Envisioning the City of Tomorrow

ENVISIONING The City OF TOMORROW

...theoretical design for an unrealized future Tyler Maxwell Kreshover

table of contents.

chapter one chapter two chapter three chapter four chapter five chapter six chapter seven chapter eight

preface problems to address responding to a changing world thesis proposal the city of the future the module basement progressional narative surface design bibliography

Preface...

The world’s population is expected to rise to 9.6 billion by 2050 with 2 out of every 3 people inhabiting metropolitan areas. The urban environment will be an essential element in accommodating a majority of the global populace. In an era of climate change and increasingly dynamic industrial growth, cities will face numerous complications in meeting the needs of their growing urban populations while remaining responsive to the environmental needs of our planet. There are many challenges ahead to be addressed, yet there are many new opportunities available due to technological advancements and new energy solutions. The urban atmosphere is destined for transformation, and in the coming years, that change will be essential in determining our fate as humans.

What lies ahead in the future of humanity’s urban realm?

envisioning tomorrow's city What problems must it respond to?

chapter two...

PROBLEMS TO ADDRESS Rising Sea Levels

Energy Crisis

Depleting Resources

The Era of Climate Change

Humanity is entering a new era - the era of climate change. In the coming years, the people of earth will be forced to face the consequences brought on from the damage they have caused to the environment and the poor planning decisions they have made that will eventually lead to inefficiency.

Man has upset the balance of earth’s natural systems, and soon we will feel the effects of its retaliation.

As the world’s population increases and urbanization becomes widespread, cities will be the front line of the battle against the problems of the new era. Urban communities will have major obstacles to overcome that will require massive change in order to readjust to the new situation they have placed themselves in. Adapting to the issues revolving around climate change will determine the new shape of urban design as humanity begins to find that the earth is less forgiving then we once thought.

Environmental Destruction

Static Systems

Inefficient Planning

RISING SEA LEVELS

Climate Change

Climate change is one of the most complex issues facing us today. It is a global problem, felt on a local scale, that will impact the earth for decades to come. Carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping greenhouse gas that is being produced by the abundant usage of our planets fossil fuels, lingers in the atmosphere, creating an outcome known as the ‘greenhouse effect’. The surplus of contained heat is the primary factor that is contributing towards the new era of global warming. Effects that scientists had predicted would result from global climate change are now occurring, and will continue to occur for generations to come even if humanity could manage to halt their production of greenhouse gases.

The effects of global warming are far more drastic then a subtle increase in temperature. Climate change is creating an imbalance in the earth’s environment that will cause dramatic increases in sea level rise, storm intensity and frequency, and heat waves - which all have will their own inevitable consequences on the future global populace.

Rising Sea Levels

A stronger greenhouse effect will warm the oceans, partially melting glaciers and other frozen bodies, ultimately rising the sea level. Ocean water will also expand when it warms, contributing further to sea level rise. Combined with the unstable atmosphere created by the warming effect, the rise in storm frequencies and intensities will create an exponential escalation in the amount of flooding throughout cities located near large bodies of water (90% of all major cities). No mater how much we can manage to reduce our impact on climate change, we’re already locked into at least several feet of sea-level rise - and perhaps more - as the planet slowly adjusts to the amount of carbon that’s in the atmosphere already.

The images to the right represent the potential impact that rising sea levels will have on various cities around the world. These predictions make it evident that the consequences of rising sea levels is an unavoidable aspect of future generations that can’t be ignored.

Within the next century, large numbers of people will have to abandon coastal areas that will be forcefully claimed by the new influx of water melted from the icecaps. Among the regions of the world that will be entirely consumed by water, (rendering entire populations completely homeless) several other cities will face devastating amounts of damage to the residences, services, and infrastructural systems that are needed to carry on the productive lives of millions of people. Many examples of cities that have already been confronted with the destructive power of rising sea levels like New Orleans, are faced with the reality that their home will not always be there. As population continues to rapidly increase, the land that is available for habitability is being taken away from us.

As time progresses, more and more cities will face the abolition that New Orleans faced during hurricane Katrina.

When entire urban neighborhoods are destroyed, where will their citizens go? How will cities respond to such destruction?

Flooding, Cambodia In October 2013, Typhoon Nari followed heavy seasonal rains and created substantial flooding along the Mekong and Tonlé Sap Rivers in Cambodia. The flood affected more than a half million people, and more than three-quarters of a million acres of rice fields are believed to have been destroyed.

Beyond the obvious effect of rising sea levels, global warming will cause a prevalent increase in the frequency and intensity of storm surges.

This will - and already has - established a dramatic rise in flooding events, even in regions that aren’t located near the coast. Events like typhoon Nari will cause devastating impacts to entire populations that will loose not only their homes, but their crops and farm land. At it’s current rate, rising sea levels will displace tens of millions of people from their homes, costing trillions in damage within our lifetimes.

Lake Shrinkage, Iraq Bahr al Milh is a saltwater body in Iraq, fed by the Euphrates River via canal. Water levels of this shallow lake vary with the seasons, but levels have been drastically low year-round in the past decade.

The emergence of more frequent and intense heat waves - particularly in areas that currently experience them - will have a devastating impact on entire civilizations that depend on large bodies of fresh water to sustain human life.

These areas will eventually become unsuitable for human habitation as their availability to fresh water diminishes.

DEPLETING Resources

“by 2025 the demand for fresh water is expected to rise to 56 percent above the amount that is currently available.”

Water Depletion

Fresh water is one of the fundamental ingredients needed to ensure human survival. As current trends to gather potable water from earth’s limited supply begin to prove themselves unsatisfactory, humanity will face a rising struggle to accumulate the basic essentials needed to sustain life. The earths surface is consistent of about 70% water, of which only 1% is suitable for human consumption.

While we struggle to find enough fresh water to distribute among the world’s population, we continue to pollute and contaminate the limited supply of fresh water we have. Meanwhile global warming continues to dry up large bodies of water that people depend on daily. By 2020, millions of people are projected to be exposed to increased water stress. Rising frequency and intensity of heat waves will have a dramatic impact on modern life; yields from rain-fed agriculture and fresh water available for human consumption will be substantially reduced. Billions of people go without clean water every day and more then 5 million people, most of them children, die from illnesses caused by drinking poor-quality water every year. Several cities whom from the surface appear to be sustaining their water supply sufficiently are actually drawing resources from polluted areas, feeding their inhabitants contaminated water. An example is the arsenic crisis in Bangladesh - described as the largest case of mass poisoning in the history of mankind. On a daily basis 46 million people are forced to choose between arsenic-laced groundwater or biologically contaminated surface water.

Food Production

By the year 2050, nearly 70% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. An additional amount of land the size of North America will be needed to grow enough food to feed them if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. Currently throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for growing crops is in use and almost 15% of that land has been laid waste by poor management practices.

Static Systems

“There is an area of tension between the long lifespan of the urban environment and the quickly fluctuating demands and wishes of the city dwellers.”

Acceleration in Technological Growth

Google Driverless Car First 3D Chip 3D Movies iPad Youtube Facebook Google Hybrid Cars DVDs Cell Phones Internet Windows Apple Macintosh MS-DOS Word Processor Microprocessor

1400 - 2050

Current Infrastructural Systems

1400

1450

Steam Engine

Telescope

Printing Press

1500

1550

1600

1650

Dynamic Needs vs. Static Systems

1700

1750

Light Bulb

1800

Telephone Car

1850

Man on Moon

1900

1950

Industrial Revolution 2000

2050

Technology is always changing, the rate at which is quickening with every year. With almost every urban development there will come a time where the system becomes out of date with means associated to technological advancement, environmental concern, or human demand. When that time arrives, cities will struggle to re-purpose or rebuild their systems to meet the needs of the current time.

This is the pattern that humanity has, and will continue to face: adapting for the future. Changes in the demands and wishes of the city dwellers never happen in isolation, but in a continuous interaction with each other. Now in today’s era, it is global warming and urbanization that exert the greatest pressure on infrastructure and the urban landscape.

The invention of the automobile and the industrial revolution had an enormous impact on the 19th century. It sprouted a new form of life, where people moved away from cities to live in the suburbs, where they could use their cars to commute to work daily. The construction of highways and parkways tore through cities to implement the usage of the automobile as the primary source of transportation that was necessary for the majority. Today, the world is starting to see the repercussions of putting so much reliance into the automobile. As the issue of global warming becomes more present, global populations are learning that they need to dramatically reduce the amount of personal transit to accommodate for more efficient forms of public transportation. But if cities were hypothetically able to significantly diminish the use of the automobile, their highway systems would become useless; meanwhile the production of new transportation forms would have enormous cost in currency and in destruction of existing structures.

Urban structure is composed of components such as parks, buildings, and infrastructural systems. The urban populace, with its wishes and demands try to function the best they can within these components; however, its a cycle that is destined for eventual failure, because the demands and wishes of the city dwellers are more dynamic then the urban accommodation.

ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION

The destruction of the environment- due to greenhouse gas emissions, and poor waste management- is already having a devastating impact on our planet that will only continue to get worse as years come. Water, land, and air are becoming increasingly polluted, water tables are falling, soil erosion is leading to desertification, and species are dying out 1000x faster then before.

“Resources are becoming scarcer by the day. Man has upset the balance with his environment - at every latitude and longitude his settlements are in an unsustainable situation, in a state that cannot be perpetuated indefinitely - inevitably destined to self destruction in the medium.”

“The city acts like a parasite, growing and being transformed over the years, taking advantage of all of the energies nature provides without giving anything back in return.”

Energy Pollution

The effects that our massive emissions of greenhouse gases are causing to this planet go way beyond the rising of sea levels. Global warming is having an extensive impact on earth that is destroying the balance of the natural environment. Gradual replacement of tropical forest by savannah in the eastern Amazon region, risk of significant biodiversity loss through species extinction in tropical areas, and significant changes in water availability for human consumption, agriculture and energy generation are all side effects of the new era of climate change brought on by CO2 emissions. If man doesn’t significantly reduce its dependence on fossil fuels or find an alternative way to combat the greenhouse effect, we will succeed in destroying the environment; ultimately creating a world that is unsuitable for human habitation.

