A few years ago, I ordered a cheap crystal ball from Amazon. I don’t remember why. Maybe I thought it would be fun. Maybe I thought it was beautiful. Either way, I never opened the box. It’s been sitting on the shelf since then, gathering dust, like a lot of other ideas of mine. Yesterday, I opened the box.

Why? Because I’d just read an article in The Guardian about a geoengineering research meeting at Cambridge University: “Mirrors in Space and Underwater Curtains: Can Technology Buy Us Enough Time to Save the Arctic Ice Caps?” The article describes how smart people—professors, scientists, engineers, people with lots of letters after their names—are meeting to discuss how to stop polar ice from melting. The ice is going fast, they say. Fast, fast, fast. So dire are the ramifications that researchers are pitching Hail Mary space mirrors and giant ocean curtains. It’s a Bond movie where the villain is a ticking environmental clock.

The researchers want to buy time. They say they must buy time. Buy it with technology. Buy it with things they’re not sure will work—or things that might work, but maybe not the way they hope.

This got me thinking about architecture. I recalled how, at the recent American Institute of Architects conference in Boston, all kinds of climate change–mitigation ideas were being promoted. Some of them were wildly creative. Some were just plain wild, maybe as far-fetched as what the great minds in Cambridge were proposing.

Urgency plus unknowns equals “What could possibly go wrong?” I sarcastically said to myself. I reached for my crystal ball, dusted it off, and stared inside. It seemed as though the moment was ripe for a bit of perspective divination. No time like the present to ask a clairvoyant how history might judge our efforts to save us from ourselves.

Here’s how my discussion with a piece of glass went.

Crystal, crystal, deep and wide,

Or whatever you are inside,

Lay out humanity’s path in text,

And visualize for me what comes next.

The orb rippled in my fingers, faintly, as if stirred by a hidden breeze. I felt its weight shift and vibrate, like the thing was tapping into me, tapping into my head. 

Then the words and visions came.

“It is 2030,” Crystal telegraphed my brain. “Geoengineering to slow polar ice melting begins. Governments and coalitions deploy large-scale marine cloud brightening, stratospheric aerosols, and other experimental technologies to stabilize Arctic ice. Meanwhile, architects develop designs incorporating climate adaptation features, like floating buildings and flood-resistant cities.”

In the glass, I saw, or thought I saw, an ocean village off the coast of Korea. Structures bobbing on the water, hoping not to sink. Then, aircraft appeared, tracing thin white lines across the sky. Back and forth they went, until the ball clouded over.

So there I was, sitting in my chair, holding an $11 crystal ball that had just shown me a future of floating villages and cloud factories. Maybe I should stop here, I thought. Maybe I should put the orb back on the shelf, head to Starbucks, and get on with my day. But no. I wanted my money’s worth from the thing.

Does this stuff really work, Crystal? Can we really monkey around with Earth’s thermostat and expect it to say thanks?

“Yes and no,” she replied. “For a time, the ice loss slows, and politicians declare victory. But beneath the triumph lies a quiet dread that spreads among the research community. Scientists measure currents gone awry, rain patterns shifting, famine blooming where breadbaskets once thrived.”

Exactly what I was afraid of. What about us architects? Do we come out any better than the scientists five years from now? Or are we just drawing prettier Titanic deck plans?

“Architects work hard to turn cities into resilient environments. Climaturgic designers become adept at converting roads into instant drainage capillaries and seashores into fortresses.”

The orb showed me a street cleverly channeling floodwater back to the ocean. A young girl in rubber boots stood behind a pop-up barrier, safe and dry, dropping paper boats into the current that used to be her street.

What does “climaturgic” mean?

“It’s a rough English translation of the name future historians, in a language yet to come, will give to architecture that strove, but ultimately failed, to adapt to climate change.”

English translation? Strove and failed? Phooey. Time to put Crystal back on the shelf and look up Amazon’s refund policy.

But my hand refused to let go. I had to know what happened next.

“You sure about that?”

Hit me.

Crystal pulsed like a heartbeat. “It is now 2050. The world has lived two decades with the unintended side effects of manmade climate repair. Altered weather patterns, regional droughts, and political strife abound. Climate geoengineering is abandoned. All efforts are now on adaptation, but the damage done is great. With global warming continuing apace, architecture enters an age beyond fortification. It enters an age of retreat. Architects start building bunker-like environments and vertical farms inside sealed habitats. Bastionism becomes the prevalent architectural style.” 

Crystal displayed what I assume was a young designer casting her initials into the wet concrete of a half-buried shelter. Was it a quiet act of defiance against anonymity? An epitaph? I suddenly became unsure about following our timeline into the future. 

And then I remembered SpaceX. Crystal, how many of us fly on a starship to Mars? Do we get there? And do we develop a new kind of architecture to suit our new planet, an off-world architectural style?

“In 2100, fueled by breakthroughs in propulsion, life support, resource utilization, and the urgent need for a backup planet, we complete the first large-scale permanent Mars base. Private companies participate, but mainly international government cooperation is responsible for reaching this milestone. What becomes known as ‘Martian architecture’ develops, combining surface geodesic domes with sealed grottos and burrows where people live. Everything centers on life support and radiation protection.”

