Translated to "Fairport" in the English versions of the Sunspot Chronicles, Fikwakyet is a city that is more unique than any other in the Garden of `etekeyerrinwuf.
I explain a bit about the why of that in my own book, Ni'a. But, to recap:
When the Sunspot was built, the Founding Crew designed the shapes of the corridors, the contours of the Garden, and the placement and foundations of the cities. Then they let the Children build upon and between all of that and make the ship their own.
But Fikwakyet was a special project. Fenmere (a.k.a. Fenemere) wanted to run an experiment, and managed to get the Crew Council to approve it.
Part of the whole point of the Sunspot was to make a strict and sudden cultural break from the millennia of fascism that had been plaguing their predecessor ship, the Terra Supreme (Feruukepikape). And for most of the Sunspot's architecture and culture, everything was derived from shapes and themes found in nature, and everything that reminded the Founding Crew of the Terra Supreme was done away with.
Fenmere contended that certain aesthetic choices were not inherently fascist, and wanted to demonstrate this by having one city where certain old elements could be reintroduced, starting with rectangular foundations for its buildings (instead of the scutoid structures found everywhere else on the Sunspot).
Fenmere had other reasons for doing this, besides trying to prove this point, and those reasons are likely to be visited in the last few chapters of the Sunspot Chronicles (I'll refrain from spoilers here).
The result is that, somewhat coincidentally, due to how right angles tend to work, when we finally made contact with Earth through the Tunnel Apparatus, it was remarked upon how similar Fikwakyet is to many Earth cities.
There are some critical differences, of course. The scales of things are not the same, because we build to accommodate both the largest and the smallest of our people, as well as for many disabilities.
Also, we have nothing like industry or commerce. At least, not driven by anything remotely like profit.
@ashwin-the-artless explains this in nems post titled Cities.
But, I'd like to use this opportunity to highlight another aesthetic difference. The alignment of our windows.
This is something that can be seen in almost all Sunspot cities, except perhaps Agaricales (which is a little more chaotic than most).
There are two axes of spectacular views on the Sunspot: foreward and aft; and spin and antispinward.
To the fore and aft, you can witness the sunbirths and sundeaths, and also the moonbirths and moondeaths. It some people really value that, and build their houses to give them as much view of that axis of the Garden as possible from anywhere in their house.
Perpendicular to that, spinward and antispinward, you can see the curvature of the Garden on a clear day, and the geography of it and neighboring cities, and honestly, even though I've lived with those views for the entirety of the Sunspot's existence, I still find them utterly breathtaking.
We try to show this off with the other photos of the Sunspot we share with you. This photo, here, however, demonstrates the effect on the architecture of the houses.
It's pretty rare that you'll find any building that is not aligned with one of these axes. And those that are tend to have wrap around windows that accommodate views of as much of the Garden as possible all around.
Another difference between the Sunspot and the Earth at the time of this writing is that our windows are more durable, more insulating, and more configurable. We can change their transparent and reflective properties on command. Which means that we have very few incentives to not make a wall a window, except perhaps to give us room to hang something or to place furniture against it in an aesthetic way.
But, solid walls and ceilings are still just a tad more insulating than our windows, so some people do opt for more opaque housing.
But if you don't want the views or the light, you'll usually choose to live belowdecks anyway.
