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Earthscraper Takes Sustainable Design Underground
Hugh Pickens writes"The 'Earthscraper,' a 65-story, 82,000-square-foot inverted pyramid beneath Mexico City takes a new approach to escalating megacity problems like population growth, urban sprawl, preserving open space, and conserving energy and water, promising to turn the modern high-rise, quite literally, on its head. The proposed building will be located at the Zocalo, Mexico City's major public plaza one of the few sizable open spaces left in the city of 9 million. 'It's a massive empty plot, which makes it the ideal site for our program,' says architect Esteban Suarez. The Earthscraper concept begins with a glass roof replacing the opaque stone surface of the Zocalo preserving the open space and civic uses of the Zocalo, while allowing natural lighting to flow downward into all floors of the tapering structure through clear or translucent core walls. The first 10 stories would hold a museum dedicated to the city's history and its artifacts. 'We'd almost certainly find plenty of interesting relics during the dig — dating right back to the Aztecs who built their own pyramids here,' says Suarez adding that the design incorporates a system of gardens occurring roughly every 10 stories, to help generate fresh air. One thing working in Earthscraper's favor is there are strict laws that prevent building upwards in this part of Mexico City, but no laws for building down. 'They will have to develop new laws to stop this from happening,' says Chief Design Officer Emilio Barja. 'I hope they don't [find the] time to do that.'"
They're going to use translucent floors to get sunlight to the bottom? Great idea. Domain squatters, now would probably be the time to grab pyramidupskirt.com.
Why, you use it to build an inverted-inverted pyramid outside the city somewhere.
Construction will have to be stopped after they dig too deep and release the Balrog, though.
Dig another hole to put the dirt in.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Yes I can trust them to pump sewage up 65 floors with absolutely no problems what so ever...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Have you considered running for office?
Life jackets by the door. You float up to the top and then, when you get there, the glass roof has a little hammer attached with a sign saying "In case of emergency, break glass" :)
When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of Mexico.
There, I fixed it for you.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Yes, the ones that are used for air condititioning are called "badgirs"
We don't need no steekin badgirs.