2000 AD Online Forum

500 Floors. Home for up to 100,000 people. Dear God lest hope not.

Link: Mile High Building

Well if it dose go up we have a fare idea how it will end "tower mania".  

Its strange how more and more aspects of MC-1 are becoming nearly everyday features of our environment.

"The mile-high tower also illustrates the ecological advantages of living tall, as building up instead of out holds more people in a smaller footprint."

And requires substantial area around the building to be 'dead' space. As the UK found when it demolished loads of terrace houses and replaced them with nasty sink estates of flats, you often get FEWER people per square mile when you build upwards. Gnh.

...you often get FEWER people per square mile when you build upwards...

Absolutely true, but if I remember my Urban Geography days there is an optimum point somewhere between 3 and 8 storeys where you're using much less horizontal space for much the same density of 'living' space.  I don't think this tower (I want to say arcology) could be remotely efficient.  

One day I'm going to do a comic about the redevelopment of Newcastle in the 60s, it was touched on a bit in Our Friends in The North, but it's a fascinating story.

Link: T. Dan Smith

singapore
offers an insight into urban living in the future.
98% of the population live in tower blocks,each area is a fully integrated environment.with schools,shops,clubs and sports facilities within a 20 minute radius.
 in the are i live they recently biult a shopping mall with all the normal things malls have,condo tower complex swimming pool gym etc,office block,medical unit,dentists,police post,post office,community club.monorail link station,Underground station and bus interchange,carpark and taxi rank with covered linkways to all other areas.oh and roof top garden area.
MEGA CITY ONE.is not so far away,it could with all honesty be built in asia.

 This is Shanghai .

 The largest 24 hour building site on the planet and in doing so they have almost completely drained the water table in the area.

 Personally i wouldnt like to live in that type of enviroment.

Me neither, but I'd love to visit.  The place has a beauty to it.

They look great on paper, but add people and it all goes tits up.

I was weeding the collection of a library the other day and found a book from the late 50s/ early 60s (can't remember the exact date). It was all post war London optimism, and had these wonderful illustrations of 'the future of our cities'. Basically they were pictures of council high-rises and blocks of flats.

The book made them look like those idealised utopias from Star Trek (white walls, splashes of greenery, idealised residents). The authors and illustrators probably lived to see just what their dreams would become.

The awful irony of the highrise flat project in Britain is that over here in Ireland we watched the whole thing go to shite, and then like the good little post-colonial wannabes we were/are, we did exactly the same thing in 1965: tore down our inner cities, shattered generations of community networks, and stuck everyone in a wind-harrowed wasteland miles from anything resembling a job or something to do, where the lifts never worked and the shopping centre looked like the entrance to Bartertown.  We've only just got round to demolishing the bloody things, in the process uprooting the community that had managed to develop in the interim.

 Here is a link to a site with all the recent development in Brighton.some of it good and some of it bad ,some of it not built yet.


 Take note of the hideousness of the King Alfred development [not yet built] and the Royal Alexandra Childrens Hospital [just completed].I take particular offence at the King Alfred development and the childrens hospital while being designed to be pleasing to the eyes of children looks awful.


 Streets and streets of terraces were cleared in the centre of town in the timescale of about 30 years for what amounts to a dozen featureless tower blocks with dead space all around them.

 The empty spaces around blocks of flats and shopping centres become windswept Anti Spaces devoid of all life.

 Also as all three developments on the seafront here have been approved by planning [as if i thought they wouldnt]they set a precedent for future developments on the seafront ultimatly all the way along since 3 have been approved there is no reason not to approve future development since development has already started.

Link: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=281583

such environments need strict rules in place  and enforced.
another megacity element i would suggest.
once again singapore shows its possible,here basically a police state.
security cameras everywhere and enough police to enforce all the laws passed.

even littering, gets instant fines and work orders,all pets need licenses,want to repaint your door? get permission and a permit,get caught doing something wrong by police and dont show up at local station, they come and get you.
oh and lets not forget stop and search,or premises search. NO WARRANT NEEDED!
and everyone carrys and ID card which is linked to everything you do and own. any of this sounding like a typical mega city cit lifestyle yet?

i understand its still a way off in the west, but out here with the huge pace of development its a near future thing not far.

The empty spaces around blocks of flats and shopping centres become windswept Anti Spaces devoid of all life.

Well put, that man.

a href="http://s189.photobucket.com/albums/z122/peterwolf_album/?action=view¤t=jubileelibrary1.jpg" target="_blank">


 This is what i mean.


 You are looking at the new library.Lovely building as i like a fair bit of modern architecture.


 In front is the paved area which apart from a token amount of ugly seating seems to serve no purpose whatsoever and is a total waste.

 A large fountain or /and a well stocked centre piece garden and some trees would have provided a focal point and a pleasant meeting place to sit and hang out.

 But as it is it is Dead space and a waste and empty at night as these places always are.

 You never get drinking fountains in the St in England either.

do let us know when the Singaporeans invent 'boing'

 I wouldnt complain if chewing gum was banned here like it is in Singapore.

I would!  I love chewing gum!  And I can in all honesty say I have never dropped a piece on the ground.  Those are the bastards you need to go after.

I hate chewing gum.

Apparently it would contain schools. Judging from that pic you'd be lucky to fit more than say 10 kids comfortably in one of those rooms/floors.

It also seems to have managed to look both cool and shite at the same time.

We ae getting something in Brisbane. Thats alot like the London eye. Except, it's not going to be quite as large.

I can se a lot of people being pissed off by that bloody awful Brighton marina thing. I Like the look of Falmer Stadium though. In fact, I think I've seen that somewhere before...

Here's the one Pompey aren't getting.

 The Marina is a sight better looking than that King Alfred development though.


 Anyway it doesnt matter how pissed off you get about these things as its very difficult to stop them by objecting as in the end they always get planning as the councillers accept cash bribes from the developers etc and the public consultations are a sham so its a forgone conclusion.

 Another thing is if you live close to the King alfred development [which i dont] and lose your sea view and end up living in the shadow of a tower block you get no compensation for it and losing a seaview isnt grounds for objecting apparently.

With regard to the dead space around buildings, what's the feasibility of building down like in the Ro-busters classic, 'Terra Meks' (IIRC)?

Pompey seriously needs a good tram network. You've got several sites worth (arguably) paying a visit to, but they're so damn isolated.

 
 It has been done with underground military bases plus tunneling but for more ordinary building projects its too labour intensive and too expensive to make it cost effective as its twice the work.


 Conspiracy theory alert !


 Apparently there is a machine that is able to tunnel through several miles of rock per day by burning its way through.

 As with a lot of these things it may be nonsense .