Arcology ramblings (concept) 3400+ words

BRIEF SYNOPSIS

The actual term “Arcology”, (“architecture + ecology”) was coined by Paolo Soleri, a Turin born architect and protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright, in his monumental volume “Arcology – The City in the Image of Man” (1969 – MIT).

A typical description of Arcology goes something like this Wikipedia entry…

Arcology is a set of architectural principles aimed toward the design of enormous habitats (hyperstructures) of extremely high human population density”.

Note the unappealing descriptions “enormous habitats” and “extremely high human population densities”.

Such disparaging summaries are unfortunately typical but, given the popular “arcology” examples listed below, not exactly unsurprising.

Although nowadays the concept of “a city within a building” is primarily associated with Soleri, it has often appeared in science fiction, beginning in 1899 with HG Wells’ When the Sleeper Wakes, in which a man awakes after a 200-year hibernation to find that all old towns and villages have been replaced by enormous residential complexes that completely dominate the landscape. 

A more in-depth description of arcology’s design principles can be found in “The Last Redoubt” from The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912. In it Hodgson envisions structures complete with a full artificial ecology, agriculture, and public transport by mobile roadways.

Yet another mention of the term can be found in William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer.

Novels and comics

• H.G. Wells‘s 1899 tale “When the Sleeper Wakes” describes a rudimentary version of pre-Soleri arcology, having developed from the evolution of transportation. They are hotel-like and dominate the surrounding landscape, having replaced all towns and cities though preserving their names.^[5]
• William Hope Hodgson‘s 1912 novel The Night Land features the first example of what we now would call an arcology, though the future Earthlings depicted — millions of years into the future, in fact — have different reasons for building their metallic pyramid.^[6]
• In Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle‘s collaboration Oath of Fealty (1982), much of the action is set in and around Todos Santos, an arcology built in a burnt-out section of Los Angeles that has evolved a separate culture from the city around it. Niven also occasionally refers to arcologies in his Known Space series, particularly in the stories involving Gil Hamilton.
• In the novel The World Inside by Robert Silverberg, everyone lived in ‘Urban Monads’ that were self-contained three kilometer high hyperstructures. People hardly ever departed.
• In Isaac Asimov‘s Robot Series, Earth’s population lives in large hyperstructures simply called Cities. In Asimov’s Empire and the The Foundation series, the capital planet Trantor of the galactic empire is a completely built-up planet, covered in its entirety with tall buildings and subterranean structures.
• All the remaining cities of the Earth are hyperstructures in Peter F. Hamilton‘s Night’s Dawn trilogy.
• In the Judge Dredd comic stories, originally published in 2000 AD comic, the megalopolis of Mega-City One consists of many hundreds, if not thousands, of City Blocks, in which a citizen can be born, grow, live, and die without ever leaving.
• William Gibson‘s Sprawl trilogy features various Arcologies, namely the “projects.” It is a megastructure that has been constructed with electricity, heat, oxygen, and food that it produced. They are also featured in the Bridge Trilogy.
• David Wingrove‘s Chung Kuo series depicts a dystopian future Earth in which almost the entire population lives within several hyperstructures that are thousands of feet tall and span entire continents.
• J.G. Ballard‘s 1975 novel “High Rise” featured a luxury arcology in which disparity between social classes among the residents eventually led to widespread anarchy and a reversion to primitive archetypes.
• In Samuel Youd‘s 1967-68 trilogy of novels The Tripods, an alien race known as “The Masters” live in three huge domed arcologies built on Earth to use as a base from which to colonise the planet. The structures are made from a golden material, and are capped with a crystal that replicates the atmospheric conditions of The Masters’ home planet.

[edit] Films and television

• Arcologies are common elements in futuristic anime and manga titles. An example would be the post-apocalyptic/cyberpunk series Appleseed by Masamune Shirow, in which hyperstructures dominate the skyline of the city Olympus.
• In the 1982 film Blade Runner by Ridley Scott, the main offices of the fictional Tyrell Corporation (a Megacorp) resemble a hyperstructure.
• The Genom Tower arcologies (among other things) in the anime Bubblegum Crisis were partially inspired by the Tyrell hyperstructure; the series also features an underground “Geo City.”
• In the film Equilibrium, an arcology named Libria is the last human civilization, a society in which peace is kept by the forced administration of an injected liquid drug designed to completely suppress emotions.
• In the science-fiction movie series The Matrix, the last human city, known as Zion, is a hyperstructure. Due to nuclear scarring of the earth’s surface and atmosphere, the hyperstructure is buried deeply under ground. While ecologically sparse, the habitat’s climate is controlled by complex machinery in the lower levels. The population is in the realm of 1 million. Due to the nature of the aggression from the machines, Zion is an example of a heavily fortified hyperstructure.
• In the season four finale of the science fiction show Andromeda a large battle takes place in space around an antiquated space hyperstructure known simply as ‘Arcology’.
• In the episode “11:59” of Star Trek: Voyager‘s fifth season (original air date: May 5, 1999), Earth’s first self-contained ecosystem known as “The Millennium Gate” was referenced. Said to be one kilometer tall and began construction in 2001.
• In a number of movies, most notably the Star Wars prequels, the cities in the more populated worlds have buildings many miles tall, effectively approaching the completely built-over world of Trantor in the classic Isaac Asimov Foundation trilogy.

