Cryptocurrency millionaire Jeffrey Berns plans to build a new blockchain campus in Northern Nevada desert, creating a high-tech community center based on blockchain technology. 

And, the first images have been revealed for a smart city campus that will be developed by Los Angeles-based firms Tom Wiscombe Architecture and Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects.

Berns, who owns the cryptocurrency company Blockchains L.L.C, purchased more than 67,000 acres of land in Northern Nevada to design a new kind of business and residential community campus, by paying $170 million for the land, according to the New York Times. 

Called Innovation Park, the project will be developed as a smart city with decentralized blockchain underlying all infrastructure. Among other projects, the city will include a highly secured, high-tech Blockchains Campus that joins blockchain technology with artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing and nanotechnology; residential units that will provide a new living environment to thousands; and various financial, business and retail concepts that will take advantage of emerging technologies.

In the first step, the architects will construct an 1,000 acre campus that will accomodate startups and high-tech companies working on applications such as AI and 3D printing to help bring about the high-tech city. 

The aim of the project to showcase how business development, residential living and commerce can flourish alongside world changing technologies. 

"Efficiency, sustainability, transparency and provenance will not be compromised, but guaranteed," said the architects. 

By using multiple innovative technologies, those implementations will change the way its residents interact on a daily basis and blockchain technology and will be at the center of it all – keeping systems honest, fair and democratic. 

In this general masterplan, Tom Wiscombe Architecture and Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects will assist in the vision of this environment and the architectural possibilities unleashed with the integration of this paradigm shifting technology. 

"To support innovation and collaboration on this scale, new building typologies have been developed to support communication and creativity, such as massive workplace/manufacturing hybrids, where inventions are prototyped and where they are conceived," said Tom Wiscombe Architecture. 

The team will design large interior civic-scale spaces and shaded green courtyards serving as community areas for meeting, learning, and possibly the next disruptive idea. Autonomous vehicles, rather than simply moving between buildings, will also provide circulation inside and through vast buildings.

"For those who will call this smart city home, the integration of these advanced technologies will provide tangible improvements to the human experience," added the team.

"When planning for vehicles that are autonomous and 100% electric, the living environment and pedestrian experience can be made human-centric (safe, quiet, clean) rather than car-centric." 

The new campus will allow individuals, couples and families to thrive, providing a range of housing opportunities from single family on the hillside, to communal living with shared amenities in larger multi-family / mixed use buildings below. Civic centers, schools, and commercial areas are woven throughout, creating density, walkability and above all, community.

With the concept of regenerative design at its core, the city will be grounded within its high desert home. Energy will be provided by renewable sources such as next generation solar and wind. 

Water, the most precious resource, will be recycled and reclaimed to get the most from every drop. The buildings will seek to integrate within this landscape, connecting inhabitants to the environment and to the desert sublime.

All images courtesy of Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects & Tom Wiscombe Architecture

> via Blockchains L.L.C & Tom Wiscombe Architecture & Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects