By now, you've probably heard a lot of the dire warnings about how the world's
population is growing at an unsustainable rate and we're consuming
far too many resources. Discussed solutions range from the practical to
the absolutely fantastical. But unless you're an
intractable nihilist that doesn't care about the survival of the human race,
you'll probably agree that we have to figure the problem out at some point.
And one of the most interesting ideas that has been proposed is the concept of
the archology. Large self-contained
communities with minimal impact on the environment. But is this just the stuff
of science fiction? Or might millions of people be living in such a structure one
day? And just what the heck would that look like anyway? Well, archaeologies
have been conceptualized many ways, from tall skyscraper-l like structures to
self-sufficient groups of buildings closer to the ground. But they all have
one thing in common, some way to more
densely pack living, working, and
recreationing spaces along with infrastructure to improve efficiency and
cut down on pollution and waste. Whoa, whoa, hold the phone there, Lionus. This
sounds like some sort of nightmare where we're all living in little sleeping pods
and eating meals in pill form. Well, it's not. In fact, there are real life
archology projects in the works right now. The most prominent of these is
probably Masdar city in Abu Dhabi. This
is an area of six square kilometers being developed with features like
automated driverless pods for transportation, a large solar plant,
water recycling, and creative use of architecture to provide forced air
cooling without the need to suck tons of power, including a 150 foot tall wind
tower that flushes air downwards. Pretty
cool. But Mastar lacks the wow factor
superstructure appearance that has been commonly depicted NVIDIA games like
Sim City and DSX. For something like
that, you'll have to go to Russia, where a project called Crystal Island is being
planned. And yes, the name is quite apt. At nearly half a kilometer tall with 27
million square feet of floor space, it would be one of the largest man-made
structures in the world. With the
outside covered by a special skin whose
purpose would be to provide climate control depending on the season and with
power provided by the sun and the wind.
The interior would be a mix of residential, commercial, and educational
spaces. though there's no word yet on whether transportation will be provided
by a fleet of horses. Of course, as you might expect,
such massive undertakings tend to run into roadblocks. There are indeed people
already living and working in Mastar City, but completion has been pushed
back several times, and we may not see the finished product for more than a
decade. And the developers have actually backed off their promise of complete
carbon neutrality anyway. As for Crystal Island, they haven't even broken ground
yet, partly due to the late 2000s financial crisis. So, it's not
surprising that it's more common to see places that use archology concepts
instead of fullyfledged, self-sufficient, highly integrated
cities. The Las Vegas strip, for example, features pedestrian walkways
and bridges connecting many of the casinos, hotels, and businesses so that
you're often not walking down the street itself. and in many cases don't even
have to go outside to get from point A to point B. And if we're only talking
about the idea of containing things in a single building, large new skyscrapers
like the Shanghai Tower in China are increasingly borrowing ideas from
archies. Not only does the Shanghai Tower feature a kind of insulating skin
similar to what was imagined for Crystal Island, it has a prominent twist in it
which helps to repel wind that could otherwise cause the building to sway
without having to use extra construction materials. And although it's connected
to the main electrical grid, wind turbines at top the building provide
around 350,000 kilowatt hours of extra power
per year for the offices and hotel rooms underneath.
But although projects like these might be giving us a glimpse at the future of
urban living, there's a debate swirling as to whether archylike structures that
are ultimately built will actually help us solve our problems with resource
consumption and overpopulation or if they'll just turn into enclaves for the
wealthy. But don't despair if it turns out you're not loaded enough to be on
the cutting edge of sustainable living. I hear that urban composting is actually
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