Solarpunk, Biophilic Design, and Me

Updated: Jun 30, 2023

How I encountered the concepts of Solarpunk and Biophilic Design and how it ties into my YA Science Fantasy series, Spark and Blizzard.

I’ve had a passion for nature and the natural world that started in childhood. Briefly, during university, I wanted to get into ecology as a profession. While life led me in another direction, my interest in nature stuck around. In the 2010s, I dove full on into fiction writing. One project I had was searching for nature themed images online and drafting short stories based on the images. Being me, most of these stories would take on a fantasy or science fiction take and eventually weave a longer narrative.

During my countless hours looking at nature photos and inspiration for future stories, I also stumbled upon some futuristic images of greenery and metal fused together. Those caught my attention in a different way than the others, igniting my dormant interest in futurism. Searching further led me to discover the concept called Solarpunk, and, being the curious person I am, I dug straight into it.

What is Solarpunk?

Solarpunk is a fairly new term, coined in 2008 and further defined in the years following as an exploration of a sustainable society and how humanity can get there. It emerged into a genre of speculative fiction and an art movement, all focused on living in harmony with nature, renewable energy, and the optimistic future envisioned by both. While it shares the rebellious spirit of other “punks” like Cyberpunk, Solarpunk counters the bleak post-apocalyptic and dystopian visions of the future common in 20th and early 21st-century fiction, like Fahrenheit 451, 1984, The Hunger Games or Red Rising, among others. While I love The Hunger Games, I wanted a bright and hopeful futuristic setting, much like the Space Age futurism I read and watched growing up. It was perfect for a future full of human advancements without leaving nature behind or fighting against it to achieve.

The Solarpunk aesthetic is pleasing for me with its yellow, green, and blue color ranges. It takes cues from plant life, art nouveau, solar panels, stained glass, wind turbines, and others. I researched earthships, algae lighting, aquaponics and so much more, all with philosophies of reusing infrastructure, and biophilic design, a form of high-tech futurism prominent in many Solarpunk images, as well as the discovery that Solarpunk was already here.

Biophilic design, while not directly connected to Solarpunk, is an architectural concept defined by International Living Future Institute as “connecting people and nature within human built environments and communities”. Buildings and even entire cities intertwine with the natural environment to create unique spaces like green walls, open spaces with flora and fauna, and much more. It’s a major contrast from the sensory-deprived and artificial settings that society’s been building toward over the past few centuries. I spent many more hours looking for these buildings and concepts in photos and later watched TV shows like How Did They Build That? which covered how these structures were designed and built. Places in the real world with biophilic design include Little Island and The High Line in New York City, the Bosco Verticale in Milan, and Changi Airport in Singapore, all of which I would love to see in person.

Many of these photos, along with hundreds more, live on a Pinterest board I created years later, dedicated to Solarpunk and biophilic design, and I’m still adding pictures on a regular basis.

Solarpunk and My Writing Journey

Through all of this, I gained an appreciation for and understanding of how Solarpunk can work in both real life and fiction. I poured all I learned into the nature pictures project, and by 2017, it evolved into a series of short stories woven together into a larger narrative of a teenage mage living in the future and discovering a horrible secret in a ruined city. Due to waning interest, I shelved the project at the end of 2017, along with the handful of short stories I wrote.

So was all my research into this shelved too? Little did I know I would be reusing many of the concepts for another project.

In late 2017, my WIP that would become Spark and Blizzard was a generic YA Urban Fantasy that lacked an identity of its own. My story was going nowhere fast and some harsh critique woke me up to this fact. I set it down for a few months and spent the fall of 2017 working on another project for NaNoWriMo. With fresh eyes, I returned to it at the start of 2018. After some consideration, I threw away almost everything but the main characters and a couple of basic concepts. With the mentality of “write what I want”, I came up with a brand new premise. I examined the nature themes, which were lost in the cliches of previous drafts, and realized that Solarpunk was perfect to mix into the world building. At that point I decided to set the story in the near future, bringing conservation themes to the forefront.

Ironically, it wasn’t until the summer of 2018 when I encountered, and later read, a book called Solarpunk Summers, the first fictional book I’ve read that was explicitly Solarpunk. The short stories in the anthology had varied premises and ideas to draw from, showing the potential of this fairly young genre. While I didn’t read any more explicitly Solarpunk books until Solarpunk Winters from the same publisher in 2020, I had a base for what was possible in the genre. I realized that Solarpunk concepts have been around in fiction for a while, even if they weren’t called that. I put a bunch of books, both new and old, in a list on Goodreads to keep track. A game from one of my favorite series, Sonic CD, weaves nature and technology together in eye pleasing imagery with each zone’s Good Future. There was so much more to integrate and bend to my own interests, and yet, Solarpunk is still not recognized in mainstream “punk” fiction. Each time I talk about it, many people mention it being the first time ever coming across the word.

One of my goals with Spark and Blizzard is to highlight a potential future where humanity is more in touch with nature instead of detached and apathetic to its fate. With each revision, I added another layer to the Solarpunk concept, until it sprung a life of its own, becoming another character in a unique YA Science Fantasy series. While some of the magic is unrealistic, I see aspects of the setting and philosophies as achievable by the end of this century.

Spark and Blizzard is a YA Fantasy series that I’m self publishing under my imprint. The story features plenty of action, adventure, magic, and a well-rounded cast of characters, alongside nature conservation themes in a Solarpunk inspired near future setting. It’s perfect for those who loved Renegades by Marisa Meyer and anything by Marie Lu. It’s also great for anime and JRPG fans. You can find out more about the Spark and Blizzard series here.

The blog entry was inspired by an Instagram post I uploaded on 11 July 2022, expanded from the platform’s 2200 character limit.