Designing for Longevity: The 10,000 Year Clock Project

Human civilization is about 10,000 years old. If you wanted to build something that would last the next 10,000 years, as an icon of long-term thinking, what materials would you use? How would you prototype and test the design? Alexander Rose is part of the team that’s building a mechanical, astronomical Clock at monument scale that will run for ten millennia.

As the first employee of The Long Now Foundation in 1997, Alexander collaborated with Clock designer Danny Hillis on the earliest prototypes. Today as Executive Director of the Foundation, he manages construction of the full-sized Clock which is now under way. Alexander will discuss Clock project details like hollowing out a mountain with giant custom-made robots, and share his research into projects built to last a millennium or more, including the arctic Seed Vault in Svalbard and the ultra-secret Mormon genealogical vaults in Salt Lake City.

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