Futuristic

Driven by incredible advances in engineering technologies, futurist architecture in the 21st century has resulted in strange alien structures. From starchitect Zaha Hadid to the expansive MAD Architects, we take a look at some stunning 21 century examples of futurist architecture.

It looks 3D-printed but the Eagle from Spain's David Flores Loredo is actually fashioned from wood. The futuristic-looking guitar sports a body that's full of shapely holes to help cut down on weight, has recently taken top honors in a global design competition, and is now on its way to production.

Anti-virus and cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab has released an esoteric collaborative art project that sets its sights on what the world will be like in 2050. Artists, futurists and scientists have been asked to contribute their predictions. Here's our favourite good, bad and weird ideas.

​Fans of science fiction movies that depict weird, interesting or dystopian futures have plenty to look forward to in 2017. Here are our picks of the movies you should put on your radar if you enjoy cinematic depictions of future technology.

Those of a certain age and a certain bent can’t fail to look at this depiction of a space station without a sense of 70s nostalgia. Easy to mistake as speculative fiction, such images are the fruit of the collective brains of NASA, Princeton and Stanford. Here’s some of what they came up with …

Interest in tiny houses has exploded in recent years, but the original tiny home was created way back in the 1960s. Fewer than 100 Futuro Houses were ever made, but they have become something of a design icon. Now, one is on display at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London.

The British MoD think-tank project Startpoint has unveiled Dreadnought 2050 – an automated fusion-powered surface warship of the year 2050 equipped with lasers, hypersonic missiles, and torpedoes that can travel at over 300 knots (345 mph, 555 km/h).

Parisian architecture firm OXO Architectes, in association with Nicolas Laisné Associés, recently revealed a proposal for a futuristic sustainable tower – or "vertical city" – in the Sahara desert. The City Sand Tower would rise to a height of 450 m (1,476 ft) and run from renewable energy sources.

Fresh from designing a futuristic and sustainable Paris, Vincent Callebaut has turned his imagination toward the Eternal City. The architect envisions turning a large area of land in Rome into a sustainable new residential district.

Google has commissioned top-tier architects Bjarke Ingels (of BIG) and Thomas Heatherwick to design its new headquarters in Mountain View, California. Details are lacking at this stage, but the information we do have points toward a sustainable, flexible, and future-proof headquarters.

Planning Korea has unveiled a proposal dubbed L’air Nouveau de Paris (New Paris air). The concept features futuristic egg-shaped towers that take up an area of 3,891 sq m (almost 42,000 sq ft) in the city's 17th Arrondissement.

One can usually count on Vincent Callebaut to produce striking renders of futuristic sustainable architecture on a grand scale, and the Belgian architectural firm certainly doesn't disappoint with its vision of a smart and sustainable Paris.