhaustible, persistent, and virtually limitless in quantity. This forward-thinking proposal anticipates a transformative post-scarcity era that is enabled and restructured by a groundbreaking new type of housing that functions as a vital arbiter of environmentally sustainable human settlements, integrating advanced technological efficiencies and sustainable practices.

In proposing this progressive new form of housing, which can only be realized through advanced manufacturing technologies and innovative materials, we pose the thought-provoking question: “What if the concept of what has traditionally been viewed as a housing asset transforms into an entirely new category of energy asset, whose downstream by-product is the fundamental necessity of providing adequate shelter for all individuals, ensuring equitable access to living spaces?"

Michael Bell is Professor of Architecture at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Bell is founding Chair of the Columbia Conference on Architecture, Engineering and Materials, a multi-year research program hosted at GSAPP in coordination with Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK) at the University of Stuttgart. Bell served as Director, Master of Architecture, Core Design Studios, (2000-14) and the Coordinator of the GSAPP Housing Design Studios (2000-11).

Eunjeong Seong is an architect and founder of Bell/Seong: Visible Weather; Bell/Seong’s architectural design and urban design work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Van Alen Institute in New York; at Columbia, awarded the Matthew W. Del Gaudio Memorial Award from the New York Society of Architects for excellence in total design over the six-semester program.  Her  work has been shown on MSNBC, Fox Business News, and Reuters television; has taught at RPI, the Parsons School of Design, and RISD.