Waste Pollution

Large expanses of land are being consumed by mounting heaps of garbage and waste that simply lies in place, creating tons of pollution and destroying precious land resources. A majority of this garbage is destined to pollute the planet for thousands of years before it is degraded back into the natural environment. Toxic wastes like glass, processed chemicals, plastics, foams and poisonous gases are perpetually released upon the land into the air, rivers, and seas as they irreversibly damage the ecosystem. Recycling is just a small step towards a cleaner environment. Although 75 percent of all waste is recyclable, we only recycle about 30 percent of it, leaving the rest to populate landfills and drift into the ocean. In the pacific ocean, lies possibly humanity’s biggest claim to shame - the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ is a collection of junk clumped together by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre that consists of trash littered by generations of coastal cities, creating a giant mass of floating waste larger then the state of Texas.

Land Degradation

Land degradation leads to a significant reduction of the productive capacity of land. Human activities contributing to land degradation include unsustainable agricultural land use, bad soil and water management, deforestation or removal of natural vegetation, and poor irrigation practices.

Natural disasters, including droughts, floods and landslides also play some role. Degraded land is costly to reclaim and may no longer provide its range of functions and services leading to a loss of the environmental, social, and materialistic benefits that are critical for society and development.

ENERGY CRISIS

The Greenhouse Effect

Over the last century, human activities have been changing the natural greenhouse in an unprecedented manner. The burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which entraps the suns heat in the earths atmosphere, and then warms the globe. This happens because the process of burning coal or oil to create energy combines carbon with oxygen to create carbon dioxide (CO2), which then gets released into the earth’s atmosphere.

The chart below illustrates the atmospheres carbon dioxide levels over the last 400,00 years. carbon dioxide level (parts per million)

440 420 400 380 360 340 320 300 280 260 240 220 180 160 140 120

2014 Level 1950 Level

For 650,000 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide had never been above this line

400,000

350,000

300,000

250,000

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000

0

years before today (0 = 1950)

By continuing to use fossil fuels as a source of energy, we are only contributing to global warming and the destruction of our environment.

Trends and Misguided Perceptions

Currently, cities consume over 60 percent of the world’s energy and contribute to 80 percent of global CO2 emissions. Over the next 30 years, energy consumption is expected to rise 56 percent and as the globe continues to modernize, that number will continue to increase. As the amount of fossil fuels become more scarce, the prices and regulations of using them as an energy source will continue to rise. The global supplies of oil are running low, with one new barrel discovered for every four used.

Legislation will increasingly constrain the use of carbon-based fuels, further raise the costs of energy, and potentially limit its supply - the days of cheap gas are over. Alternative fuels and more efficient cars may moderate the overall cost of driving, but the race is on to develop new vehicle technologies quickly.

In the meantime, higher priced gas is already changing people’s driving patterns.

Efforts around the world continue to make cars and other energy-using devices more efficient, which is an important factor to lowering our greenhouse emissions and reducing energy usage, but it’s not enough. Being more efficient means that we are doing something right - using less to do more - but the problem is that if we are doing the wrong thing (burning carbon-based fuels), it might be misleading because it perpetuates the wrong system with the misguided thought that we are fixing the problem. The motion of creating cars that can drive 10 mpg more efficiently is beneficial in the short term, but when considering the increasing population of energy users, it’s a very short term solution for a long term problem. Without significant implementation of clean, renewable energy, the world will continue to rely on fossil-based energy sources, ultimately adding fuel to the fire that is global warming.

INEFFICIENT PLANNING

In the U.S. alone, at least two-thirds of the buildings that will be needed by 2050 are not yet built and as much as 80 percent of urban development is projected to be located at the “edge” of metropolitan areas.

Planning for an Out-of-Date Society

The industrial revolution and invention of the automobile had an enormous impact on the way cities were structured in the 20th century. The consumer popularity of cars and the production of highways allowed urban workers to move away from the city to live in low density suburban communities while still commuting to their city jobs with relative ease. The ability to drive far distances in a personal automobile caused cities to expand in a way that before wasn’t plausible. Rather then expanding upwards to create higher density, they began to reach outwards in all directions which caused a much more significant dispersion of the amenities people needed to access on a daily basis.

Now, instead of living in close proximity to each other and to the services people use regularly, large populations live in isolated private residences and drive their greenhouse gas emitting cars to complete their daily routines.

Cities are made over long periods of time, which forces incoming planning to be guided by existing structures that may have been created in a time when the systems that assisted life were different, and not necessarily relevant to the present. Today, population management, efficiency - in terms of energy and functionality, and climate change dictate the methods that urban planning needs to respond to. However, in a world where the demands of urban inhabitants and environments are constantly changing, cities need to become more flexible to adapt to their dynamic needs.

A Lack of Density = A Lack of Efficiency

In 2010 more than half of the world’s total population lived in cities or greater urban areas, and this share is expected to increase to 70 percent or more with our lifetimes. The global urban population is expected to increase from 3.5 billion in 2010 to 6.2 billion in 2050 and given the expected decline in urban densities, most cities are likely to more than triple their developed land areas. As the populace increases, we will continue to need more and more land for people, farms, energy, ect; meanwhile, we are constantly loosing land to rising sea levels, soil depletion, and environmental destruction. If the current trend persists, we will run out of enough habitable land to support human life within the next few decades, therefore it is evident that a greater amount of density is necessary.

A lack of density is a lack of efficiency. When a city becomes more spread out, they use more energy transporting their citizens farther distances, they spend more money maintaining their infrastructural systems, they create more pollution runoff from greater amounts of paved land, they waste more energy supplying light and power to individual houses that inhabit one family rather then apartment complexes that share resources between several, and most of all, they distance their inhabitants from the places they need to access on a daily basis. The density of one’s neighborhood matters because most car trips aren’t commutes downtown. People drive millions of miles to buy groceries, to go out to eat, and pick their children up from school. The density of shops and schools in an area determines the average distance of those trips. Fewer people living in a confined area means less taxable income that area is generating for operational costs of public development - proving that greater density allows for greater development.

‘Paradigm Shift’

After collecting and analyzing all of the issues that urban environments will have to face in the future, it may seem rather hopeless; but humanity is an intelligent species and one way or another, we will overcome these milestones. The goal is, to make a change before to much damage has been done. The concept of ‘Paradigm Shift’ - fathered by Thomas Kuhn in his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolution” - revolves around the idea of massive change. When enough significant anomalies have accrued against a current paradigm, the discipline is then thrown into a state of crisis.

During this crisis, new ideas, perhaps ones that were previously discarded or thought to be to radical, are then tested. Paradigm Shift is a change from one way of thinking to another. It’s a revolution, a transformation, or a sort of metamorphosis. It just doesn’t happen, it is driven by agents of change. The reality is, change is difficult. Human beings generally avoid change; however, when an event significant enough occurs, the notion of change becomes necessary. In retrospect, there are some very significant events that lie ahead in our future. Global warming, overpopulation, energy shortage, depleting resources, and environmental pollution will inevitably cause social and geological disasters within this century. According to the idea of ‘paradigm shift’, only when those disasters happen, will humanity become motivated enough to employ massive change. Our inability to plan for the future will be costly in assets and human casualties to the globe’s cities that are introduced to the environment’s harsh reaction to the damage inflicted on it.

Why does humanity have to wait until its cities are under water to realize that their current system has failed? How much destruction must be caused before old methods are abandoned and a change is put into effect?

Let’s not wait until it is to late to employ change We can plan ahead to stop disaster before it arrives.

chapter three...

Responding to a changing world Renewable Energy

New Cultivation Methods

Dynamic Systems

Fixing Our Mistakes

The fact is, it isn’t to late to save our planet and protect our way of life. The issues discussed are destined to have notable impacts on society for decades to come - but they don’t necessarily have to destroy our way of life if we can plan ahead and make a change. Humanity’s irresponsible behavior is changing the face of the planet, and now we need to adapt to it. Reducing greenhouse emissions, restoring the environment, and responding to rising sea levels are crucial developments towards that adaption. Growing populations can be managed and accommodated for through the use of more efficient planning and new methods of cultivating resources if we can implement the changes necessary to foster such development. There are solutions to the problems of society, if we could only manage to find the motivation to abandon our comfortable, yet destined-to-fail methods to adopt newer, more sustainable ones.

The drive toward the future is building sustainable communities that withstand the test of time.

It is about building for people - in harmony with the natural environment, not in spite of it. The world needs to stop feeding the fire that is global warming to slow down its quickening pace, ultimately providing the natural environment with more time to adapt to it - rather then being consumed by it. Climate change is starting to be factored into a variety of development plans: how to manage the increasingly extreme disasters and their associated risks, how to protect coastlines to deal with sealevel encroachment, how to best manage land and forests, how to plan for reduced water availability, how to develop resilient crop varieties and how to protect energy and public infrastructure.

Environmental Restoration

Efficient Planning

Floating on Water

clean renewable energy

The Drive Towards Sustainable Energy

As we enter an era of global warming, man must realize its responsibility as a major contributor to climate change through the emission of greenhouse gases. It has started to become evident that we need to lower our dependence on fossil fuels to react to the atmosphere’s CO2 levels. The limited availability and rising prices of underground energy sources like oil or coal also provide an initiative towards this. If we do not make a significant progression away from carbon-based fuels, we will continue to perpetuate the destructive effects of climate change. Initiatives for renewable energy promise to restructure the energy industry itself. To stay relevant, the oil industry is slowly evolving away from fossil fuels, towards new energy sources like biofuels. The implementation of those new energy sources could have an enormous impact on the future global economy and environment. The current issue is that we are not doing enough to make this vision a reality.

Humanity is faced with a major challenge: to make forms of renewable energy cheaper then oil or coal. When that happens, we can take a step forward to a cleaner and more sustainable world. By utilizing the power of renewable energy sources, we are creating a system that not only is environmentally friendly, but can be sustained for an infinite period of time, without fear that resources might run out. At the national level, at least 30 countries around the world have already put into effect clean energy systems that contribute more than 20 percent of their energy supply. National renewable energy markets are projected to grow strongly in the coming decades as scientists and engineers continue to find new ways to create clean energy and more efficient methods to harness their power.

Ultimately, the goal is to create architecture that is energy positive - creating more energy then it uses so that structures can operate efficiently and cleanly while feeding excess energy back into the system.

Below are some examples of contemporary urban architecture projects that utilize renewable energy sources

The Pearl River Tower - S.O.M. Architects

This 213,700-square-meter tower redefines what is possible in sustainable design by incorporating the latest green technology and engineering advancements. The tower’s sculpted body directs wind to a pair of openings at its mechanical floors, where they push turbines that generate energy for the building. Other integrated sustainable elements include solar panels, a double-skin curtain wall, a chilled ceiling system, under-floor ventilation, and a daylight harvesting system, all of which contribute to the building’s overall energy efficiency.