I watched a young boy press his face to a dome’s transparent panel. He was staring at a tiny pale blue dot in the night sky, perhaps not knowing it was home to his grandparents. 

Well, at least Plan B works. It appears humanity saves itself.

“The population on Mars in 2100 is less than 100,000 souls.”

But it grows, right?

“By 2200, we’ve established another settlement. ‘Marstopia’ is a million strong. That’s when terraforming begins.”

The same geoengineering stunts that failed on Earth? I pray we do better this time.

“Scientists use similar technology, like orbital mirrors and atmospheric seeding, but also more advanced mechanisms, such as synthetic biology air factories. Concurrently, Martian exodomic architects pioneer closed-loop ecosystems, habitat self-repair, and modular growth design.”

And what’s happening here on Earth?

“By 2300, Earth’s global warming reduces the human population by two-thirds. Extreme heat, sea level rise, ecological collapse, and resource wars shrink the planet’s population from 9 billion to 3 billion. Large coastal cities are abandoned, mass migrations head inland, food and water scarcity are rampant. Open-air architecture is largely forgotten as surviving cities transform into sealed, self-contained habitats. Many people live in underground safe havens, leading to the rise of an architectural style that will be called Cavernism.”

Good Lord. Looks like the seeds of humanity got off the planet just in time.

“Not quite. Somewhere around 2500, Mars terraforming fails. Martian colonies retreat underground as well.” Crystal’s glow flickered, as if exhausted by the telling of yet another catastrophic upheaval.

I also felt the weight of all that had been lost.

What went wrong this time?

“Same as before. Terraforming stalled due to technological limitations and unforeseen circumstances, particularly the unpredictable planetary dynamics that allowed the new atmosphere to escape into space. Surface habitats were abandoned in favor of cavern systems, which provided thermal stability and radiation protection. The Martian population reached almost 4 million, though, primarily through continued migration but partially from natural growth. Martian architecture became entirely subterranean: vast carved caverns, layered tunnels, and fusion-powered domes beneath the regolith.”

Keep going. Do we come up with a Plan C?

“Yes, but it takes time to get there.”

Take me there, Crystal. I’m in too deep to bail out now.

“2700 CE. By this time, global warming has ended Earth’s remaining terrestrial human civilization. Extreme temperatures, collapse of food systems, and loss of habitability eliminate organized Earth society. Pockets of subsurface survivors persist briefly, but planetary conditions are too hostile. There are no new constructions above or underground, only remaining survival structures maintained by dwindling populations, which future historians call architectural Ruinalism.”

Happy to hear there will be future historians, at least.

“Plan C tentatively begins in the year 3000. That’s when Mars humans establish a small cave colony on Earth. Martian society launches expeditions to the old home world seeking resources. The colony, shielded from the now mostly uninhabitable Earth surface, is founded under the South Pole, one of the few surviving temperate zones left. Martian proto-substratic architects become experts at cavern shaping, tunnel engineering, and subterranean atmospheric control. Stone becomes humanity’s medium for art, architecture, and survival.”

What goes around comes around, someone said. Never understood what that meant until now. We started as cavemen. We become cavemen again.

“Speaking of coming around, in 5000 CE, Mars is struck by an asteroid. All Martian life is extinguished.”

My mind froze. Millions of souls, two planets, and centuries of effort, wiped out by a single rock with an unfortunate trajectory. At this point, any sensible person would’ve put the crystal ball down, thrown it out, or walked away to stare at the sky while it was still there. But I kept holding on. Because, really, what else was there to do?

“I can end the timeline anytime you like.”

I don’t like it.

“The catastrophic impact on Mars destroys its remaining ecosystem. Shockwaves collapse all underground habitats. Martian civilization ends. Earth’s cave colony of fewer than 15,000 individuals becomes the last branch of humanity in the solar system. The colony’s few architects create substratic designs that fuse artistry and engineering into environmental subterranean masterworks.”

“Hope Hangs on a Thread”—that’s how I’d name this chapter.

“And the thread grows, slowly but surely. By 15000 CE, Earth’s polar cave-dwellers expand to 50 million, thanks to advances in subterranean space design, underground agriculture, and gene management. It takes millennia, but Earth’s cave humans thrive, bore vast new caverns, develop complex underground cities and ecosystems, giving rise to architecture’s rich Lithoglyphic Age.”

I want to buy this history book. Will a future me be able to get it on Amazon?

“There will be no Amazon, commercially, literally, or historically.”

Explain.

“Well before 50000 CE, all cultural memory of Earth’s previous surface life fades. That’s because languages evolve, oral histories degrade, and myths replace records. Eons of massive population disruptions compound to accelerate the loss of cultural continuity. Amazon, as a commercial concept or name for a place on Earth, is lost to time.”

Hard to believe.

“Believe it. Living on the surface of either planet and all that entailed becomes a concept in legend, not history. Roughly 350,000 years of Earth’s human prehistory and 10,000 years of advanced terrestrial civilizations on Earth and Mars vanish. The only historical records left are of humans’ relatively recent underground existences on Earth and Mars.”

