The relationship between the city and the hinterland lies at the core of contemporary urban problems in our current age of capital-driven planetary development. Preventing extraction of the hinterlands and uprooting industry from its ecosystem is not a viable option due to its negative impact on the economy and socio-political structures.

Cryo-Automata addresses retreating glaciers, where most of our accessible freshwater is stored. The project focuses on the Hindu-Kush Himalayan Region. This serves as a freshwater source for 10 percent of the global population. By intertwining climatic and geographic data of these hinterlands, an ever adapting and self-evolving system is generated to grow and maintain artificial glacial landscapes. The design method follows three recurrent strategies of exploring, evolving and extracting the glacial landscape by using climate sensing, machine learning and digital simulations.