Bahrain World Trade Center - Atkins Architects

The Bahrain World Trade Center is the world’s first building to integrate large scale wind turbines. The two towers are linked via three sky-bridges, each holding one of the 95 foot, 225kW propellers. Each of these turbines and are aligned north, facing incoming wind from the Persian Gulf. The sail-shaped structures on either side are designed to funnel wind through the gap to provide accelerated airflow that passes through the turbines. The building’s three propellers generate enough power to meet 15 percent of the needs of the two 50-story office towers.

Masdar Headquarters - AS+GG Architects

Masdar Headquarters was designed as the world’s first mixed-use, positive-energy building, using sustainable design strategies and systems to produce more energy than it consumes. The signature architectural feature is a collection of eleven wind cones which provide natural ventilation and cooling while forming interior courtyards and flexible spaces. Another key sustainable design feature is the vast roof canopy, which provides natural shading and incorporates one of the world’s largest photo-voltaic and solar-panel arrays.

Solar Every two minutes the sun gives the earth more energy than is used annually worldwide. It is the only renewable resource with the capacity to provide all of the energy we need on a global level. Solar thermal power plants employ various techniques to concentrate the sun’s energy as a heat source. The heat is then used to boil water and drive a steam turbine that generates electricity in the same fashion as coal and nuclear power plants, ultimately supplying electricity for thousands of people. Solar energy is lauded as an inexhaustible fuel source that is pollution and often noise free.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe.

It is found in many organic compounds - notably the hydrocarbons that make up many of our fuels - and can be extracted from those hydrocarbons through processes known as reforming or electrolysis. The element provides a very high amount of energy, yet an engine that burns pure hydrogen produces almost no pollution. Hydrogen fuel cells power NASA’s shuttle’s electrical systems, producing a clean byproduct - pure water, which is clean enough for the crew to drink. It can also be transported like electricity to locations where it is needed.

Biofuel

Biofuels are energy made from plants rather then from fossils like oil or natural gas. There are various ways of making biofuels, but generally it uses chemical reactions, fermentation, and heat to break down the starches, sugars, and other molecules in the plants. The leftover products are then refined to produce a fuel that cars can use. Since plants absorb CO2 as they grow, crops grown for biofuels should suck up about as much carbon dioxide as the devices that burn them produce. And unlike fossil fuels, biofuels are a renewable resource, since we can always grow more crops to turn into fuel.

Waste Conversion

Incineration - the combustion of organic material such as waste with energy recovery - is the most common WtE method. Incineration generally entails burning waste to boil water which powers steam generators that make electric energy and heat to be used in homes, businesses, institutions and industries. By passing the smoke through the basic lime scrubbers, any acids that exist in the smoke are neutralized which prevents the acid from reaching the atmosphere and hurting the environment. Other devices such as fabric filters, reactors and catalysts destroy or capture other regulated pollutants.

Wind Turbine Wind power is the energy extracted from wind using turbines to produce electrical power. Wind energy - as an alternative to fossil fuels - is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed and clean while producing no greenhouse gas emissions and using little land. Currently, Denmark is generating more than a third of its electricity from wind and 83 countries around the world are also utilizing wind power to supply their electricity grids. Onshore wind is an inexpensive source of electricity that is competitive with fossil fuel plants; although, offshore winds are typically steadier and stronger than on land.

Hydro-Electric

Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydro-power - production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. It is the most widely used form of renewable energy, accounting for 16 percent of global electricity generation. A hydroelectric complex produces no direct waste, and has a considerably lower output level of carbon dioxide than fossil fuel powered energy plants. A tidal power station makes use of the daily rise and fall of ocean water due to tides. In both cases a power source is used to spin a turbine, which then produces electricity.

Kinetic Collection

Kinetic energy tiles generate a charge every time you step on them, and when you think about the amount of stepping, running, and jumping that people do, they open up a world of possibilities for clean, renewable energy.

Kinetic energy’s big advantage is that it provides an opportunity to generate energy from existing resources namely the built environment, and its inhabitants. These tiles generate electricity with a solution of mechanisms that use the piezoelectric effect (an electric charge produced when pressure is exerted on crystals like quartz) and induction, which utilizes copper coils and magnets.

O.T.E.C.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion technology - known as OTEC - uses the ocean’s natural thermal gradient to generate power. In geographical areas with warm surface water and cold deep water, the temperature difference can be leveraged to drive a steam cycle that turns a turbine and produces power. Warm surface sea water passes through a heat exchanger, vaporizing a low boiling point working fluid that drives a turbine generator, producing electricity.

This process can serve as a base-load power generation system that produces a significant amount of renewable, clean power, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

desalination

Tapping into the 97%

Desalination is the process of reducing ocean water to its basic elements - salt and water.

Drinking salt water can kill you. While ingesting salt signals, your cells flush water molecules to dilute the mineral which cause your cells to be depleted of moisture - shutting down your kidneys and damaging your brain. People have been searching for fresh water solutions for centuries. Even in modern times, entire populations struggle with a cruel irony; they are surrounded by salt water, but lack drinking water. But what if an abundant supply of fresh water could be created from the ocean?

A large-scale desalination operation could accomplish this. Water covers at least 70 percent of the world’s surface, but 97 percent of it is too salty to drink. This, coupled with inequalities in water distribution and geographic availability, means water scarcity is a reality for many people. Turning brackish or salty water into fresh water could impact both the depleting rations and the everincreasing demand for potable water. In addition, desalination plants can provide a reliable water source even when a drought is afoot. There’s multiple ways to separate salt from water, but nearly 90 percent of the time, only one of two methods are used: multistage flash and reverse osmosis. Multistage flash utilizes nature’s method of evaporation and precipitation to extract the salt from fresh water. semipermeable membrane

Reverse Osmosis

Reverse osmosis is a process of desalination that utilizes a semipermeable membrane as a filtration device to extract salt and various other particles from sea water to produce fresh water that is safe for human consumption. The process is completed by applying pressure to a salt water volume on one side of the filter to force the water molecules through the membrane to the other side as the larger molecules- stay trapped on the other side.

Fresh Water

In Dubai, desalination plants make seawater potable to supply 98.8 percent of Dubai’s water, with the remaining 1.2 percent coming from groundwater sources.

The U.S.S. Carl Vinson can make 400,000 gallons of its own fresh water every day. The vessel has a massive desalination capacity that purifies the same ocean saltwater it traverses.

Today, cruise ships and submarines desalinate ocean-water to meet the needs of their passengers, yet less than 1 percent of the United States population on land currently receives desalinated water to drink.

Salt Water

Fresh Water

Salt Water

a Future of Sustainability Ocean-water desalination has been in practice in the U.S. for hundreds of years, and as the technology continues to improve, it is becoming easier and more affordable to produce desalinated ocean water for everyday human usage. To ensure the well being of large populations of the earth, desalination technology must be progressed and implemented to provide clean, drinkable water to humanity. By utilizing the method of collecting water from the ocean instead of relying on fresh water sources, we are creating a sustainable approach to supplying the earth’s populace with the resources they need to survive.

Urban irrigation

It is estimated that by the year 2050, over 70 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas and the total population of the world will increase by 3 billion people. A very large amount of land will be required to provide city dwellers with the food they need. This large amount of required farm land may not be available and the creation of that farm land could cause severe damage to the earth. Vertical farms, if designed properly, may eliminate the need to create additional farmland and help create a cleaner environment. Vertical farming cultivates plant life within a skyscraper greenhouse or on vertically inclined surfaces. The modern idea of vertical farming uses techniques similar to glass houses, where natural sunlight can be augmented with artificial lighting.

Benefits of Vertical Farming Conservation of Resources

Vertical farming would reduce the need for new farmland due to overpopulation, thus saving many natural resources that are currently threatened. Deforestation and desertification caused by agricultural encroachment on natural biomes would be avoided, allowing the environment’s natural method of cleaning the atmosphere through CO2 absorbing trees to take place. In another aspect, the ability to grow food in closer proximity to where it is being consumed means that less transportation is required, and less CO2 emitting fuel is burned. Producing food indoors also reduces or eliminates the need for conventional harvesting methods by farm machinery, also powered by fossil fuels.

Growing Where We Live

Because the crops would be sold in the same structures in which they are grown, they will not need to be transported between production and sale, resulting in less spoilage, infestation, and energy usage than conventional farming encounters. Research has shown that 30% of harvested crops are wasted due to spoilage and infestation, though this number is much lower in developed nations. By organizing the distribution of fresh products in short circuits, we allow the product to be linked directly with the consumer, thus completing the process of traditional agriculture and the grocer in one.

More Efficient Irrigation

Crops grown from traditional outdoor farming suffer from the nature of undesirable weather conditions such as cold temperatures, heavy precipitation, flooding, wildfires, and droughts. On the other hand, in most regions of the world crops can not efficiently grow year round. By creating a farming system that is protected by the shelter of a building, crops can avoid damages from weather conditions and can continue to grow all year. The controlled growing environment reduces the need for pesticides and other harmful chemicals, allowing the production of fresher, cleaner organic crops.

The New Urban Market

In addition to the nutritive quality of the produced and consumed food, the urban agriculture is also a growth lever of the urban unemployment market and the local economy. It is used directly as a social link in the conciliation of the primary needs of newcomers with the challenge of their integration in the life of the city, thus, fighting against poverty and exclusion.

The Dragonfly - Vincent Callebaut

The Dragonfly project envisions a prototype of a vertical farm offering a mixed program of housing, offices and labs in ecological engineering as well as farming spaces vertically laid out over several floors, cultivated by its own inhabitants. The agriculture is in favor of the reuse of biodegradable waste and the conservation of energy and renewable resources for a more sufficient irrigation system.

dynamic systems

“A concept of a city that is not just the sum of buildings and roads but a living organism growing towards an uncertain future.”

Systems that Adapt to Society

City dwellers are evocative of a large organism that needs corresponding components and urban structure in order to survive. Upholding that organism’s standard of living relies for a large part on the urban infrastructure - the quality and availability of services like health care, education, entertainment, transportation, energy and communication. A city’s structure is built up from components like buildings, parks and infrastructure. The city dwellers attempt to function the best they can within these components, although satisfaction will never be truly maintained, because their demands and wishes are more dynamic than the urban accommodation. Changes in the special needs of city dwellers constantly exist in a continuous interaction with each other, making them virtually impossible to anticipate beforehand. In addition, different impulses struggle for domination. Now in 2015, it is climate change and urbanization that exert the greatest pressure on infrastructure and the urban environment.