 

Video Games

The “Launch Arco”, from SimCity 2000

• Will Wright‘s computer game SimCity 2000 allows the construction of four different types of arcologies. More primitive models hold quite a few people in exchange for producing considerable pollution, but later models are denser and cleaner. When 250 of the most advanced model, the “Launch Arco” (pictured), are built, an “exodus sequence” starts in which all Launch Arcos blast into space. This parallels parts of Soleri’s book, in which hyperstructures were shown as being appropriate for environments in space, under the sea, in polar lands, etc.
• Another Wright game, Spore, will feature bubbled cities that serve the same function. In Wright’s 1990 SimEarth, “Nanotech Age” cities eventually advance to a mass exodus of the entire sentient species of the planet.
• Two levels of the computer game Deus Ex: Invisible War posits a futuristic arcology, simply called the Arcology, on the edge of an ancient medina in Cairo.
• The Domes seen in the 24th century in Chrono Trigger could be considered arcologies.
• In the computer game Afterlife, the player controlling Heaven and Hell can eventually purchase Love Domes or Omnibulges. Functioning similarly to arcologies, these structures are the remnants of transcended/destroyed Heaven/Hells that are able to hold billions of souls.
• In the computer game Civilization: Call to Power, the “Arcology Advance,” found in a near future part of the technology list, grants access to the Arcology building, which reduces overcrowding effects in its host city.
• In the computer game Escape Velocity: Nova, many planets that are part of the Auroran Empire have multiple arcologies on them. Many of their populations number in the hundreds of billions.
• The tutorial in the computer game Dystopia takes place in Yggdrasil’s first arcology.
• The wholly self-sustained utopian society ‘Rapture’ in the computer and Xbox 360 game BioShock is an underwater example of an arcology.
• In Mass Effect the Codex explains that Earth is composed mainly of Arcology buildings.
• In the manga and anime world of BLAME! the plot takes place only in a gigantic megastructure/arcology simply called the City, which is still being expanded by its automatic systems.

[edit] Role-playing and table-top games

• In the table-top strategy game Warhammer 40,000, hyperstructures, called “hives,” are extremely common and are the main method of housing large populations. Arcologies are so widespread that some planets, Holy Terra and Mars amongst others, dubbed ‘hive worlds’, are constructed entirely of hyperstructures. Necromunda, an off-shoot game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, involves conflict between rival gangs on the hive world of Necromunda.
• In the RPG Shadowrun, a number of hyperstructures such as the “Renraku Arcology” exist by 2050, most of which are mega-corporate controlled. A major theme to these is the desire of a large corporation to control every aspect of its employees’ lives. A major meta-plot element was the sealing off of the aforementioned Renraku Arcology in Seattle when the advanced computer control system awakened into a self-aware AI named Deus.
• In the RPG Trinity, a number of hyperstructures exist, with the largest being that of the New New York Arcology run by the Psi-Order Orgotek.
• In the RPG Rifts, the capital of the Coalition States is the city of Chi-Town. Chi-town (as well as several other Coalition cities) is considered a “Mega-City”, in that the entire city is housed inside one giant structure, which consists of more than thirty levels, each several stories high, and several sub-levels.
• The tongue-in-cheek RPG Paranoia primarily takes place in the futuristic and mostly computer controlled arcology Alpha Complex.
• In R.Talsorian’s follow up to Cyberpunk 2020, Cybergeneration, one of the player archetype Yo-Gangs was called the “Arcorunner”. The character was a child who has grown up in the arcologies, knowing every aspect about them.
• In WildFire’s CthulhuTech RPG, humanity has been forced to live in fortified arcologies due to attacks from the Old Ones and the Migou.
• In Mindstorm’s Alpha Omega RPG, the world’s populations have retreated into arcology city-states to protect themselves from the war-torn decimation of the Earth’s surface

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology

Although not a work of sci-fi, the “city-within-a-building” concept attracted widespread attention in 1969 when Architect Paolo Soleri published, Arcology: The City in the Image of Man.

