Tokyo Arcology Proposed

As a sci-fi nerd (see “Slant” and “Queen of Angels“), I’ve long been fascinated by arcologies (wikipedia) - enormous “city within a building” structures designed to include all aspects of live - work, home, recreation, retail, services - within a single structure. Of late, arcology as a design school has been getting much more attention from the green building crowd due to the extreme population density that they allow: density is the easiest way to raise residential efficiency, lower energy consumption, reduce individual’s environmental footprint, and reduce the need for transportation infrastructure and its related issues. Here’s a great link-primer on the benefits of density.

Anyway, Gizmodo has a video proposal for the first real sci-fi arcology proposed for Tokyo bay (via Random Good Stuff): 3000 ft tall, with useable volume equivalent to 24 80-storey towers. It would provide home & work for 750,000 people and as the video notes, would have a transport system as long/extensive as San Francisco’s in 1/50th the area.

A lot of video focuses on the sensationaltastic CGI-friendly question of what would happen if a tsunami struck; don’t sweat that - just focus on the majesty of a structure from the future, built by people that aren’t afraid to push.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 and is filed under Science Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.