When I hitch a ride on a spaceship or walk through that dimensional gate, I expect to be transported to exotic new lands, drenched in colors and odors that have me weeping in awe or gagging in disgust. I want to drown myself in these new sights and sounds and learn everything about these new “people.” Are they blue or bejeweled? How many limbs do they have? Will their body odor switch on a human libido or send it comatose with its toxicity? And our theme for today, how do they live, particularly in relationship to the environment you designed for your planet?
Today, we are going to explore how people build in their environment – homes, castles, fortresses, commercial districts, yurts, space stations. How is their relationship with their world mediated through their built environment?
The Natural Environment
How people construct their living quarters is first and foremost influenced by the climate, geology, topography and overall resources available on the place they live. If you want to build permanent houses, a planet must have wood or brick or metals that enable them to build.
What’s the weather? Frequent storms will require a house the wolf can’t blow down. Hot climates need homes designed to protect from the heat—cold climates from the cold and snow.
For example, in my WIP, The Scent of Memory, they live on planet that resembles earth living around the arctic circle, with limited time frames for constructions and limited land suitable for building. They built covered tunnels connecting all places to each other since dogs and snowmobiles are the only possible transport this allows people to walk to each other, and internal green houses for growing food. Because of limited space, people live in small apartments in limited complexes.
What do they eat and drink? Do they rely on hunting or finding clear water sources, which might make them nomadic in nature, thus needing tent like homes that can be put up and pulled down quickly.
What is their relationship to nature? Do the believe in only living with nature, like faeries who live in sidhe, earthern mounds that lead to underground living or Hobbits who also live in homes built into the ground. Is it a forested land with powerful land predators, requiring them to live in tree houses, or just sleep on branches.
How people use their environment depends on that environment and their beliefs about it. It is also affected by population.
Population
How many people live together, and with whom they live, influences how they built their homes and cities. How economic resources are distributed also determines who lives where, and in what.
How are homes acquired? Do people have the wherewithal to build homes on their own or communally or is there a housing market where homes are bought and sold? This is influenced by planetary economics. If they are living on a space ship or in an authoritarian regime, homes may be assigned by the powers that be, which would then beg the question how power is structured and how access to housing or better housing determined.
Interiors
At a smaller scale, how the interior structure and design reflect your characters personality is critical element – which combines characterization with world building.
One of my favorite example that reflects this truth is the Tardis, Dr. Who’s time machine/space craft which becomes is their home, once it was stolen from the home planet of Gallifrey. Time Lords, of which Dr. Who is one, designed the Tardis to change forms to blend into its environment so it wouldn’t be noticed. But it broke, and got stuck in British Blue police box mode, so it stands out, like Dr Who does – something not of the world.
The Tardis interior (and a bit of the exterior) change with every Dr. Who regeneration to realign the home with the altered personality. Even so, every version still reeks of isolation.It’s like he’s living they are living in their car, which they technically are (even though the Tardis can add rooms for visitors). It’s a cold, lonely place that’s as incomprehensible and as utterly foreign as they are—no matter how recognizable they and the telephone box initially appear.
I will end this post with a game – matching a fully imaged and newly emerging housing type with possible social, economic and environmental realities.
Multi-dimensional housing – Imagine purposely sharing a house with built-in dimensional gateways that can be opened by the mirrors or the light bulbs or specially designed tiles for the floor or some nifty skeleton key. I could see this emerging in response to:
- overcrowded, overbuilt planet desperate for living space
- A destitute world trying to earn alien currencies (you can rent the same room over and over again)
- A university world with dorms and classrooms across dimensions as part of their education mission.
Travel Pods – The Tardis meets Martha Stewart. These pods offer a small living space that, like the Tardis, doubles as home and transport. Users can pick an interior design or program their own (think blog themes) and screens and internet connectivity are built in. They can park in a lot similar to zip cars, and recharge or refuel depending on the energy source of that world. The downside, you probably could not have more than one buddy over for coffee at a time. They would be true to size, unlike the Tardis which defies the laws of physics and be useful for:
- A workaholic planet where family units were not required for survival immediately comes to mind, particularly where labor intensive work was required.
- A future overcrowded earth requiring housing that used space efficiently, trying to discourage connection and family planning, and most labor work in a gig economy and have to connect and travel for jobs. As you can see in the header photo, pod hotels are already a thing.
Your turn. What other ideas do you have where multi-dimensional housing or travel pods might be used?
Don’t forget to visit the other bloggers participating in the A to Z Challenge.
Header IStock Credit: JimmyAn
If you have mutli-dimensional housing, does that mean you could live in multiple places at the same time. So you could have one room on the planet where you work and another on the planet where you play and one with no outside signals so you can disappear from time to time and just say, but I couldn’t get reception 😂.
Tasha 💖
Virginia’s Parlour – The Manor (Adult concepts – nothing explicit in posts)
Tasha’s Thinkings – Vampire Drabbles
Maybe the travel pods would have started out as vacation toys for the wealthy, so they could pop around the universe sightseeing and hopping party to party. Used pods were then bought by the poorer people as primary residences.
Black and White (Words and Pictures)
The house is in many places, but I think individuals can only be in one at a time. But I imagine you can wonder in and out without knowing about it, with the same impact on reception. Thanks for dropping by.