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.'"

Comments

Question:

[markbark]

While inverted pyramids are an interesting design, what're you gonna do with the million cubic feet of dirt from the hole you have to dig to build the damn thing?

Re:Question:

[Anonymous Coward]

You could for example dump it in the ocean to create more land.

Re:Question:

[Smallpond]

World's tallest building: 830 m
World's deepest mine: 3900 m

Re:Question:

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It is cheaper to build the first few stories up than down. But at some point, the cost of holding up more and more floors, structural integrity issues, wind issues, etc come into play. May be even visibility to terrorists for insurance purposes. Building down, the only cost is earth removal and dumping it somewhere. But the earth starts getting hotter, and ventilation, fire escape etc get complicated.

Re:Question:

[nschubach]

What's the number of livable spaces for each of those?

No Windows

[Oswald McWeany]

One of the things I hate about my current job is that there are no windows anywhere near where I am seated.

I frequently go weeks in winter without seeing sunlight because it is dark when I get to work and dark when I leave.

I find windowless offices to be very dreary and depressing. Only the economy keeps me in this dreary place.

You're forgetting the water table.

[overshoot]

No shit, Sherman. Mexico City is built in a silted-up lakebed. What's more, their sewage processing ... shall we say, leaves a bit to be desired.

So -- how do they plan emergency evacuation of this thing if the pumps fail? Maybe during an earthquake? (Not like Mexico City has those, mind.)

Gonna need it for the fire, Umbrella Corporation

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Running down 65 floors is a pain in the arse. Running UP 65 floors to the surface is a whole other story!

There'll be people hoping a sewage line breaks before they have a heart attack running up stairs.

Stories like these come along every few years about underground building. And everyone says, "Gee, that's a good idea. Why aren't we doing that already?"

Then you tell them about fires, cave ins, flooding, etc. and that good idea doesn't look so hot anymore. Christ, has nobody watched Resident Evil? You don't need monsters, you just need to lose power, lights, and air ventilation and you'll be have a nice uphill riot on your hands. Those glass walls probably don't work to well on a cloudy day or night down near the bottom.

Let's just go ahead and name this the Umbrella Corporation building.