In order to combat global warming and the energy crisis, infrastructural systems need to rupture their ties with mass personal transit to encourage more people to use forms of public transit, which is a much more energy efficient and environmentally friendly alternative. Public transportation needs to adapt the global situation by becoming more efficient; reducing energy consumption, implementing sustainable energy methods, accommodating for larger populations, and transporting people faster are the demands of the new era. Only when transportation systems become a convenient, comfortable, and reliable method of moving from point A to point B will the inhabitants that have access to that system abandon their dependence for personal transit.

The concept of being dynamic stretches further then just the current issue at task. During the industrial revolution, the issue was getting more cars into the city from far distances. The response created massive highways that allowed vehicles to pour into cities as their CO2 emissions poured into the atmosphere - and they did a great job at it. But now we have new issues, and we need to clean up our bad habits. But lets just say that in regards to the current dilemmas we were able to reduce personal transit to 30 percent its current level. What would happen to the massive highways that were built with the sole purpose of catering to the automobile? How much in assets and destruction would we have to spend to create the new systems? The fact is, that sooner or later, the demands placed on infrastructural systems will change again, and we should to be aware of that.

Infrastructural systems need to be planned with careful consideration to the systems that surround it. A transportation system cannot act alone, it must coordinate with all other shared systems for the maximum effect. In order for systems remain efficient over time, they need to be flexible - planned with the ability to adapt to future change. Whether the demand for change comes from environmental needs, urban expansion, population growth, or technological change; the system must be dynamic enough to adapt to it. The extent to which the urban environment is capable of meeting the changing requirements within its components and structures determines its flexibility.

The Plug-In City: Peter Cook

Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s that drew inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical projects. The Plug-In City is a project designed by Peter Cook that envisions an idea for a futuristic city.

The city is based around the idea of adaption to the future in reaction to the radical changes and technological advances that defined the industrial era. The city is set up by applying a large scale network structure, containing access ways and essential services, to any terrain. Into this network are placed units that cater to all needs. These units are planned for obsolescence. The units are served and maneuvered by means of cranes operating from a railway at the apex of the structure. The interior of the city contains several electronic and machine installations intended to replace present-day work operations. The most important feature of the city is that it can continually build and re-build itself.

This is allowed by a monorail that runs along the top of the grid. The monorail, besides carrying passengers, also carries cranes that transport sections of the grid in vertical, horizontal and oblique directions. The spaces that are formed by the grid are where the crane plugs in the components that make up a city, consisting of everything from living rooms to parking lots. The flexibility of the structure allows the city to function over a number of years and adapt to continuously changing technology. For instance, if and when cars become extinct, one would be able to unplug the road systems and parking lots in order to plug in whatever is needed for the new kind of transport. Archigram not only noticed the speed of technological change but identified in it a kind of hierarchy. The elements that are more responsive to the speed of change are located at the top of the structure-city while the more long lasting elements would find their way towards the bottom. The Plug-In City is designed in a way that most of its elements are expendable and are designated for future replacement.

environmental Restoration

“The next industrial revolution - where industry and environment come together in harmony.”

After decades of environmental destruction due to climate change effects and pollution, we can only hope that the humanity will come to its senses and realize the impact that our parasite-like behavior has had on the planet. If we can not make a significant change to reduce our encroachment on the environment’s natural systems, we will succeed in destroying the only home we have. The world is approaching a point where the damage we have caused is already having a huge effect on our surroundings. Climate change and environmental pollution have caused an enormous amount of damage and will continue to upset the balance of the environment’s natural systems for years to come; in other words, we have some cleaning up to do. There are three objectives that the human race needs to address in order to start the process of restoring the environment to a healthy state: reversing climate change, managing waste, and replenishing biodiversity.

Reversing Climate Change

Reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is an important part of reversing the global warming trend. Nature has an elegant solution: plants take in water and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, then through photosynthesis convert it into oxygen and organic compounds. In 2008, the National Science Foundation sponsored a workshop at which scientists discussed the possibility of capturing and recycling carbon as an energy source, creating a looped system of carbon that is can be used as energy, released into the atmosphere, captured from the air, and then used again. If we could manage to perfect an operation like this, we could create a sustainable method of cultivating carbonbased energy that actually helps the planet. Other scientists have studied using a type of cyanobacteria called Prochlorococcus to capture CO2 from the atmosphere. By taking in CO2 and exhaling oxygen, these tiny creatures serve as the planet’s lungs, whose steady breathing is limited only by nutrition. The bacteria produce more oxygen then all of the worlds woodlands combined and can be catered to have a significant impact on the earth’s greenhouse levels.

Managing Waste

Pollution due to poor waste management is quite possibly the biggest threat to the planet’s ecosystems next to climate change. Cities need to find innovative ways to create environmentally friendly materials and recycle their waste in order to prevent such pollution. The creation of biodegradable materials for products that get disposed often like water bottles would help prevent the long term effects of waste pollution that currently rests as trash in the earths ecosystems for centuries before breaking down into environmentally safe compounds. In retrospect to managing waste, a much more rigorous implementation of recycling must be established in order to contain garbage. Instead of disposing of waste, we need to use it as an input - the goal is no waste generation at all.

Replenishing Biodiversity

By cutting down forests and bulldozing nature for human settlement, farming or various other purposes, man is upsetting the balance of the environment’s natural ecosystems. Water, land, and air are becoming increasingly polluted, water tables are falling, soil erosion is leading to desertification, and species are dying out 1000x faster then before. We must establish initiatives to replenish ecosystems by planting trees, cleaning up pollution, and devoting land aside to allow nature to take its course. In an era of rapid population growth, density must be established to allow room for biodiversity to be replenished. Only by reducing our footprint, can man begin to rebuild the ecosystems we have destroyed and truly coexist with the environment that inhabits us.

Amager Bakke: BIG Architectss

Amager Bakke is a waste-to-energy plant being built in Copenhagen that will replace the city’s existing plant, providing 97% of its homes with heating. It will act as a man-made ecosystem, harvesting natural resources like solar energy and rainwater while turning the city’s waste into its energy. The production of energy will be carried out to an extremely high environmental standard that is far more efficient than other similar WtE plants. Engineers are estimating a 20 percent increase in energy efficiency per ton of waste, resulting in a carbon reduction of 50-60,000 tons per year. The idea of recycling waste into energy is not unheard of. Countries around the world have been using the process of incineration burning organic material to power turbines and produce electricity - for some time; however new methods of turning waste into energy are frequently advancing the efficiency and environmental responsibility of the system. Although measurable amounts of CO2 are released from the process, lime scrubbers and electrostatic precipitators in the smokestacks neutralize harmful acids or chemicals released, preventing them from polluting the atmosphere.

As the plant incinerates trash to produce electricity, the smokestack is modified to puff smoke rings whenever one ton of CO2 is released. These smoke rings serve as a gentle reminder of the impact of waste consumption and a measuring stick that will allow the common Copenhagen resident to grasp their contribution to CO2 emissions in a straightforward way. The purpose of the waste treatment plant is to turn waste into energy, but B.I.G created an innovative way to perform this function without hiding behind closed doors. Instead of considering the plant as an isolated object, the roof of the structure is turned into a 31,000 square meter ski slope of varying skill levels for the citizens of Copenhagen, its neighbors, and visitors mobilizing the architecture and defining a positive relationship between the waste plant and the city. When completed in 2016, the new facility will be able to treat more than 400,000 tons of waste annually, supply low-carbon electricity to 550,000 citizens, and heat to 140,000 households in the Copenhagen area.

‘The Dragonfly’: Vincent Callebaut

The Dragonfly project envisions a vertical farming structure that provides citizens with food, replenishes biodiversity in an urban setting, and explores new methods of recycling that allow it to exist in harmony with the environment. It maximizes resources and waste production by recycling its liquid waste through phyto-purification and its solid waste through composting and the production of biomass energy. This nourishing agriculture is furthermore in favor of the reuse of biodegradable waste, energy, and renewable resources. Nothing is lost - everything is recyclable to a continuous auto-feeding system that feeds the population while purifying the atmospheric CO2 levels.

‘Very Large Structure’: Manuel Donminguez

‘VLS’ is a theoretical futuristic urban mega structure that is designed to wheel itself from one location to another in order to find better economic and physical conditions. Rather than using up resources from the places it visits, it would be able to produce its own energy through renewable sources, and establish new buildings before moving on. Despite its size, the city would strive to reduce its impact on its surroundings by allowing communities and nature to live around and between its tracks. The project also aims to replenish nature along its path by planting seeds as it travels to reforest the area left behind, slowly bringing ecology back to places where it was once destroyed.

‘Asain Carins’: Vincent Callebaut

The vision of ‘Asain Carins’ foresees a city that brings a new sense of ecology into urban function. It incorporates mixed use towers that inhabit biodiversity, irrigation, energy generators, residences, businesses, and various other programatic functions together. Each spiral curls up around two towers to form urban ecosystems - implanting biodiversity in the heart of the city and purifying atmospheric CO2 levels.

Basins and lagoons recycle the gray waters produced by the structures through phyto-puration. Renewable energy sources combined with more efficient living systems allow the project to create more energy then it uses, opening up opportunities to transfer that energy back into the grid.

‘Lily-Pad Cities’: Vincent Callebaut

The Lily-Pad City conceptualizes a completely self sufficient, energy-positive floating structure that could serve as a new home for climate change refugees. The double skin of the floating metropolis - made of polyester fibers covered by a layer of titanium dioxide - would react with ultraviolet rays to absorb atmospheric pollution using a photo-catalytic effect. The structure leans towards positive accountancy in the oceanic ecosystems through recycling CO2 and waste by purifying waters and by integrating ecological pockets, aquaculture fields and biotic corridors on and under its body to meet its own food needs. Ultimately, the floating metropolis benefit the environment more then it would harm it.

efficient planning

“The surprise is that New York City is one of the most environmentally efficient cities on the surface of the planet because of its density.”

Establishing Density

In an era of rapid population growth and constant depletion of habitable land, well-planned communities that give residents the option to transport only a short distance (walk, bike, or take public transit), have a central role to play in mitigating climate change.

“We need to draw lines in the ground and say, “The concrete stops here.” - That forces people to build in and up rather then out – and there’s nothing wrong with high, dense urban environments as long as they’re planned correctly. They can be extremely livable. They tend to require less transportation, fewer sewer lines, fewer power lines, fewer roads, and more tightly packed structures, which in one of themselves are more energy efficient.” – Patrick Moore

Today, New York City is one of the most environmentally efficient cities on earth due to density.

While people in the U.S. are more than fifteen times as likely to drive themselves to work than use public transportation, New York City residents are more than twice as likely to take public transit.