The word “Arcology” (Architecture as Ecology) was coined by Italian-born architect Paolo Soleri in his 1969 book

At the time, the idea of “Architecture incorporating Ecology” was new, whereas these days “green buildings” are a very fashionable ecological topic.   But, although they incorporate some very good ideas, these green buildings are merely energy-saving conventional buildings because sadly (incredulously I would say) nobody seems to have made the quantum leap of imagination that would enable them to appreciate the enormous ecological advantages of “cities within buildings”.   The original ecological message of Soleri’s Arcologies tend to be de-emphasised and the term, if it is used at all, has become synonymous with highly improbable futuristic gee-whiz absurdities like the Shimuzu Mega-City Pyramid.

Arcology basic primary objectives are –

1. the elimination of sprawl, leading to…
2. the redundance of private motor vehicles
3. the reduction or elimination of resource wastage,
4. self-sufficiency in water, energy, food.

For the purposes of this hypothesis, an “Arcology” will be a self-contained building with at least 5000 permanent inhabitants, plus all the offices, shops, restaurants, etc, and all the public/cultural facilities that one would expect in a modern town.  The Arcology must be as self-sufficient as possible, harvesting all its own water and solar/wind power, and collect, re-cycle, and re-use ALL its own waste, including the great unmentionable one

The ultimate objective is to create “Eco-cities” comprised of clusters of self-sufficient, self-contained, and self-governing Arcologies, that will eventually replace ugly sprawling land parasitical “Obe-cities” (crime-ridden and time and energy draining) comprised of countless structures scattered untidily across a ruined landscape.

(brick cubes and rectangular concrete slabs)

Will they be built in city centers?   

With the exception of a few large ‘brownfield’ sites, it would be neither practicable nor financially feasible to build Arcologies in existing inner cities, so initially at least they will be built on the periphery just as any new suburb is.

Where will they be built – who needs them?

High population density

High consumption places

High crime places

Semi-arid coasts

Low rainfall places

High rainfall places

Windy places

Cold places

Hot places

Tidal estuaries

 

Once prototypes have been built and ‘road-tested’ and initial public skepticism quashed, obecity dwellers will quickly realise that the myriad advantages of Arcologies far outweigh their few disadvantages.

 

Arcologies will certainly not be cheap to build, but nor are Olympic Stadiums, and which will last longer?  But, having done some basic costing, I am convinced that DP (as opposed to Soleri’s concepts for example) is economically viable, at least for the 1^st world countries that, being the biggest consumers and wasters of energy and natural resources, need them most.  Besides, at the risk of sounding cliched, the e/v crisis is so pressing, we cannot afford NOT to build Arcologies, because –

 

Arcologies are not just A POSSIBLE solution to the Ecological Crisis, they ARE the ONLY POSSIBLE SOLUTION.

 

I realize the above statement may come across as overly assertive, but I have studied this “Crisis of Civilisation” for long enough to say this with total confidence. However, DP being such a revolutionary concept, it is not an easy task to convince the unconvinced, particularly as most people harbour a very negative minds-eye image of high-density urbanizations as sterile clusters of tower blocks.

 

The more I hear, see and read about the massive build-up of e/v problems caused by the grotesque waste of resources (both human and physical) and hyper-consumption, the trademark of sprawling Obecities, the more I am convinced that

 

the solution to this crisis of civilisation is NOT LESS TECHNOLOGY (as some suggest), but MORE TECHNOLOGY.  

 

Arcology theory has far reaching consequences not just in city planning, renewable energy, and ecology, but ultimately in sociology, political systems, and the future direction of civilisation itself.

 

DETAILED SYNOPSIS 

 

Surprisingly, considering all the impassioned hand-wringing of the green lobby, and eco-hippies, the potential of ‘small’ arcologies like DP to reduce energy and resource usage by >80% compared with conventional sprawl cities (‘Obecities’), nobody ever mentions arcologies as a solution to the rich worlds grotesque overuse of resources.

 

In fact most people, even most architects possibly, have either never heard of arcology or, of those that have, think its all sci-fi pie-in-the-sky.

