Project Arpertex
This project started when I was in middle school. I would draw small towns like the one I grew up in on college-ruled paper in math class. Each one of these cities is a unique experience of how I learned that I like urban planning and transportation. There is so much here that I have accumulated since I started making these maps that there are endless additions to this project that will never truly be completed. I have used this project as a thought experiment. I have made Minecraft versions of some of these cities. I have done so many beautiful things with this project as a way to visualize something that I knew since I was a child that I wanted to do. I hope you are able to enjoy the journey and the lore that has come from this very unique and genuine experience that project Arpertex has manifested through its more than a decade of existence.
The original map of Arpertex first drawn in 2016 and updated through 2017
The first original maps before I made “Arpertex” the continent and connected them with a highway system.
The first editions of “Arpertex” as a continent
Downtown Maps
Countries and Areas
Urban Places and Features
Special Projects
Butterfly City
Adeleaid
Behind the Project
The story behind project Arpertex is one of myself as a young person growing up in rural Southeast Kansas. The very first towns were modeled after Chanute, Humboldt, and Iola, Kansas, and I am so surprised of my young mind coming up with these kinds of ideas of how to make the "perfect" city. It's just absolutely beautiful to see a teenager draw these cities just from how I wanted it to look like, just from how I wanted my environment to be, and the small changes that would have made living in rural Southeast Kansas more convenient for me or better for everyone. This project ended up being a major escape for me as I grew up in a place that I did not like. I lived on a farm, and I did not like living on a farm. I used to go out to our forested area of the farm and carve paths and name them street names like main street and first street. It is so obvious looking back at this that transportation and being in an urban environment was something that I really, really wanted, but I had no way to verbalize that, and I had no way to express the ideas and thought process that I did not want what was offered in the rural area that I grew up. This was the way it manifested and project Arpertex was the way I communicated to myself and to those around me that ~this~ is what I want.
The lore behind the continent "Arpertex" is very complex and it stretches further than I will ever be able to spell out myself, but I will try. The idea that I had in my head as a kid that I will keep on going is that at point nemo in the Pacific Ocean on Earth, there is a portal to another planet that is named "Arpertex." This planet has the continent that you see before you as a map. There there seems to be a very small population of people who accidentally discovered this place, but before those who were brave enough to venture into this new planet were very familiar animals, similar to what is on Earth, but no humans until much more recent when humans were able to cross the Pacific Ocean. The entry point on the other side of point Nemo on this map would be on the Northwest corner where you have the very large island in the shape of a backwards "C" known as "Crown Island." The colonization of the rest of this planet started from there and kept on going with the same kinds of issues, problems, and political consequences that happened on Earth when a new power took over a new continent. Unfortunately, all of these cities are populated by humans, therefore none of these cities are perfect.