Throughout the world, big cities mean less driving. On average, when population doubles, household carbon dioxide emissions due to driving decline by almost a ton per year. By establishing a stronger sense of density, cities would allow their pedestrians to access the things they need on a daily basis with relative ease, ultimately creating a more environmentally friendly and efficient community.

Flexible Planning

In order to react to a society that is constantly changing with time, flexibility is required. The pace of change is quickening and the life span of buildings and their intended use is too. Housing often lasts over 50 years, but the number of occupants and uses change as people age - family members come and go, and different stages of life are accommodated. Commercial and retail structures may have a life span as short as five to ten years as one-story shopping gives way to more flexible usage. Today, housing over retail space is an old idea made new again with ease of access to daily needs rising in importance.

The importance of rethinking, re-creating, and reusing existing structures begs for flexible buildings, flexible patterns, flexible citizens, and ultimately flexible cities.

Modular Construction

The nature of urban growth is consistently reacting to its own existing environment. New construction is limited in terms of planning because it must obey the rules of its surrounding structure in order to fit in. A majority of today’s major cities were planned in a time when technology and society was dramatically different, and now they struggle to create newer, more efficient city plans because of the out of date guidelines they must correspond to. In today’s society, new technologies and environmental demands allow us to be more efficient then ever before. The cities of tomorrow need to create more flexible modules of city blocks that can adapt to future change and be more accommodating for a larger variety of spaces. The modular construction of city blocks would also provide significant cost and energy savings while allowing a more simplified design approach to dictate the development of urban areas.

‘Floating New Orleans’ Proposal

New Orleans is under siege. Devastating floods caused by global warming and rising sea levels have already created significant damage to the city and will continue to be a threat as the years come. The old defenses (levees and canals) can’t be counted on any longer. However, engineers are proposing that the key to New Orleans to escaping their water problems is building a floating city - a new New Orleans, buoyed up by the water, instead of drowning under it.

The construction of the floating city contains dozens of hexagon-shaped modules that could be assembled off site where they would be prefabricated with all of their urban components, and then transported to the city on water. The hexagons have the ability to perform independently, allowing the city to break down and restructure itself at any time, creating an urban environment that is constantly evolving and changing form while expanding from every direction. The floating module also performs structural abilities when united, allowing each unit to work separately when a strong force comes so that hexagons can individually fluctuate over it and the whole system can work together.

A floating city has an advantage because it isn’t bound to any specific place. This means that it has the ability to relocate wherever it wants transporting itself to new locations in order to find desirable climates and resources, similar to the way birds migrate south in the winter.

Float on water

Responding to Climate Change

With global warming already taking effect, the issue of rising sea levels is an inevitable reality for humanity. Land is becoming scarcer by the year as populations are rapidly increasing and demanding more. While certain areas remain safe from rising sea levels, others are already experiencing its harsh effects. For these areas, there are two choices: build walls to protect, or adapt.

By creating structures that can float on water, we can adapt to rising sea levels rather then hide from them. Buildings that have the ability to fluctuate with the water level are eliminating the risk of flooding due to sea level rise and creating a whole new spectrum of opportunities. The technology to create habitable floating architecture on large scales has existed for years in large boats like cruise ships, cargo ships, or aircraft carriers. Now its time to implement it on an urban scale.

‘Lily Pad City’: Vincent Callebaut

As global sea levels rise, people living in low lying areas are expected to be displaced from their homes.

The Lily-Pad could provide a relocation destination for these refugees in the form of a completely selfsufficient floating city that would accommodate up to 50,000 people. Three mountains and marinas would be dedicated to work, shopping and entertainment, while suspended gardens and aquaculture farms would be used to grow food and biomass. The goal is to create a harmonious coexistence between human and nature while exploring new modes of living on water.

Designing for Flexibility

The high complexity of the modern city requires a high level of flexibility, so that changing special requirements can find their place within the existing structures. The design of urban components and expansions that can hold their own for a longer period of time without knowing all of the things that are going to vary, is called “planning for change”. Planning for change is only possible if metropolises are flexible. Floating on water would provide that flexibility. By divorcing the permanent connection between building and location, the building becomes a product that can be used during its lifetime by different owners and different locations. The possibility of relocation means that a site can also function for changing requirements throughout the course of time.

Floating Housing: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Amsterdam, is one of the few major cities in the world that is built below sea level. After enough destruction had been caused due to flooding, the city implemented new initiatives to create entire residential communities on water. Floating housing has been built in various parts of the Netherlands and citizens are witnessing the benefits of the flexibility that living in a house that can be moved with relative ease provides.

When home owners want to relocate, they don’t have to sell their property - they have the ability to transport their entire house to a new location.

Mobility on a City Scale

Throughout the course of human existence, cities have been developed over hundreds of years stemming from a fixed location whose position relative to climate, resources, or geological activity may not be desirable. Floating on water frees us from that fixation. A floating city has an advantage because it isn’t bound to any specific place. This means that it has the ability to relocate wherever it wants, transporting itself to new locations in order to find better climates and resources, similar to the way birds migrate south in the winter to seek more comfortable living conditions in warmer weather. Cruise ships are a great example of this. They constantly travel through the sea, providing a variety of services for thousands of people while remaining somewhat self sufficient. The key is to turn this idea into a permanently reside-able area, and not a vacation from real life.

“Freedom Ship” - Freedom Ship International

The ‘Freedom Ship’ is an urban vision that could accommodate over 50,000 permanent residents while holding schools, hospitals, shops, parks, entertainment services, and even an airport runway that serves small private and commercial aircraft. The ship would spend its time sailing from destination to destination, stopping outside of major cities all around the world - creating a full loop every 2 years. Visitors and residents would be able to leave the ship, either by plane or boat to visit the cities and countries they are stationed at while the ship picks up supplies as and when needed.

Creating New Opportunities

“Invest in land, they’ve stopped selling it.” In a time when technology is constantly progressing, providing new opportunities for urban settings, possibilities for future cities are inspiring. However cities with a sense of history are faced with limitations on implementing the newest cutting edge technology. Working with existing conditions, building around existing structures, and preserving the traditions of a city create complications that forbid any contemporary urban setting from receiving a massive city-wide upgrade. Installing a new infrastructural system means tearing apart existing conditions which can be extremely costly and inefficient for the people that rely on that system for daily life. Building on water would allow us to build a city from scratch, eliminating those limitations.

‘Sea-Steads’ - The Sea-Steading Institute

Sea-Steads are a vision slowly growing into a reality that takes the idea of creating new opportunities to the next level. The institute argues that governmental systems are flawed but lack the motivation to employ massive change. Today, in order to establish a new system an old one must fall - either by war or revolution - because there is no room left to start over with. In reaction, they seek to create entirely new countries by building Sea-Steads (floating cities) on the ocean - the one territory left unconquered, in order to experiment with new forms of society and government.

“What we seek is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world, with clean water, air, soil, and power, that is economically, equitably, ecologically, and elegantly enjoyed.�

It’s up to the climate change generation now.

chapter four...

Thesis Proposal How can architects envision a new urban realm that responds to the dynamic needs of city dwellers and the environments that inhabit them?

Starting From Scratch

After first analyzing the potential roadblocks that face tomorrow’s cities, and then reactions created to solve those problems, one can make assumptions about the direction that the future of urban design is headed towards. The goal of this project is to do just that. This thesis will imagine a futuristic setting based on predictions made by scientists and architects to develop a vision of a new urban realm that responds to the anticipated dilemmas of the forthcoming generations for a more efficient and environmentally friendly society.

The future of cities is a vital aspect to sustaining the life of the rapidly growing populations of coming generations. Tomorrow’s city will face many challenges, but is full of new possibilities due to technological advancements and the newly found environmental awareness. Over long periods of time, cities will undergo significant changes as new technology is implemented and old systems are updated to adapt to social and environmental demands. However, the rate at which these cities can update is limited due to existing conditions. The costs of replacing a system that still has the ability to perform its function with a much more efficient system prevents cities from making a change until it is absolutely necessary. Also, demolishing existing structures and systems to create a more suitable master plan is a notion that will generally be denied for similar reasons. Existing urban environments can never be fully up to date because of existing conditions.

In contrast, this project will conceive of a brand new opportunity for a city that has no existing conditions to work around. By creating a new urban environment rather then extending an exiting one, the project has no limitations, which makes it capable of exploring the most advanced technologies and most efficient planning methods. It will envision the fabrication of an urban realm from scratch, which is something very few cities have been able to do. Imagine the possibilities created when planning systems have no guidelines to follow, and the newest technological advancements can lead the organization of the whole being.

Designing an entire city is a near impossible task for any single person, so in order to approach this project, the design must focus on particular fields of the urban realm while other aspects are generalized. The outcome will use various graphics to visualize the systems that make up this city. The design of individual buildings or outdoor spaces plays little significance in the hierarchy of the overall vision. Instead, the graphics that speak for the project will focus on the systems of infrastructure, resource cultivation, energy production, and adaption for the future that structure the city. Great emphasis will also be placed in the master planning of the city to create a more efficient urban environment that has the ability to adapt to the needs of its inhabitants and keep growing from all directions, like a real city would. The project will use the positive and negative aspects from various real and imaginary urban environments to create a general outline of a futuristic city that is more efficient, sustainable, and environmentally responsible.

The Visionary Aspect

Visionary architecture is the name given to architecture which exists only on paper, depicting a mental picture produced by the imagination that typically suggests the idea of an idealistic, impractical or Utopian notion. These visions allow insight of the unusual perception of worlds that are impossible to visit everyday, except through the visual dramatization of the designed, imaginative environment.

This type of design allows one to step outside of actuality to deal creatively with an unseen reality.

This thesis is about designing a visionary city that explores viable solutions to real urban problems. The visionary aspect of the project is key to defining it, and provides a whole new series of opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t be plausible. It allows one to escape the parameters set by reality to create broader theoretical ideas that conceptualize what an urban realm could be. It proposes systems that haven’t been precedented, and makes assumptions about the world that may never become factual. The visionary aspect allows this project to explore ideas, rather then architectural design. These ideas are then visualized through architectural graphics that speak for the systems created and the way of life those systems provide.

