Some projects operate on a slightly larger, architectural scale, providing light and mobile shelters. Michael Rakowitz devised an inflatable plastic tent that’s heated by exhaust air from buildings. Originally conceived for a homeless man, it’s the most basic sort of emergency housing, one that offers protection from the elements but little in the way of comfort. A translucent bubble shelter by Haus-Rucker-Co, that’s suspended off the side of a building, is a much lovelier solution. There’s a seat inside and two decorative palm trees. Yet it too feels isolating, as if its inhabitant were being kept under quarantine. Pablo Reinoso created an ethereal, cloud-like dome that shelters two people. There’s something especially haunting about the spectacle of them trapped within the conditioned membrane, able to see and speak to one another but cut off from the rest of the world.
     Other projects try to contain entire landscapes so that they’ll remain habitable. When Buckminster Fuller first proposed Dome Over Manhattan in 1960 it was a happy futuristic vision. But now it feels more like a sobering reality, as scientists search for viable ways to shield large cities from atmospheric pollutants and ultraviolet light. Photographer Ilkka Halso uses digital modeling techniques to depict hyper-real, edenic landscapes that are enclosed within architectural megastructures. In this world there’s no earth or atmosphere left, no native flora or fauna at all. All that remains is what we’ve cultivated within these huge hothouses.
     What’s most unsettling about Climate Capsules is that the sense of doom about the pieces is more than just a shared artistic vision. It emerges from an understanding of real stresses in our environment, stresses that, if left unchecked, could be fatal.