In the 1970s, he did designs for Playboy of futuristic environments for the single guy. Cars, (he did a lot of vehicle designs), a "land yacht" RV, and some interiors and exteriors. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts had a show of those a few years ago.
It seems like Mass Effect 2's Omega was inspired by this: http://i.imgur.com/4QsK0RQ.jpg
Edit: As a source is missing it seems like this is a genuine Mass Effect Concept art piece that the uploader mixed into the Syd Mead gallery. Of course the artists of Mass Effect drew a lot of inspiration from Syd Mead.
Nice, might as well include the artists Droid Bishop, Dynatron, Nowtro, Mega Drive, Perturbator, Carpenter Brut. You can tell I am into retro synth tunes.
What are our chances of getting, as a common thing, a physical space like the concept that influenced Elysium? As long as we're about value for money and efficiency, I can't see productive space like growing areas ever looking so clean and designed.
That concept transitions from growing beds to lake and so on beautifully. In reality, between a current manicured golf course and a public road or residential area, we often have razor wire fences catching garbage blown around by the wind, we have dog-at-dog strips full of weeds, etc.
Many years ago, in the dark days before Wikipedia, I read a similar article about Syd Mead (and his excellent work) that introduced me to the term "futurist." I thought that sounded like a really cool thing to be, and set myself to finding out what it was exactly.
Much Googling later, I realized that no one else knew either. It was just whatever Syd Mead happened to be, which as best I could figure was "sci-fi artist, except too respectable to lump in with those grubby sci-fi nerds."
These days "futurist" seems to have a much more well-known and clearly defined meaning that doesn't really include designing movie backdrops, so Mead has been updated to "visual futurist," which has the same definition as above.
I love his stuff, and for me—being in my mid-forties—he is around since forever. A few years ago I got a book I had read as a kid and when I saw his space installations again I had to find out who did those. Was surprised he is still around and still working.
Great article! As a kid, I would read "Future" Magazine. What was cool was each issue featured a full page colour poster. That is where I discovered Syd Mead.
Big Syd Mead image collection: http://imgur.com/a/s9Oyr#0