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Carbon-Neutral Ziggurat Could House 1.1 Million In Dubai
Engadget is reporting that a new pyramid-shaped city of the future, dubbed a "Ziggurat," is being touted by Dubai-based environmental design company, Timelinks. Claiming that their design allows for an almost self-sufficient energy footprint and, obviously, economy of space, the real trick would be getting 1.1 million people to live in such close proximity. "Martijn Kramer, managing director of The International Institute for the Urban Environment told WAN: 'As a general reaction the Ziggurat Project is viable from a technical point of view. However reflecting from a more sustainable holistic approach we do wonder if the food supply and waste system are taken care for, as the concept seems rather based upon carbon neutrality and energy saving.' Kramer's initial reaction to 'Ziggurat' also raises a very important issue: are people willing to live in a mega building of 2.3 sq km? Will the thought of living in a machine comfort people?"
Will the thought of living in a machine comfort people?
Let's find out from some people who live in an actual machine. Morpheus, what do you think?
Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
for an opposing viewpoint, let's ask Cypher. Cypher?
Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?
[Takes a bite of steak]
Cypher: Ignorance is bliss.
and, finally, for another insight, we'll ask Agent Smith:
Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.
My blog
Someone crashes a A340F full of explosives into it. Or sets fires in it, or...
Well you get the idea. Good idea but a great target.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Dubai considering building Arcologies! =)
Who cares? Show us something real.
People can live in very different conditions if their basic needs are met, if there is a cultural web to participate in, and if they have control over their personal space and possibility of advancement.
I see challenges of propinquity here, but there are very crowded, thriving urban environments to use as examples.
The key question to answer is: What is the reason for the people to live there, rather than somewhere else? That's the question that builds cities - or ghost towns.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Summon more ziggurats!
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
"My life for Aiur! ... Uh I mean Ner'Zhul."
Carbon and energy neutral food I mean?
Deleted
For all the billions Calif* spends propping up worthless mortgages, it could build gigantic ziggurats & actually house people.
Once you turn to the dark side, forever will it dominate your destiny! and your dental plan ...
are people willing to live in a mega building of 2.3 sq km?
Sure, why not. It's not like there won't be parks, squares, expedition, lanes, views.. dense cities are essentially one mega building already.
Take off every Ziggurat! Move Ziggurat for great justice!
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
People live in large ships today which are much more of a machine and where there is decidedly less personal space, and, while on cruise, there is no chance for a change of scenery whatsoever.
People live in large blocks of flats today, and would anyone really prefer ugly, grey, and box-shaped over clean, high-tech, and pyramid-shaped?
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
Resistance is futile. We are Dubai.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
I don't remember much else about this book, but the idea of a giant city-building stands out.
_Oath of Fealty_, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
http://www.amazon.com/Oath-Fealty-Larry-Niven/dp/0671532278
I got not particular problem with spending a substantial amount of time indoors. I like to get out in nature now and then too, but within a city? Who cares?
I do however like decent view.
If the hallways are design appropriately, and there are some largish open spaces within also designed appropriately it's an easy sale.
All predictions aside, I'd be surprised to see this ever happen. After all, the first one built in Arizonba never did fare that well.
On step closer to Caves of Steel
Culture obviously plays into whether or not folks would be willing to live in something that is hyper-dense or not.
OTOH, something that doesn't seem to be taken into account is, what happens when families change? A single guy only needs 'x' amount of space. Now when that single guy gets married*, has 4 kids, and a parent becomes decrepit/disabled and decide to move in...? Obviously there's going to be a lot of change in how much space the guy can be comfortable living in, no matter what culture we're talking about here.
Also, what happens when some fatal communicable disease starts making the rounds? shutting folks into their 'homes' will only work for so long before even the most gregarious human being starts to get cabin fever (for lack of a better term).
There's also the chance that the local economy could contract as well - you can only fit so much stuff into one space, and it's not like, say, Home Depot could do a whole lot besides sell wallpaper, paint, and light fixtures to the folks (just as example).
Some folks here will happily cry against the "McMansion!" and think they're being the smartest guy in the room, but consider this: those things do get sold for a reason, especially as our society gets more and more 'crowded'... Suburbs, as much as they're derided, are actually a compromise between the comfort of wide-open spaces (and a buffer from 'the world'), and the conveniences of living in a city.
From that point, it begins digging deeper into some fundamental human psychology - how does a human being deal with being more and more crowded in society?
* yes, we could pack the city with programmers and handily solve the marriage problem, but we're talking people here...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
actually arent pyramids the most stable possible structures. Its been awhile since static equilibrium so i dont remember the math or anything but I mean its wider at the base than the peak so its gotta be stable right?
as are varied views within the structure. No one wants to live in a big, faceless glass box, nor look at big, faceless glass boxes. But if you have a large structure with integrated greenspace and human-scale details within the superstructure, to help fix the eye and give a sense of place, then it's not hard to imagine a million people living within it happily.
Think Central Park--There are tens of thousands of people in it at any given time, but because it's made of little hills and dales and stands of trees you never see more than 20 people at one time and it doesn't feel crowded. If you did a similar thing in three dimensions it could work.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
slides.
