Solarpunk started out as a speculative fiction genre. Now it informs sustainable architecture and design

Who knew the iconic Hills Hoist could be considered solarpunk?

Solarpunk is a futurist movement that began in speculative fiction and sci-fi films and has since spread to architecture and design. Practitioners envision a clean and green future built on principles of sustainability, social justice, and collective action.

The name spells it out. ‘Solar’ signals optimism and a strong association with renewable energy, while ‘punk’ reflects a DIY ethos and an anti-capitalist philosophy.

Jay Springett, a UK writer and podcaster, has been involved in the solarpunk community for 10 years.

He describes solarpunk as “a container for ideas about the future … whether it’s a picture of a lean-to greenhouse or [street] curb cuts for … managing street runoff into basins for trees,” he says.

Despite its futuristic ambitions, solarpunk design can be surprisingly low-tech, with people using everyday objects to make their homes and communities more sustainable.

He offers the “micro-example” of how someone transformed a disused red phone box in their UK village into a seed library, which he saw a blogger post about on a solarpunk forum during the pandemic.

“As the weeks go by, people start leaving pot plants there for [other] people to take and swap,” he says.

Even using a clothesline to dry laundry — a radical idea for North Americans who tend to rely on clothes dryers year-round — can be considered solarpunk.

And Springett is particularly enthusiastic about the Hills Hoist. “Those things are awesome,” he says.

Bending the rules for a brighter future

The solarpunk city features vertical forests, rooftop gardens, biodomes and wind turbines. It’s an aesthetic that melds the urban with nature — think Wakanda in the Black Panther films or Disney’s Strange World.

These futurist visions may call to mind advanced technology such as robotics and generative AI.

But solarpunk is all about using existing technology to create a brighter future, says Matthew Wizinksy.

The associate professor of Practice in Urban Technology at the University of Michigan, taught a course in solarpunk design for architecture students in 2023.

“[Solarpunk] is viewing design not so much as being responsible for novel or innovative techniques or forms, but really about taking existing knowledge, distributing that knowledge and encouraging broader participation in how we live our everyday lives,” he tells ABC RN’s Blueprint for Living.

Wizinksy runs public workshops where he introduces participants to solarpunk ideas before presenting them with a practical task that puts the theory into practice.

“We would build something like a top-loading updraft stove out of metal scrap to make biochar, which is itself a carbon sequestration process, or we would build a hydroponic system … for home use,” he says.

“[We] then hope that we are also planting the seed of a community that would share knowledge and … materials — and even maybe share the harvest of whatever they were making in those workshops.”

For Wizinsky, solarpunk offers an opportunity to solve some of humanity’s most pressing problems.

“What’s great about solarpunk … is it’s not closed and dogmatic; it’s open and inviting,” he says.

And while solarpunk fans don’t necessarily break the law, they are happy to bend the rules in their pursuit of a brighter future.

Many solarpunk practices hack systems of authority to achieve their aim, Wizinsky says.

A movement grounded in the present

Solarpunk may have its sights set on the future, but Springett believes it’s a movement firmly grounded in present-day efforts to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

“We know things are going to be difficult,” he says.

“Solarpunk is at its best when it’s about people doing the things that need doing in the face of adversiy. The journey en route for me is what solarpunk is all about, rather than [what comes] after the new dawn.”

Wizinsky isn’t surprised the solarpunk movement is gaining traction at a time when people are growing increasingly concerned about social equity and the state of the planet.

“For young people who have grown up [against] the backdrop of the 2008 financial crisis, the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Black Lives Matter movement … those of us in creative and design professions are really questioning what we’re doing,” he says.