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Architecture & design studio  
in New York led by Sasha Topolnytska.

Ascension

2nd Place Winner in Architectural Fairy Tales 2018 Competition by Blank Space
Media: ArchDaily, Smithsonian Magazine, Bustler, World Architecture

Illustration,  story-telling From the diary of the unknown survivor.

I woke up laying on my back. My head hurt and I felt dizzy. I pulled away a chair that was laying on my leg. I felt a terrible pain in my right shoulder. I was still in my apartment or at least it looked like it, except it was upside down and I was sitting on a ceiling. All of my furniture laid around me. I tried to think of the last thing that I could remember before I woke up: I was sitting in my chair in my living room and reading the news on my laptop and then – I remember nothing. I woke up. Confused, I starred at my room. It almost looked like someone rotated it 180 degrees. Is this why my shoulder hurts because I landed on it as I was falling down (up)? Nonsense. Is this why my coffee table is missing and there is a giant hole in a floor or what was a ceiling the last time I remember? I got up and walked toward my window in search for any sign of explanation. As I looked out I was stunned. I suddenly remembered the headline of the news I was reading right before it happened: “The World is Loosing Its Gravity to Us”.

Conitnue reading below...
It’s been 20 years since the day the world lost its gravity to us. I am one of the survivors that did not drift into space. I was one of the lucky once who on the day it happened was inside of a building, a building that was grounded well enough into the Earth’s crust to not fly out into the sky. At first, it looked like everything on Earth has lost its gravity, but as we started to look around we realized that the trees, plants, rocks, and animals were still living on the Earth’s surface. After some time of grieving and sadness, what happened has finally started to settle in. We were punished, prohibited from living on the surface of this planet.It is almost as if the Earth shacked itself off of all of the unnecessary things: humans and all human-made.

We live in between, trying to survive everyday with fear of falling into space.

Earth no longer pulls us toward itself. We no longer can step on its surface. In order to survive in this world we had to figure out how to move around the space that surrounded us. Since we no longer could easily walk out of our buildings without falling “up” we had to invent a system of circulation. First, we used buildings and poles as a point of attachment for our circulation systems. Soon we realized that buildings and manmade objects will eventually get ripped off the ground once you put more weight on it. We had to figure out another way of moving around. Trees belong to the surface of the Earth. Trees are rooted into the ground and did not lose their gravity. They still belonged. We started using trees as points of attachment for our circulation systems. There were not enough trees in the cities, so we started planting more. We planted trees on roads, sidewalks, and everywhere else. Trees grew tall and wide. We had to be careful with the materials we selected for walking surfaces of our circulation systems. Materials had to be permeable to not cast heavy shadows on the surface of the ground and light. Our survival depended on trees receiving enough sunlight. We also had to be strategic and careful about how much weight we put on the circulation systems. We had to walk in small groups so that the weight of us did not cause a tree to be ripped from the ground. We learned how to live in cities with no gravity. For some time… But soon we realized that cities are no longer safe for us to live in.

Man and ground are no longer one.

The trees and plants started to populate city streets, spreading their roots deep into the ground. As a result of heavy vegetation it became unsafe to live in cities. Sidewalks and roads started to crack, breaking, detaching and shooting up into the sky destroying our circulation systems. With time buildings fell apart piece by piece and flew into space. It became unsafe to live inside of buildings in a city. We had to leave. We had to move to forests, away from cities and the deteriorating conditions. We planted more trees and moved further into the outskirts. Planting, building, and relocating.

We live in a forest now. A forest that we cherish and preserve, it helps us to stay here. Our houses are attached to tree trunks. Our homes are minimal and lightweight. We don’t own furniture, we don’t need any. The gravity is reversed for us, the sunlight enters our homes though the floor and we had to adjust our homes accordingly. Every day we wake up thankful for still being here. Every day we hold on to Earth that no longer wants us, no longer wants to receive our bodies. Every day we hope. We hope that maybe someday the Earth will forgive us.