And what becomes of my profession?

“Mostly gone. Geocryptic architecture is indistinguishable from geology. There is a deep integration between the fields, with no clear distinction between natural caves and designed cavern spaces. What few remaining ‘architects’ that exist are seen more as tending to stone than building with it.”

But all of architectural history can’t vanish entirely, can it? Surely some Earth relics remain waiting to be discovered, even if no one knows how to interpret them. Look how long the Pyramids have survived.

“As of 2025, the Pyramids have only been around 4,600 years. That’s a mere word or two in humanity’s epic story. By 100000 CE, Earth’s axial precession and orbital variations (aka Milanković cycles) begin a natural cooling phase. Ice sheets slowly advance from the poles (precisely the opposite of what’s happening today from carbon loading), thickening over tens of thousands of years, burying vast regions in kilometers of ice.”

Do the ancestors of the Mars colony on Earth survive the global winter?

“They do. They survive by digging deeper underground, which severely curtails population growth. Still, they make it through the worst of times.”

At last, hope. That’s what I bought the crystal ball for, I now realize.

I imagine you’re about to show me some caveman geologist emerging from his hole and stumbling upon the remnants of a lost city—New York maybe, or Caracas, or Beijing. The evolutionary loop will thus close. Humans will rediscover their ancient past. They’ll learn about us, the advanced society that preceded them. They’ll understand the mistakes we made and vow never to repeat them. Am I right, Crystal?

“You are wrong. By the time Earth’s Martian cave dwellers emerge, in 500000 CE, the ice age has ended, with the vast majority of previous civilizations’ remnants erased. Retreating glaciers, plate tectonics, volcanic forces, erosion, rising and falling sea levels, changing coastlines, and time effectively wipe away all traces of prior human presence on Earth. Nothing tangible survives—no metal, no concrete, no plastic, and certainly nothing organic, like paper. Nothing survives except a few ceramic shards and small bits of glass.”

Small bits of glass like you?

“Like me. Everything else manmade is gone. Evidence of what was once Homo sapiens and earlier hominids’ world is lost for eternity. Earth’s previous archeological record is a blank slate.”

My heart stopped. My head imploded.

“Cheer up. Earth’s subterranean cities are now home to half a billion Homo subterraneus. Architecture is once again a thing, albeit completely subterranean. Humanity is on the upswing down there.”

Great.

“Until it’s not.”

Must you keep breaking my heart?

“It’s what I do, and I’m not done yet. But first, a silver lining. Sometime around 600000 CE, a mini–Ice Age arrives. Massive meltwater disruptions of ocean circulation, triggered by volcanic eruptions, cause glaciers to rapidly advance. In less than five years, polar sheet ice’s weight threatens humanity’s subterranean cities. Cave-dwelling humans face another cataclysm: structural collapses, crushed tunnels, and forced migrations toward equatorial latitude caves. Architecture as a profession reemerges with the cryostratist movement, designs focused on surviving and managing ice pressure and adapting to glacial dynamics.”

That’s a “silver lining”? 

“No, that’s what I call a bad pun. Hang in there, though. By 700000 CE, the glacial ice age comes to an end. Earth’s surface gradually becomes habitable again. The cooling climate softens the extreme conditions of the past. Although the polar regions remain dangerous, Earth’s equator stabilizes, offering pockets of arable land with breathable air, liquid water, and temperate weather. After hundreds of thousands of years living underground, on- and off-planet, humanity slowly relearns how to survive beneath the open sky. Historians later call buildings of this period Neoclassical (approximate translation again), an architectural style that blends cave-honed techniques with experimental surface structures designed to protect against an unpredictable sky and climate.”

Does anyone else but me appreciate the irony of “Neoclassical”?

“No one living then possibly can. But if you’re looking for irony, consider this.” The orb showed me a short, stocky man with huge eyes and pale skin tentatively stepping out of a cave. He touched a nearby tree’s bark with bare hands, not knowing our word for it, but appreciating it as a wonder. Other cave people soon joined him. Together, they felled the tree. Then another. Then another. They seemed to know what they were doing. I’m guessing they were several generations removed from the first reemergent humans. The orb’s vision then dissolved into a settlement of primitive huts: human society once again land-based.

“Happy now?”

Moderately. Zoom out, Crystal. I need some assurance that this will last. Show me how we’re doing in the year 1000000 CE.

“Allow me to suggest you quit while you’re ahead.”

Fine. I was tired anyway, mentally. I took a breath while the orb cooled in my hand. Back in the box you go, old girl.

But as I closed the lid, a thought lingered. Maybe one day, a million years from now, someone will find my crystal ball miraculously encased in stone. Maybe they’ll chip out the orb. Maybe Crystal will telegraph them what we built during the first 5,000 years of human civilization. What we hoped for during our time. What we got. And all that humankind is destined to forget.

Maybe, but I no longer care. I’m headed to Starbucks and not looking back.

Featured image by the author.