Writing Sci-Fi Could Make Architects Better at Their Jobs

At the beginning of "Welcome to the 5th Façade," a science-fiction story by architect Alan Maskin, a nameless man awakes from a cryogenic freeze. It is an unspecified date in the mid-21st century, and he's been in "big sleep," as his cryonic technician puts it, since suffering a massive heart attack decades before. He finds things drastically different. Kinetic vertical farms decorate the neo-classical brick buildings that still stand. Above them rises a new layer of the city, where farms, parks, and energy-harvesting machines form a new, high-rise urban landscape.