Syd Mead, an industrial designer, was the'visual futurist' for Blade Runner, and was responsible for the sociological assumption behind the production design - under Ridley Scott's supervision. The story for the film is based on the idea that over-population has forced millions of people to migrate to "off-world" colonies, and that genetically engineered replicants are used as labourers in "off-world" military, industrial or mining operations. The result is that the urban environment on Earth isa strange mixture of new technology and old elements adapted to the new conditions, as as production designer Larry Paull explaines “Thelook of the film is complex, yet at the sametime it is basically an example of old architectural styles co-existing with the new ones”. “Another concept was” he continues “that a lot of the environmental necessities of this city - plumbing, air conditioning and so on - are starting to malfunction. So how are these breakdowns handled? By ‘retrofitting’ (Cinefantastique, p. 32). Retrofitting mainly consists of “organised clutter” (Ibid). When something breaks down and neither the time nor

the money is available to fix the inner systems it would be easier to service them from the outside, to retrofit. It was Ridley's original vision to give the buildings an accumulative accretion - retrofitted - look.
       The extent to which the economy no longer benefits the consumer is noticeable in the streets of the city conceived for the film. Downtown L.A. circa 2019 is a wet, dirty, crowded place.
       Syd Mead, who was originally hired to design vehicles for the film, began doing sketches of the streets as settings for these vehicles, and gradually became involved in visualising a great deal of the environment for the action in Blade Runner.
       In subsequent meetings with Ridley Scottand Larry Paull (art director), they created a sociological idea; that the city had risen up from one, two and three story structures in the older sections of the city. The first, or street level, had become very congested, like