ARCOLOGY
“ARCOLOGY – The City in the image of Man” – Paolo Soleri (MIT, 1969)
In 1994 – not long after I conceived the concept of “Pyramid Cities” (as I originally named them) I stumbled across this truly mesmerising book. It should have been no surprise that such an appealing (appalling to many) idea as 3D cities had been proposed before.
Each of its super-sized double-spread pages contained intricately-detailed hand-drawn plans of gargantuan buildings – each one a city in its own right. However, I was somewhat disappointed that only one of Soleri’s Arcology designs was “pyramidal”, and even that was a very strange thing on stilts which can be seen in the image above. For someone promoting environmental architecture I thought this a major omission on his part for reasons I discuss HERE.
Paolo Soleri Sketching at His Desk, Cosanti, ca. 1960
As much as possible, an Arcology should be self-sufficient in water, energy, and essential foodstuffs. Energy consumption would also be minimised and re-cycling systems for water and waste would be fully integrated. Since there would be no need for cars, walking would be restored as the primary mode of transport. Residents would also have easy access to the extensive “Domain” – the exquisitely beautiful gardens and densely wooded park/nature zone which would entirely surround each structure.
HG Wells was possibly the first to conceptualise the idea when, in “The Sleeper Awakes” (1899), the protagonist awakes in the future and finds that all the cities and towns of England had been replaced by a few “stupendous hotels”.
An Arcology can be described as a “City within a building”, a “City under one roof”, or an “Enclosed City”. But what do we mean by a “city”? Just how big should a city be..? Historically a city might contain just a few thousand people, providing it had a big church, like the tiny City of Wells in Somerset.
Soleri’s idea of hundreds of thousands (even millions) of people in a single structure is not just impractical, but a totally un-necessary OVERKILL..! Not just economically and in structural feasibility, but also in terms of aesthetics, dynamics, social cohesion, and in many other ways.
Soleri did his idea a great dis-service by giving the impression that an Arcology had to be built on a FANTASTIC SCALE – far, far larger than any existing or projected building.
For a while, in the 1970’s, Soleri and Arcologies were very much talked about but they both slipped off the radar well before concern about “the environment” became the hot topic it is today. Nowadays Arcology has found a home in science-fiction and are better known amongst sci-fi fans than architects, most of whom are unfamiliar with the term.
Ultimately, Soleri’s ideas failed to be taken seriously because his technically brilliant designs were so mind-bogglingly ENORMOUS, like “Novanoah 1” below, there was no possibility of them – or anything similar – becoming a reality in the foreseeable future.
Paolo Soleri’s “Arcologies” were detailed propositions for a new kind of city that has led to the development of the ECO-CITY idea, particularly its compactness and the exclusion of motor vehicles. With distinct physical boundaries, arcologies were designed to have a minimal impact on nature.
For all his undoubted genius and visionary abilities, Soleri did a dis-service to his own invention by helping to create the impression in peoples minds that an Arcology – in order to qualify as one – must always be IMPOSSIBLY HUGE..!
WHY THE OBSESSION WITH GIGANTIC BUILDINGS..?
Googling “arcology” tends to throw up images of gargantuan buildings for a million people or more which, even if they were financially viable to build (which they are not), would probably be un-desirable places to live in. Although, to be fair, they might be better places in which to live than most Obe-Cities. But it is both un-necessary and ridiculous to build such behemoths.
Million inhabitant “Ziggurat” arcology proposed for Dubai in 2008
From a purely ecological viewpoint it is unarguable that a city within a single enormous building – thus occupying a minimal land area – would be a great improvement on a sprawling OBeCity spread out over a vast area and consuming excessive quantities of energy and resources. OBeCities pollute the air, land, rivers and seas and create countless inefficiencies in infrastructure as well as time wasted in commuting. That said, it does not make sense, either practically or economically, to make the mega-quantum leap from our familiar 2D cities – comprising hundreds of thousands of small and medium buildings (and perhaps a few dozen large ones) of varying purposes – to just a single mountainous mega-structure. A building of the size required to house a million people, plus all their workplaces, hospitals, schools, shops and cultural facilities, etc – would probably need a building at least 100x larger (in volume) than the biggest big building in existence. Even if it were technically feasible to build such an enormous structure, it would be economic lunacy because a structure of the required size would take at least 20 years and maybe even 50 or 100 years to complete.
But, aside from engineering and economic aspects, there are other reasons why such gi-normous buildings would be a bad idea.
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