Will the thought of living in a machine comfort people?
Not if they've read the short-story The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster.
dental plan ...
Lisa needs braces
Gibson, Niven, Pournell, the Matrix, they're all 'Jonny come lately's. The earliest mentions I recall are Asimov with "City" and "Caves of Steel" and Paolo Solieri with his archologies. Who was really first?
I wonder if these houses can also be upgraded to towers :-)
Slipping shoelaces ?
Hello? Has nobody read Judge Dredd? These would be AWESOME for block wars!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
My advice: Try taking a cruise on something other than a docked riverboat casino.
Say hello to my little sig.
I can answer his question about whether "food supply and waste system are taken care for" the answer is NO. Dubai sewerage system has been operating at twice its capacity for a couple of years and the new plant which is due in a couple of years is already not enough.
For a quick overview of how glitzy this town really is you can check those:
2 weeks sewerage flood
http://www.gulfnews.com/Nation/Society/10225546.html
This was only one "small" issue amongst too many to list. The government and whatever service in charge were overwhelmed and incapable to do anything to fix it. Or didn't care. Let's note that the residential complex has been built about 250 meters away from the sewerage treatment plant. Smell of shit can be enjoyed night and day there even where there is no flood. glitzy..
Dubai is about glitz and money, big tower and man made island but all that is nothing but smoke and mirror, the reality is that the town has not much to live up to the reputation it is trying to build for itself by announcing mega-project over mega-project while finishing none of them.
I could go on and on with my rant. I just want to add that we live behind a filtering proxy that bars any website that dares commenting against the UAE and it is very well possible that slashdot will go bye bye for a few days because of this comment. Just as it already did last year.
Forget about mega-projects announced by Dubai Gov or related entities. It's nothing but an attention whoring press release from a city that would love to play in the big league.
If you care to come around to verify that by yourself you're welcome but be careful what you pack though: http://thetruthaboutdubai.com/?p=4
but I am pretty sure a pyramid can be easily unbalanced.
Actually, I think they intend to build this one broad side downwards. :)
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Sure, it'll be all fun and games ... until a Goa'uld ship lands on it. Then, not so much.
dental plan ...
Lisa needs braces
dental plan
Jeez, am I the only Slashdaughter that realizes that this is not meant to be a 'city in a building' or a theme park or an oasis, it's meant to be a prison.
The Wackenhut of the world. Every country in the world can send their political prisoners, their purse-snatchers, uppity minorities, and urine-test-failers to Dubai. Where, for a small fee, they will be housed in the biggest, meanest, most-escape-proof, hope-for-humanity-crushing, prison that world has ever seen.
And if the payments stop coming from the original country for the prisoner, they just get chucked outside. Naked. To die in the 120 degree F sun! No mess, no fuss, no packed airplanes dumping political prisoners into the South Atlantic Argentina-style!
Hell, Dubai will even pick-up your prisoners in their old surplus Emirate Airlines Boeings! Tell 'em that they're going to Sweden on an Amnesty International 'Flight to Freedom'! Hell, no one will ever know! (Amnesty International workers are sure to be the first 'guests').
Am I the only Slashdaughter with an evil mind? Or more mature, historically-accurate world view?
And why is Dubai building all this architectural bling in the first place?
Square kilometers = measure of geographic area.
The "Ziggurat" is a city. Cities are measured by their geographic area, not the sum of all the floors in all their buildings.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Wake me when we get to Trantor.
Leela: "Is all the work done by children?" Alien: "No, not the whipping."
The government is "us". It's a democracy. If a corporation owns a city, then we're talking about a dictatorship. It's harder to fight corruption amongst the leaders when you don't elect them...
Or to put it another way:
-You must play the game.
-You can't win.
-You can't break even, except on a very cold day.
-It doesn't get that cold.
Thermodynamics FTW
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Surprisingly - I don't see anyone calculating volume per person...
2.3sqkm base means it's about 1.5km wide at the base. Looks like it'd be about 1km high from the picture. 1/3 base area * height = 0.767cu-km, or 767 million cu-m. Looks like the thing is about 3/4 open or shared space (streets, parks, corridors, elevators, theaters, stores, etc, etc), so about 190 million cu-m of living space.
So each individual would have about 175cu-m. A family of 4 could have 700cu-m, or about 200sq-m of floor space with high ceilings - a pretty large apartment. So it isn't quite as cramped as people seem to think.
Still, the mega-scale design is a monument to the ego of a poorly educated architect. Building collossally big is fine. Failure to build within that on a livable "human scale" is just arrogantly ignorant. It treats people as identical units to be slotted into storage compartments optimized to fit within the glorious "structure" designed by the architect.
The first post speculates a future with planes crashing into futuristic buildings, lets talk about a better future via science fiction. The article reminds me of the movie "Blade Runner". That's all I wanted to say.
Imagine how fucking awesome it would be when they build a black citadel nearby :)
1.100.000 people with an average life spann of 80 years = 37.6 deaths / day, at 8 corpses / meat wagon that makes for 5 meat wagons per day!
I'd just like to point out that this post was made nearly an hour before the identical post that was modded 5,funny. The mods are really blowing it today. But I still love all you guys.