At the beginning of the 1970s, the world had to face a new kind of disaster. An energy crisis was altering the political and economic balance of the whole world. Francisco Scaramanga, a man with a dark past who became very rich through mysterious circumstances, decided to realize an artificial island capable of producing and storing solar energy through the use of experimental devices – a self-sufficient island conceived to navigate the oceans as a cruise liner.

London, 1974

• Good evening, Mr Scaramanga!
• Good evening.
• Please, take a seat. Would you like something to drink . . . ? A scotch?
• No, thanks. Is the island project ready?
• For sure, sir. It is.
• Let me see.
• Here you are. These are the drawings.
• Hmmm . . .
• As you can see I designed a sequence of spaces that grows through the whole highness of the island, whose interior is dug out in order to maintain the naturalness of the appearance of the island’s surface. At the bottom there are all the technical spaces and the plants, including the machine room housing the engines and the access door for the submarine. However, the most important space is the solar energy station, the beating heart of the system. Believe me, sir, there is nothing like it in the whole world. The system works by means of thermoelectric generators that convert solar energy into electricity and super-conductivity coils that are cooled by liquid helium kept at a temperature of -453° Fahrenheit, absolute zero. Everything will be automated and, thanks to the Solex Agitator, your island will be completely self-sufficient, Mr Scaramanga.
• Very interesting, architect. How much energy can be produced using this technology?
• Well, it is not easy to calculate that with precision. We are talking about a technology capable of solving the energy crisis of the entire planet, sir.
• Thus the island could be a sort of prototype to be shown to all the world powers . . . The highest bidder could build hundreds of stations and sell additional franchises for even greater profit.
• You will literally have the sun in your pocket! A monopoly on solar power . . . And the oil sheikhs will pay just to keep solar energy off the market.
• The thought had occurred to me . . .
• Well, to continue, going upstairs we enter the first areas of the residential part of the complex: the hobby room, the funhouse and the sports hall.
• I need to be trained for my job. I also need a Hall of Mirrors.
• Do you mean a room covered in mirrors?
• No problem; we can dig one out in this area close to the funhouse. It wouldn’t introduce any structural problems there.
• And inside it, I want a statue.
• Sure, sir. What kind of statue. A classic one?
• I want a statue of Bond.
• Do you mean the Bond? James Bond, the MI6 agent?
• Yes, exactly. We can say that he is one of my . . . obsessions. Go on, please.
• Here we are in the main hall that faces the grand landscape of the archipelago, which will be visible thanks to these huge windows. The elevator connects it directly to the beach on the little bay.
• That’s good. And the dining room?
• Ah, the dining room is conceived to enhance the view of Ko Tapu Island! In these spaces I would like also to make some rocks visible – you know, to unveil the natural character of the house. Then, through this door we go directly to the bedrooms, the most intimate area of the house. Here I designed a little living room and a study, private spaces where you can rest by yourself.
• As I said to you, there will only be two of us in this house: my loyal butler, Nick Nack, and I.
• I see. But surely you will have a guest at some point . . .
• Sure, but only for short periods. Intense but really short ones.
• I see . . . Anyway, on the top of the island, there is the solar energy collection point. This steel device you see here is the collector. The Solex will transmit the heat to the thermal generators. Light will enter the sliding opening, which faces Ko Tapu Island, where we will install panels that lock onto the sun and then track it automatically. Reflected through the Solex Agitator, these panels will produce a heat of at least 3,500° Fahrenheit!
• Very interesting . . .
• Then, this system is capable of storing such a great quantity of energy that, if it were properly focused, it could become a sort of energy weapon.
• That’s what I call solar power! Well done, architect. The project is complete. So, I would like to settle your fee. Ready?
• Thank you, Mr Scaramanga. May I ask you what this is? It seems like a golden bullet . . . with my name incised on it . . . Sir?
• Exactly, architect.

DRAWINGS
PUBLISHED ON SAN RPCCP MAGAZINE “ISLANDS”, 2011
EXHIBITED IN THE EXHIBITION “DALLA TERRA ALLA LUNA” CURATED BY EMILIA GIORGI AND SIMONA GALATEO
STUDIO MISCETTI GALLERY, ROMA 2014

DRAWING AND TEXT:
2A+P/A (Gianfranco Bombaci, Matteo Costanzo)
with Consuelo Nunez Ciuffa

The drawing proposes a spin off of the famous 007 Bond’s movie “The man of the golden gun”.
We imagined that the evil’s base – imagined in the fiction inside the Ko Tapu island in Thailand – was designed by a prominent architect. The section is one of the drawings usd to design the hidden base.
We also wrote the plot of the first presentation of the designer to Mr Scaramanga.