SYNTOPIA EPISTEME a Design Odyssey
by Gregory P. Moulinet · June 2026
The old world is sinking...
...but one young woman is designing a new one.
Not a utopia. Not a dystopia. A syntopia.
A solarpunk floating future for stateless sea nomads. A future empires cannot tolerate. When hired guns close in, she designs resistance.
Floating Eden Defies Empires.
As the world is being parceled out, Ayesha, born Bajau, a stateless Southeast Asian sea dweller, loses her mother in a traumatic accident. Orphaned in Sumatra, adopted in Singapore, her Leonardesque gift for drawing leads her to study design in France.
Upon returning to her beleaguered stilt village, Ayesha commits herself to helping her maritime community by prototyping self-sustaining floating islands from salvaged plastic and low-tech ingenuity, with the support of her former orphanage bully turned corporate lawyer, a retired U.S. Army engineer, and a gifted Bajau teenager.
But when her half-moon, glinting Eden draws predation, relentless pressure and intimidation from hired guns follow.
Can the Bajau keep their future afloat when land-dwellers keep dragging it under?
About SYNTOPIA EPISTEME a Design Odyssey
The old world is sinking...
...but one young woman is designing a new one.
Not a utopia. Not a dystopia. A syntopia.
A solarpunk floating future for stateless sea nomads. A future empires cannot tolerate. When hired guns close in, she designs resistance.
Floating Eden Defies Empires.
As the world is being parceled out, Ayesha, born Bajau, a stateless Southeast Asian sea dweller, loses her mother in a traumatic accident. Orphaned in Sumatra, adopted in Singapore, her Leonardesque gift for drawing leads her to study design in France.
Upon returning to her beleaguered stilt village, Ayesha commits herself to helping her maritime community by prototyping self-sustaining floating islands from salvaged plastic and low-tech ingenuity, with the support of her former orphanage bully turned corporate lawyer, a retired U.S. Army engineer, and a gifted Bajau teenager.
But when her half-moon, glinting Eden draws predation, relentless pressure and intimidation from hired guns follow.
Can the Bajau keep their future afloat when land-dwellers keep dragging it under?
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Gregory P. Moulinet
Gregory P. Moulinet (b. 1971) is a professor of systemic design with a biocentric outlook. Since the early 90s, he has (re)designed dozens of brand identities in Tokyo, New York, Beijing, and Shanghai. Author of the SYNTOPIA series, a Solarpunk Design Fiction, he now lives in Suzhou, China, with his wife and their treasured Eurasian daughter.
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