Arcologies or bust!
I’ve fallen in love with an intellectual idea called ‘arcology theory.’ Arcologies are large buildings intended to free up horizontal space on the planet for other purposes (agriculture, wildlife preservation, wilderness, etc.) by changing human expansion to a vertical axis.
Typically, a city will grow by adding square mile after square mile to its outer suburbs where the rule is split-level ranch houses all painted identically. While I’m not one to begrudge suburbanites their comfy (and surely attractive) ranch-style homes, I do feel a bit like suburban sprawl is getting a little out of hand.
Stop and think a bit about something simple for a bit. Think of apartments located above shops on a downtown main street which are now growing in popularity all across America. Consider how much space we would need to add to a city if all of those apartments were removed from the top floors of those buildings and placed in separate buildings? Imagine how much space could be saved if a single ranch-style house had a second floor added to it where a second family could live?
The idea of an arcology is taking the idea of vertical expansion to a remarkable length. The ideality of an arcology is to have an entire city contained in a single building. Banking, shopping, grocery stores, some industry, hospitals, schools and universities, restaurants, and housing all contained in a single building of colossal proportions.
Arcologies typically stress the relatively small size of the basic floor plan (usually about a mile or two square at the base). What this allows is the abolition of all but foot traffic within the city proper. Individuals can walk from one corner of their floor to the opposite corner without too much trouble, and prevalent elevators can take them from floor to floor.
To get an idea of how much you can coalesce without altering too much in terms of population density, think of Topeka. Topeka has about 122,500 people living in it. Overall, the city takes up something on the order of about nine miles by 10 miles or so (roughly 90 square miles).
Let’s suppose that we have a 1 mile by 1 mile arcology. That gives us 5280 feet by 5280 feet (or 27,878,400 square feet) per floor. If we have apartments filling half of each floor (or half of all the floors) at 1000 square feet per apartment, we can have 13,939 apartments per floor. At 1000 square feet per apartment, those should be 2 bedroom apartments, so assume 2 individuals per apartment. In other words, on each floor, we should have about 27,878 people. At a modest 45 floors (and taller buildings are certainly possible), we have more than a population of 1.25 million people.
So in other words, in a building taking up only 1 square mile, we have a population more than 10 times as large as Topeka (which takes up 90 times as much space as the proposed building). Imagine how much land could be conserved and used differently.
This isn’t to say that everyone should be required to live in such an arrangement, but stop and think about large metropolitan areas like New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, Kansas City, Chicago, or Atlanta. Such an arrangement would be ideal for such a city. Transportation issues would clear up. Services could be provided without as much trouble, and goods could be delivered more efficiently to residents. And the extra land could be used to grow more food, could be used for parks, or devoted to wilderness.
Why not?
Typically, a city will grow by adding square mile after square mile to its outer suburbs where the rule is split-level ranch houses all painted identically. While I’m not one to begrudge suburbanites their comfy (and surely attractive) ranch-style homes, I do feel a bit like suburban sprawl is getting a little out of hand.
Stop and think a bit about something simple for a bit. Think of apartments located above shops on a downtown main street which are now growing in popularity all across America. Consider how much space we would need to add to a city if all of those apartments were removed from the top floors of those buildings and placed in separate buildings? Imagine how much space could be saved if a single ranch-style house had a second floor added to it where a second family could live?
The idea of an arcology is taking the idea of vertical expansion to a remarkable length. The ideality of an arcology is to have an entire city contained in a single building. Banking, shopping, grocery stores, some industry, hospitals, schools and universities, restaurants, and housing all contained in a single building of colossal proportions.
Arcologies typically stress the relatively small size of the basic floor plan (usually about a mile or two square at the base). What this allows is the abolition of all but foot traffic within the city proper. Individuals can walk from one corner of their floor to the opposite corner without too much trouble, and prevalent elevators can take them from floor to floor.
To get an idea of how much you can coalesce without altering too much in terms of population density, think of Topeka. Topeka has about 122,500 people living in it. Overall, the city takes up something on the order of about nine miles by 10 miles or so (roughly 90 square miles).
Let’s suppose that we have a 1 mile by 1 mile arcology. That gives us 5280 feet by 5280 feet (or 27,878,400 square feet) per floor. If we have apartments filling half of each floor (or half of all the floors) at 1000 square feet per apartment, we can have 13,939 apartments per floor. At 1000 square feet per apartment, those should be 2 bedroom apartments, so assume 2 individuals per apartment. In other words, on each floor, we should have about 27,878 people. At a modest 45 floors (and taller buildings are certainly possible), we have more than a population of 1.25 million people.
So in other words, in a building taking up only 1 square mile, we have a population more than 10 times as large as Topeka (which takes up 90 times as much space as the proposed building). Imagine how much land could be conserved and used differently.
This isn’t to say that everyone should be required to live in such an arrangement, but stop and think about large metropolitan areas like New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, Kansas City, Chicago, or Atlanta. Such an arrangement would be ideal for such a city. Transportation issues would clear up. Services could be provided without as much trouble, and goods could be delivered more efficiently to residents. And the extra land could be used to grow more food, could be used for parks, or devoted to wilderness.
Why not?
posted by The Academian | 4:21 PM
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