Precedents of visionary cities are fundamentally based around an ‘imaginative reality’ - a fabricated version of futuristic society. In many cases this is an extreme abstraction from real society, and has almost no probability of ever resembling a world we could actually live in. After analyzing the designs of these visionary cities, it is evident of the liberties their creators took in shutting out obvious facts of reality that seem to oppose the plausibility of their project. The designs all seem to address only a couple of issues, ignoring the fact that real life is consistent of so much more. In this way the overall idea of their projects become weaker. They seem to get so caught up in solving the specific problem they are trying to address that they loose focus on the people they are designing for, ultimately creating a city that would completely be unsuitable for human habitation. This aspect of visionary design is something that this thesis will attempt to improve upon.

In order to do that, this project will be designed for an imaginative reality that is derived from future projections of established experts in their field about the world we actually live in, so the intervention can be shaped around a more realistic context. The ‘imaginative reality’ this project will use could potentially end up being real someday, but as of now, there is no way to be certain, so it remains fictional. Another way this project will improve upon previous visionary cities, is by addressing a wider spectrum of issues to tackle. Rather then just responding to a single problem, like the ‘Plug-In City’ that only focused on adapting for change, this project will address several urban problems that aren’t completely interrelated, ensuring that major aspects of urban design don’t get overlooked. It will address the issues described in this book, drawing influence from the solutions and precedents that respond to them, ultimately creating a somewhat realistic approach to a visionary city.

Visionary architecture is supposed to be fictional. Precedents fabricate an imaginary world that exaggerates the problems of real society and then create a conceptual response that solves those problems. However, their relevance lies in how that solution can be translated into the real world. If it lacks all significance, then there is nothing to be learned from it. On the next page, 4 different visionary cities that take radical approaches to an ‘imaginative reality’ are analyzed and critiqued.

‘Plug-In City’: Peter Cook Peter Cook envisions a world in which the rapid technological advancements progress at a rate in which humanity’s construction cannot keep up. Buildings and infrastructural systems are constantly out of date because newer, more efficient systems are always in demand. In response, the ‘PlugIn city’ allows every component of the city to be plugged in or out, creating an environment that is always changing to keep up with the dynamic needs of society. The project creates a viable solution to a over emphasized problem and is beneficial as a conceptual idea. However it becomes so focused on solving that problem that it has lost focus on the people that it is designed for, creating a environment that is inhumane.

‘Very Large Structure’: Manuel Donminguez

‘VLS’ envisions a world where people live more mobile lifestyles than they have in centuries, facing a problem they rarely planned for: their citizens moving away. When jobs and resources start to decline, cities suffer difficult and often wasteful processes of urban contraction. In contrast to this, ‘Very Large Structure’ proposes a nomadic city that can move on caterpillar tracks to locations where work and resources are abundant. ‘VLS’ envisions a sort of post-apocalyptic approach to reality that feels somewhat misguided. All of the social aspects of modern culture are consistent, yet the physical environment is interpreted as a vast desert that withholds major cities with no surrounding context.

‘Ville Radieuse’: Le Corbusier

This vision takes a relatively realistic approach to society in its design of an urban model that establishes a strict division of the city into segregated commercial, business, entertainment and residential areas. The new urban plan would be composed of prefabricated, identical, high-density skyscrapers - spread across a vast green area and arranged in a Cartesian grid, allowing the city to function as a “living machine.” Le Corbusier’s totalitarian approach to organize the city seems to strip the urban environment of its humanity. The strict division of program rids his ‘Ville Radieuse’ of the very thing that makes a city - bringing a variety of programmatic functions together to perform as a larger being.

‘New Babylon’: Constant Nieuwenhuis

In the ‘New Babylon Vision’, Constant Nieuwenhuis imagines a society where man is free from physical labor and can devote all of his time to playing and creativity. The project uses the playful man as the central element so the proposed structures would facilitate that man to live a nomadic life. In this world, there are no jobs, so people contribute to society through artistic expression by fabricating their surrounding environment. New Babylon depicts an ‘imaginative reality’ so radical that it could never remotely breach the barrier of fiction. The vision is so abstract that the problems he is trying to solve have no translation into real society, therefore the design that responds to those problems teaches us nothing.

The Imaginative Reality

The year is 2055. Global populations have reached over 9.6 billion, causing massive urban expansion in cities all around the world, especially in developing regions of Africa and Asia whose populace has doubled in the last 20 years. Urbanization has expanded outwards into the suburbs of American cities, beginning the process of turning the entire east coast into one megalopolis. Global warming has progressed faster then scientists had anticipated, altering the face of the planet due to flooding and desertification. Major cities around the world have already experienced substantial damage from rising sea levels, but have begun implementing initiatives to build flood defenses. Most of New Orleans and large portions of Miami have been abandoned after being destroyed by flooding, leaving entire neighborhoods completely underwater. Small island nations around the world have been obliterated by intense storms that seem to be increasing in frequency and intensity as global warming progresses. Others anticipating similar catastrophes have been deserted, creating a massive influx in nearby urban populaces.

Efforts to create buoyant structures have become the new trend in design. Dutch architects have perfected the engineering behind floating architectural design and have put it into effect in the first below sea level cities that have successfully combated rising sea levels. Their initiative to turn Amsterdam into a series of floating buildings and neighborhoods has served as a model for cities around the world experiencing similar flood related issues. Other arid regions all over the globe have dried up, leaving such limited access to fresh water and soil suitable for irrigation that their populations were forced to abandon them, further populating nearby cities past a level of comfort.

Global urban communities are struggling to provide their citizens with enough food due to the lack of available farm land. First world countries have begun to implement urban irrigation methods that supply enough to feed a reasonable percentage of their citizens, although poverty in 3rd world countries is at an all time high. The process of desalination has been perfected, allowing many cities to supply their populace with clean fresh water, although the struggle remains active in less developed parts of the world.

Renewable energy sources have become efficient enough to power global energy needs, although putting new systems that use these energy sources to effect is taking longer then expected.

Reliance on fossil fuels remains high, but has dropped significantly in regions that don’t have immediate access to them, where gas prices have reached the equivalent of over 5 dollars per gallon. The use of the car has been widely discouraged. Public transit initiatives have progressed in urban settings around the world allowing a majority of citizens to operate their daily lives without cars. Beyond that, new forms of the personal automobile that take up less space and utilize sustainable energy have become wildly popular in urban settings, creating a new purpose for city streets.

Technological advancements have sky rocketed, creating entirely new job sectors and connecting the world in a way that has never been precedented. These advancements have caused substantial development in 3rd world urban environments, yet large amounts of people still remain unemployed and homeless due to the unexpected increase in population. 3D printing technology has become widespread, influencing the production methods of every industry of modern society.

Education has increased worldwide through technology, allowing younger generations of 3rd world nations to exponentially increase the speed of development of their communities. Medical technology has advanced the average lifespan in first world countries to above 90 years in age, boosting the occurance of an elderly generation of people that are still interacting with everyday urban life.

OBJECTIVE

This thesis will position itself in an imaginative reality set for the year 2055 in which undesirable urban conditions require the production of a new metropolis that is restructured to adapt to the needs of the given populace. Drawing from a blank canvas, this project will envision an urban platform that responds to the social and environmental demands of society to create a richer and more efficient standard of living for its inhabitants.

chapter five...

The city of the Future design strategies Buoyancy Float on Water

Global populations are booming requiring more and more land as climate change and environmental pollution are destroying the land we have. Instead of fighting the inevitable, lets adapt and build on water. By creating a series of modular, buoyant platforms, we can establish new ground for urban development that isn’t subject to rising sea levels.

Modularity The Base Module

The key to building efficient buoyant structures that can work together to form a unified city lies in developing a base module- a standard but customizable floating urban platform complete with infrastructural systems and a loose set of design parameters that can be repeated and joined together somewhat seamlessly.

Mobile Units

Because each module is buoyant, they are bound to no specific location or orientation, allowing the city to be put together by a series of interchangeable parts that can be rearranged in custom formations or even allow the entire being to become mobile.

Plan for Expansion

Cities are constantly growing, but the way they typically expand disrupts the density and efficiency that the city center had once provided. The module must solve this issue by establishing a consistent set of parameters that allow the city to expand in every direction without sacrificing efficiency- a multi linear axis of infrastructural systems within each unit that interlock with one another seamlessly.

Flexibility

Adaptability for Generations to Come

The design of each ‘platform’ strives to be adaptable enough to withstand generations of changing technology and flexible enough to let the city to grow and change with time throughout its own natural course. Planning for the future is essential through incorporating design strategies that encourage dynamic functionality and technological pogression.

Density

The Manhattan Model

One of the reasons Manhattan is the most efficient city in the world is its density. For every square mile exists approximately 70,000 people. Because of Manhattan’s success in efficiency, it is a good model to replicate into this new floating metropolis. If the size of each ‘urban module’ is 3/4 of a mile, each module should strive to accommodate about 50,000 people.

Self Sufficiency

Because a floating city is somewhat isolated from the outside world, each module will strive to reach the highest level of sustainable sufficiency in terms of energy, food, water, and waste.

Energy Production

Each module will withhold several systems for producing clean energy with a goal of establishing a positive energy output. Solar and wind energy will be heavily encouraged in surface design practices as well as kinetic energy panels that can line the streets of the city.

Beneath the surface hydro-power, wave power, and OTEC systems will utilize the eternal movement of the ocean to generate additional energy.

Food Cultivation

In order to provide for such a large populace with such little room for farming, new urban irrigation methods must be implemented. Vertical farms will be a vital part of agricultural production, allowing traditional farming methods to be adapted into a dense urban setting.

Traditional gardens must take advantage of plants that can be genetically altered to thrive in an oceanic environment while aqua farms can effectively grow crops underwater. If enough energy is being produced artificial lights could significantly assist the growth of vegetation beneath the surface of the module.

Clean Water Accumulation

In a city surrounded by water, desalination is the key to producing potable water for the city population. Cruise ships and Aircraft Carriers have been doing it for decades, the technology is there- now modules must to implement desalination in an organized large scale operation.

Waste Management

In the spirit of environmental awareness, it is important that the waste the city produces is disposed of properly. To do this a large scale waste incineration system must be implemented.

The facility could even transfer the waste into usable energy to feed back into the grid, cleanly managing our trash and producing electricity simultaneously.

Forming the Module

The search for the most flexible and efficient module form led to a rigorous study in which non-rectangular shapes displayed their evident weaknesses. Working with shapes consistent of more then 4 edges creates two problems. The first being their inability to join in a linear pattern. Hexagons and Octagons can come together to create a unified form, however there is no linear progression from module to module- they build on one another in a staggered fashion, taking away the ability to create continuous infrastructural systems that connect separate modules into one unified and easily accessible city. The second issue of forms with more then 4 sides is their limitations on flexibility. Once the angles between perimeter edges abandon the 90 degree turn, more customized design methods must be fabricated to address the corner conditions. There are two ways to deal with this: design each corner with unique conditions to allow the transition between modules to be as seamless as possible, or plan around a center point and branch outwards in a symmetrical pattern- which will ultimately lead to a series of disconnected modules rather then a unified city. The implementation of either of these two methods is highly feasible, but lacks flexibility, and efficiency.

