Define the starting conditions and clearly mark which details are fictional or supported by records.
500 Queens / Resurface & Expansion Planning
Resurface & Expansion Planning
Plan how a settlement could adapt, return to the surface or expand without trapping people in the original design.
Follow the connections. Choose your direction.
The need worth working on.
A resilient settlement needs options when conditions change. Resurfacing and expansion raise questions about land, ecology, access, livelihoods and who decides the next phase. The concept should include the possibility that people prefer to leave or change the plan rather than assuming continuous growth is always desirable.
What the enterprise could offer.
Create a scenario-planning tool for an explicitly hypothetical settlement or an existing facility considering adaptation. Compare phased expansion, service upgrades, relocation and restoration using the same human and environmental criteria. The enterprise could provide participatory planning and dependency analysis without making site or construction claims.
People to build with
- Community and infrastructure planners
- Facility owners
- Scenario and environmental researchers
Three futures for one hypothetical place
Co-design three different futures with participants, including a non-expansion option.
Map service, land, ecological and governance dependencies for each pathway.
Identify reversible first actions, decision triggers and the evidence needed before committing to major works.
The first result
A scenario atlas, decision-trigger table and a staged research or planning brief.
What needs to be demonstrated.
Speculative concept
The starting evidence
The archive links resurfacing and expansion to subterranean cities. No site, settlement or agreed development programme is established.
The open question
Which future conditions would justify expansion, return to the surface, relocation or a different form of adaptation.
The next measurement
Unresolved dependencies, reversibility of early actions and participant understanding of the trade-offs.
Build the means to deliver.
Useful capabilities and resources
- Participatory planning expertise
- Environmental and infrastructure input
- Transparent scenario assumptions
A possible business model
Scenario workshops and adaptation-planning services can be tested with existing organisations before a speculative settlement is involved.
A leadership decision to practise
Protect future residents' ability to revise the original plan and choose their own environment.
People, consequences and decisions.
- Growth assumptions can exclude restoration or exit.
- A compelling map can imply land rights that do not exist.
- Long time horizons can hide unfunded obligations.
If equality were being designed now...
- Can women residents choose restoration, relocation or a smaller future rather than having expansion decided for them?
- What housing, care and livelihood continuity would women need during a transition back to the surface or another place?
Begin with women's own experiences across bodies, ages, cultures and places. Invite disagreement and choose a practical change together.
Create a women-led design brief →Build your learning council.
Build alongside these ideas.
Simulations and robotsSubterranean City Building
Break the underground-city vision into inspectable systems, human needs and decisions that can be tested.
Speculative concept
Waste reclamationSubterranean City Displaced Muck
Plan excavated-material handling before a major underground project creates the material.
Engineering development
Subterranean citiesGamification of Governance
Make civic participation engaging while keeping real decisions accountable to the people affected.
Practical pilot
Follow existing public concept work.
Connected public conceptFuture of Life 2045
Explore possible futures for relationships, living systems, intelligence, movement, science and culture.
Connected public conceptMinjerribah Living Twin
A browser simulation explores connections between island ecology, services, movement and everyday life.
Connected public conceptGrain by Grain
A documentary concept connects everyday life with long-term resilience, existential threats and a seven-generation civilisation story.
From the original suggestion to a working brief.
Original concept from 500 Queens VC NEW Long, slide 16; current context from the September 2026 planning document. This expanded brief and pilot are proposed development, not evidence of an operating enterprise or confirmed partnership.
Original title: Resurface & Expansion Planning. The pilot, business model and learning connections on this page are proposed developments of that original idea.