The most efficient and versatile form is a square; it is a symmetrical form with no mandatory focal point that can be rotated, mirrored, or scaled with certainty that its edges will always fall in place with its neighbors. By using a square form it allows the city to run on a grid. That allows each module to establish a consistent axis of infrastructural systems that can connect to neighboring units to form linear progressions of transit circulation and systematic mobility regardless of the modules orientation to its surrounding counterparts. Customized modules could even double or half their scale and still fit into place without disturbing the continuity established by the general being. If the goal of the city is to be flexible and efficient, the square is the best form for the job. It is consistent through edge connections, allowing infrastructural systems and surface design to continue from one module to the next with a practically seamless transition. It allows the city to run through a grid, which establishes a simple and organized city plan and allows a uniform division of territory- for both infrastructural supply and building layout.

The image to the right explores the square module layout. It establishes a set of parameters deriving from a simple 250’ square block - a Parcel. Multiply that by 4 on both the X and Y axis and a Sector is filled. Sectors are divided by above surface transit lines- a slower paced local interlocking circulation system connecting people to no farther then two blocks away from their desired locations.

These are highlighted by yellow lines. By once again multiplying by 4, a quadrant is born. Quadrants are an important division in the module’s organization. By having four symmetrical sections of the module, it allows the service and infrastructural systems to be divided into 4 parts who can act independently for its given area, but will always have the ability to share resources if need be. It also is the ideal size for a customized module that can be half the size of the typical unit but still continue the flow of systems seamlessly. Finally by multiplying the quadrant once more by 4, the module is complete. Blue lines symbolize the division from module to module. The size of a complete unit is just under 3/4s of a square mile. Under the surface, the city runs on two axes of infrastructure- orthogonal (red) and diagonal (purple). These pathways are consistent of express circulation systems that efficiently connect the center points of each unit, transporting people and resources from module to module without disturbance from the surface environment. By establishing the above and below surface infrastructural lines, a set of parameters is created, allowing each module to be customized uniquely around them.

Although individual parcels are always subject to change in size or form, as long as the constant parameters are held, the surface is available to be designed with a virtually unlimited amount of urban planning layouts with certainty that its systems will connect seamlessly with surrounding units.

chapter six...

THE MODULE BASEMENT

To allow the city to float, the foundation of the module must be buoyant. This means that the amount of weight the city is exerting downwards must be equal to or less then the amount of weight in water that the module is displacing. In order to accommodate such a dense city, the foundation has to be very big, but by creating such a large hollow space underneath the surface of the city, new opportunities are created. The interior of the foundation can serve as a giant basement to withhold the cities service functions and infrastructural systems.

The idea of a pre-established urban basement allows for a whole new level of flexibility.

When traditional cities decide they want to add a new underground transit line, they have to dig into the ground to fabricate a new sub-surface tunnel, which is a long and expensive process that disturbs the surrounding pedestrian environment and overall urban mobility. Even when the transit line is finally completed and re-buried, the time will eventually come where newer technology would provide a more efficient or socially appropriate solution to the existing method of transit. There are then two options, learn to deal with an out of date system, or spend ridiculous amounts of money and time to replace it. This is the reason that many infrastructural systems of the modern day city either have or will soon fail their citizens- because they cant adapt with the changing of technology. By designating large amounts of open space for infrastructural development, we can establish systematic holsters that encourage the adaption of their devices with the progression of time and advancements in technology.

The basement is a vital part of maintaining a proper density. By opening up space for programmatic functions that don’t require amplitudes of natural light, the surface can remain free for dense structures that support urban life, while the systems and structures that perform for the city and would otherwise compromise the efficient density established by the surface level can function beneath it. If the goal of each module is to limit its reliance on the outside world, the space provided by the basement is a crucial part of housing the systems needed to produce the necessary resources to allow the city to reach a desirable level of sufficiency.

MODULE SYSTEMS

vertical circulation hub

-pedestrian elevators for lower level access

waste incineration -waste to energy incineration facility

energy management -quadrant energy storage and distribution

energy production hub -plug-in renewable energy collection and storage complex

industrial transport hub

distribution/collection grid -energy, water, and sewage maintenance lines

-vertical transit for large industrial material

water treatment/storage

-desalination plant and storage facility

STRUCTURAL

horizontal bracing

-bracing spread 100’ apart allow program to exist in between members

primary vertical structure primary horizontal structure -vertical tubes support loads and allow -trusses (span- 800’, depth- 100’) systems to use hollow space for circulation

support surface loads

QUADRANT

-each quadrant will consist of its own infrastructural and mechanical systems- creating a more efficient distribution and collection process that allows that given area to act in a self-sufficient manner but always with the ability to tap into neighboring systems in case of emergency or system failure.

water treatment/storage waste incineration plant energy management industrial transport

SECTIONAL BREAKDOWN

diagonal transit

-pedestrian and industrial transit for inter-modular travel

sub-surface structure

-secondary structural support for below surface levels

Parcel -surface subdivision -parcel x4 -sub-sector x4 -sector x4 -quadrant x4 -module

Sub-Surface Levels

00. surface -01. transit/distribution -02. industrial complex -03. energy collection -04. marine interaction

orthogonal transit

-pedestrian and industrial transit for inter-modular travel

secondary transit

-above surface pedestrian transit - vertical location and system type to be determined by module planners

The complete module serves as a platform for the city: a ready-to-go, self sufficient urban machine waiting to be outfitted with generations of dynamic urban development.

The future of urban planning and design is unknown, so the platform strives to be as flexible as possible. The module is available to be addressed by an infinite amount of design strategies as long as the established parameters are held.

chapter seven...

Economical, Social, and physical pogression With ideas that are so conceptual and outlandish, the feasibility of the vision is open for much criticism; anybody could step back and poke a thousand holes in the practical aspects of getting a project of such magnitude realized. Although its important to understand that this is visionary design and has no intention to be entirely realistic, it is useful to establish a real world scenario in which a narrative of the city’s progression can bring some practicality to the project. The following documents a loose narrative describing how the city would pogress from all stages of urban development.

1. The need for Megablock arrives (most likely in response to a catastrophic event).

-Investments from the government and large entrepreneurs finance beginning stages of the new module.

2. The foundation is fabricated out of thousands modular parts in large warehouses located on the port of a major coastal city so the module can tap into that city’s resources during the construction period.

3. Parts are assembled by large cranes at sea about a mile off the coast of that major city. Construction starts from the bottom most level. Once the structure is able to float, workers can board it and continue the fabrication of higher levels.

4. A committee of Architects, Designers, Urban Planners, and Investors are given the responsibility to create a master plan for the module. After, individual buildings are bid out to Architects and Construction firms for the implementation of that plan.

5. Construction begins in the center of the module. Workers that reside in the nearby city are transported to the module each day by boat. Building materials are fabricated off-site and then transported to the module by cargo ships.

6. As the module begins to develop, workers are offered discounted housing on given parcels.

a. The construction of the module requires the creation of tons of new jobs- populating the city and slowly building the economy.

b. Businesses of all sectors begin to populate the module to accommodate the new populace.

7. As economy grows, capital from the module residents slowly begins to take the financial responsibility of construction development from original investors.

-the urban fabric expands outwards from the central point, requiring less and less support from subsidized construction as time proceeds.

8. Over time the module is filled to the appropriate density.

-The goal is for the module to be as self sufficient as possible, although it will almost always exist within close proximity to a major city, allowing it to use that city as a fall back for resources or energy demands if necessary.

9. Eventually the need for a new module arrives - The process is repeated.

a. Announcements would be made years in advance to prepare for the incoming sector of the city if existing modules must be rearranged to accommodate the incoming module, that will also be made clear to residents.

b. The next units are attached right onto the original, then constructed in a similar process, allowing the economy from the existing units to assist the development of the new.

c. The amount of time passing between the construction of each module would provide newer modules access to updated technologies and may require a different style of living or the implementation of different planning methods - this means that each module has the ability to be unique from one another. Architects and Urban Planners can be free to plan their module with the methods that are appropriate to that time - as long as the fixed parameters are held the city should be able to grow from unit to unit without loosing efficiency.

-This basic idea creates a unified city made up of various different neighborhoods that each consist of their own unique identity.

10. Smaller units (quadrants) are created.

-These modules are attached to edges of the metropolis, filling in large gaps and awkward corner situations, yet will remain somewhat mobile - allowing them to be relocated when that spot is ready to be filled by a larger module.

a. Modules that have edges that require some sort of interaction with surrounding water (ports, beaches, aqua farms, ect) stay mobile so when new modules come in they can relocate to always be situated against the water.

11. The city expands outwards in all directions as modules are added.

a. If the need for the creation of new land for climate change refuges from other countries around the world is necessary, they can establish their own module, allowing them to join the metropolis without an uncomfortable forced mixing of social fabrics.

12. Custom units (Outliers) are constructed.

-Outliers will always be situated on the outside of the city to accommodate programmatic functions that would otherwise disturb the efficient density established.

a. Outliers would consist of programmatic functions like airports, farms, industrial centers, solar arrays, ect‌

b. As new units come in, outliers would be pushed out further, always existing on the outside of the city.

13. When the metropolis becomes self sufficient or no longer reliant on the grounded city it has stemmed off from, the metropolis as a whole becomes mobile.

a. The floating city would establish connections with several cities up and down the east coast from Boston to Miami, allowing it to relocate anywhere along the eastern seaboard outside support.

b. It would move up and down the east coast periodically to situate itself into the ideal climatic and economic regions - migrating south for winter and north for summer while also avoiding incoming storms that could threaten the city.

-When the city becomes mobile, loosing its fixed position

would compromise the orientation of the metropolis, which could lead to design issues involving solar orientation and an overall confusion of direction among pedestrians. To address this issue two things must happen.

1. When mobile or stationary, the metropolis would do its best to remain oriented towards the same direction - allowing architects to incorporate passive design methods that utilize a specific solar situation.

2. Even if the metropolis worked its hardest to remain in the same direction, there would always be some margin of movement, so an external system of coordinates must be established based off of the grid of the city that allows the residents to situate themselves within the whole being regardless of their orientation to the current cardinal direction system.

welcome to the metropolis of the future...

Over time as individual modules come together to form one unified highly functioning metropolis, the city becomes an organic being with a life of its own: A mobile realm full of green, sustainable urban life in constant physical and technological communication with nearby cities through aquatic transportation.

chapter eight...

surface design

It is not up to any single man to determine the ideal urban layout for generations of which he has yet to experience. The module doesn’t define the city, it simply lays down a platform for future generations to flexibly construct on in response to the social and environmental demands of their society. In this way the city is encouraged to grow and evolve with time and the technological developments brought with it.

As new modules are constructed over decades, urban planning strategies are subject to change, so walking from module to module could introduce an entirely new urban essence from the previous. If placed in a linear fashion, movement from one city edge to another could display a reflection of history between modules constructed in different eras of urban design.

The modules are designed to accommodate these changes as efficiently as possible.

Despite this notion of flexibility and the avoidance of any single design answer as being the only answer, it is important to visualize how the surface of the module can be addressed- to test and see if the platform is flexible enough to accommodate a feasible and progressive urban environment. In order to explore this new realm in ordinance with the narrative of the city’s progression, the design must be focused to respond to a specific era of societal standards in regards to social demands and technological availability. Next a series of interrelated methods of addressing particular scenarios will bind together one unified module outfitting.

In this chapter a master plan is applied to address the module parameters. Its important to understand that the following urban plan is not a representation of the city. It is simply a series of ideas describing what a single module could be.

METROPOLIS- 2055.

Metropolis 2055 is a series of ideas that responds to 4 different scenarios brought forth by both the parcel and infrastructural layout. The master plan places a hierarchy in the streets that require above surface transit and builds around them accordingly to create a series of ‘central pedestrian streets’ filled by pockets of residence and agriculture. On the exterior perimeter, a unique scenario is presented to deal with the city edges and their interaction with the water and incoming modules.

Scenario A

-addresses central pedestrian streets & surface transit

Scenario B

-addresses pockets between central pedestrian streets

Scenario C

-addresses urban agriculture and food cultivation

Scenario D

-addresses module edge conditions & water interaction

Scenario A...

Central Pedestrian Streets

The planning of the parcels enclosing central pedestrian streets are a direct response to the infrastructure that runs through them. They utilize the underground structure for systematic connections, provide vertical mobility with sub-surface levels, and accommodate both primary and secondary transit systems in an efficient and flexible manner. Because these streets are the spines of infrastructure, a series of parameters is established to create a sense of hierarchy among neighboring circulation paths in which a greater demand for a “public street” is required.

-Each parcel has a 250’ square plot.

-15’ minimum required set back from parcel perimeter.

-Buildings can rise up to 70’ on full build-able area.

-Buildings required to set back 100’ after platform.

-space must provide publicly accessible egress.

-must provide connections with surrounding platforms.

-Structures that build up to 70’ are required to provide a civic space on platform level.

-Each structure is required to provide space for secondary transit lines.

Secondary Transit space begins 55’ off surface along build-able area plane and must extend no less then 30’ away from street and 14’ up to the platform level to accommodate for waiting passengers and transit circulation.

-space must provide publicly accessible egress.

The Platform

The creation of the platform level is a vital part of the ‘public’ essence of the ‘central street’.

First, it pushes the towers off of the street which frees up a significantly greater amount of room for natural light to reach the ground level- creating streets that are full of life and nature rather then covered in shadow. It also establishes new ground for urban interaction: a second level of continuous intimate spaces set aside from the street and interlinked by bridges and vertical transitions. The platform level allows people to exist in the densest parts of the urban environment while avoiding the hectic rush of the pedestrian boulevard but still being fully aware of its presence. It’s Manhattan on the surface and Paris on the platform. This second level would consist of a series of gardens, cafe spaces, restaurants, and additional retail, creating a second public lobby elevated off the surface for every structure. It also creates a programmatic division of spaces within the building - Encouraging mixed-use buildings to accommodate retail, office, and residential spaces, with a built-in transition between each programmatic function.

The Street

The street level would consist of retail, food, nightlife, and other functions that appeal to the livelihood of pedestrians. These streets would take a primary responsibility for the shopping and entertainment aspects of city life, allowing the other streets to accommodate corporate, residential, and agricultural demands with less disturbance from commotion brought by such an active street.

Scenario B...

Sector Pockets

Between the central pedestrian streets of each module exist sectors of land devoted to less commercial means. These are plots of land that are not circumstanced to the parameters that define the main streets.

Because no transit systems exist on these parcels, the emphasis of the “pedestrian street” is disposed, allowing buildings to form relationships among one another in a more intimate environment with less concern for street level activity. The implementation of the platform is no longer a mandatory requirement, although new spaces are created in upper tower levels to bring a sense of ‘civicness’ to residential and corporate buildings.

Although residential and corporate program will also exist on central streets, these intermediate ‘pockets of residence’ will consist of a much denser accommodation of human life.

Common/Civic Spaces

Residential and commercial buildings are required to provide common spaces for the inhabitants of that building based upon the amount of people the building is accommodating.

When such density exists so high off the street, it is important to provide public spaces for the residents to unwind without repositioning themselves so far from their home or workspace.

These common spaces could be protected or exposed from the outside to accommodate space for everything from public gardens to recreation rooms. Connections of common spaces from neighboring buildings are encouraged.

Building Connections

The connections between buildings is an important part of human traffic. With the street so far from so much usable program, sky bridges create a more efficient alternative to allow mobility between neighboring buildings. In a traditional city that is built over decades or centuries, the creation of new buildings typically consists of a scenario where the architect designs in response to the existing conditions. But in this city, where the parcels modules are being planned together, or in a similar time-frame, buildings have the ability to plan with their neighbors - to assist in the design of its context. The architects of neighboring buildings could plan with constant communication of each other to establish connections between structures or implement creative design methods of unifying surrounding buildings. Rather then a series of isolated towers, the structures can work together to form one unified being: an organic complex of human life. When this happens, additional levels are created that flexibly serve as new realms for civic opportunity.

Scenario C...

Vertical Farms

In a city with such a high density, especially one with such limited connection to the outside world, cultivating the resources needed to provide for the people is a problem that needs to be addressed. The process of growing crops horizontally in large fields the way humanity has traditionally farmed opposes everything that this city stands for. Cultivation methods need to be rethought to be denser, more efficient, and more socially and economically inviting. The solution is to farm vertically- take the existing farm and stack it into a sustainable and environmentally responsive tower outfitted with all of the necessary irrigation systems required to grow amplitudes of healthy, organic crops. These structures could even be designed to accommodate livestock for human consumption. With a proper supply of roaming space and food resources, cattle, poultry, and other farm animals could function normally in an environment like this.

The advantages of farming vertically could prove to be a better alternative then traditional methods for several reasons. By growing upwards instead of outwards, vertical farms can provide for a much larger populace in a significantly less amount of square footage. They can exist right in the center of a crowded urban environment without disrupting the density established, which is extremely important when you are trying to accommodate for so many people in such a small space. Vertical farms also provide a more efficient method of cultivating and distributing their resources. Crops can be enclosed indoors- never at risk of being destroyed by weather or climate, yet given the opportunity to yield material all year round when the issue of climate is no longer a factor. Not only does this massively increase production but also creates healthier, fresher crops that aren’t dependent on pesticides or other harmful chemicals that are used in the traditional farming process. Indoor irrigation would also promote the use of LED lights, sprinkler systems, and organized collection systems that allow the crops to produce greater yields with less required labor and time.

Another advantage is the notion of growing where we live. The lower levels could serve as markets that sell the crops grown above, simplifying the process of transporting product from grower to seller and benefiting from the efficiency brought by the ease of mobility. In traditional farming methods, crops are grown, harvested, loaded into a truck, shipped long distances from rural to urban counties, then unloaded and sold at a market. When this happens, crops suffer from the handling, storage conditions and travel time it takes to complete this process; loosing an average of 30% of sell-able yields. By selling the product in the very same building it is being grown in, we can establish a system of elevators within the building to transport harvested crops to their selling point quickly and carefully ensuring that virtually nothing is lost and the crops are as fresh as possible.

A vertical farm brings more then just efficiency to the city, it brings an aesthetic with it. The beauty that a tower filled head to tow with vegetation brings to a jungle of concrete is a marvel unprecedented in the modern era - a beacon of nature visible from all surrounding areas that ensures the urban pedestrians that their food is coming from a safe and reliable place.

Scenario D...

The Permanent Edge

The idea of a city that expands in every direction has to have some limitations. As modules are completed there will always be a time-frame in which edges of the unit have no connecting module, and in most cases the waterfront property will soon return to normal as an incoming module attaches. Despite that, eventually the need for a permanent city edge must be established- waterfront property that will always stay waterfront property no matter how many modules join the city. This scenario explores the permanent edge condition.

Because the surface level is so high off the water level, the module establishes 3 different primary levels. The surface, the upper platform, and the beach level. It uses a separate component that attaches onto the edge of the module to create a second surface just above water-level for nature and urban life with an artificial beach that allows residents to experience a typical beachlike condition even if they are swimming in water thousands of feet deep.

Floating Structure A series of modular hollow structures keeps the surface afloat supporting vegetation and civic spaces that serve as a threshold between the beach and the rest of the city.

The Platform

Because there is no secondary transit line running through these parcels, there are no specific requirements for a platform level, although it is still encouraged- as is any opportunity to create additional green spaces within the city. In this image a large platform is extended from the parcels behind it that creates a large new space for biodiversity while still allowing program to exist beneath it, although, in this scenario, a single-parcel tower building could also exist.

The Street

The surface level parcels would be addressed as beach front property and accommodate program from all sectors, although residential life and retail spaces would primarily fill the area due to its prime location on the water. After the parcels end there is a buffer between the curb line and the physical edge of the module that would be filled with green spaces. A series of elevators would exist along the edge line transporting people from the surface to the beach level. In between those levels, several floors of commercial and retail space would exist that share a more intimate connection with the beach.

The Beach

By creating a series of modular parts that come together to form a detachable surface, a new opportunity is created for human interaction- one with a more physical relationship to the water. This new ground could serve a variety of different programmatic functions, but in this scenario, an artificial beach is created. The system works as follows.

Beach Surface A flexible surface that hammocks between two buoyant elements gently allowing water to fill above it, creating a ‘beach-like’ transition into the water. At its deepest point it reaches 20’ below water level.

Buoyant Tube

A hollow tube that keeps the beach surface afloat while regulating the amount of water entering the beach and serving as a visual indication of the edge of the artificial system.

Water Level

To Be CONTINUED...

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