 

In a way this is understandable because almost everything that HAS been written and spoken about arcology leans towards the sci-fi by proposing mountain-sized structures housing 100’s of thousands or even millions of people in a single building.  During ’60’s and ’70’s many futurologists and visionary architects (notably Paolo Soleri) drew plans and designs for fantastical “hyper-structures” designed to house hundreds of thousands or even millions of people in a single city building.

 

the mechanized cities of Antonio Sant’Elia, 

the flying cities of Krutikov, 

the Archigram Group’s “Plug-In City”, amongst others..

Urbanisme Volumetrique  

the Japanese Metabolists

More recent proposals include –

 

the Oceania/Atlantis Project www.oceania.org a man-made floating island paradise for tax-exile millionaires (1993)

 

A more recent overly-ambitious project which I am sure will never come to anything, is the mammoth floating city/barge proposal found at www.freedomship.com

 

If you Google “Pyramid City” you will find Shimizu TRY 2004 Mega-City Pyramid – 

This was featured on a Discovery Channel ‘Extreme Engineering’ documentary.

 

“Imagine a 3-dimensional city 12 times higher than the Great Pyramid of Giza ‘floating’ over Tokyo Bay, built largely by robots, and housing 750,000 people in skyscrapers dangling like fruit from a tree”.  

 

So goes the promotional blurb and, throughout the hour-long film, the impression was carefully maintained that the project was a realistic ‘proposal’ and one on which building work was about to begin.   Only at the very end do the architects admit that such a gargantuan undertaking is, for at least the next century, pure fantasy.    

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimizu_Mega-City_Pyramid 

 

Although the time for such gigantic hyper-structures may well come, for the forseeable future they are all totally unrealistic.  But it is NOW, not in 100 years time, that the world (both mankind and nature) is crying out for a solution and all the ‘respect the environment’, ‘use your car less’, ‘switch something off’ so-called ‘solutions’ being promoted by Al Gore and the ‘green’ lobby amount to laughably pathetic ‘whistling in the wind’.

 

Despite all this absurdity, I am convinced that ‘small’ arcologies (of approx 10-20,000 inhabitants) are the solution to this burgeoning crisis.  In fact, I am sure they are the ONLY real solution.  Although I am neither an architect nor an engineer, I am entirely confident that my concept is more than viable in both economic and engineering terms.

 

 

DESCRIPTION

 

This all sounds so simple and obvious the real question is, why hasn’t this been done before..? 

 

Conventional apartment blocks, either horizontally or vertically aligned, are constructed so that all apartments have outside windows, and thus they are basically 2-dimensional structures.   As are obe-cities.

 

Although some horizontally-aligned complexes are built around enclosed courtyards or quadrangles, from both a practical and philosophical sense they are all basically 2-dimensional buildings.  Most of us would probably agree that all but a fancy few are ugly concrete eyesores.

 

An arcology, on the other hand, would be planned around, and properly exploit, all 3-dimensions – greatly increasing occupational density, offering vastly improved facilities, weather protection, and minimizing environmental impact

 

In an arcology like DP, residents might live no more than a 10-minute stroll from workplaces, shops, schools, clubs, restaurants, theatres, etc.  An Arcology would contain several thousand luxurious apartments, each with its own private patio – scores of offices, shops, restaurants, several schools, 2 or 3 hotels, hospital, library, cultural center, child daycare center, retirement village, plus theatres, gardens, sporting facilities, etc., you name it – all within one finite-sized fully integrated and, you will have to believe me on this – an almost impossibly beautiful building..!!

 

 

DEATH OF THE MOTOR CAR

So, when you’ve eliminated 90% of the occasions for using a car, is there any point in keeping one for the other 10%?   Except for the occasional pleasure trip, there is no need WHATSOEVER.

 

The private motor car will not be legislated our priced out of existence, but once people realize the myriad advantages of Arcology life they will simply walk away (excuse the pun) from their fixation motor madness obsession (Mad Cars Disease) and into arcologies, where private motor cars will be redundant and ‘nonsensical’ to quote Soleri.  The private motor vehicle will be as useful as a dead parrot..!   I emphasize ‘privately-owned’ because some cars will be available strictly for external use, if I may put it so, but none will be privately-owned – they will be community-owned and shared.

 

I know some of you who’ve maybe believed the hype and bought an “environmentally friendly” hybrid-engined car with 2 engines – what on earth do you need 2 engines for – its not a bloody aircraft..!  So you’re all sitting here now saying “oh, yeah, that’ll be the day – motor cars are here to stay.  But I can promise you – it wont take long for the advantages of arcology-life to sink in and then people will gladly sacrifice their cars

 

Believe me, the day will even dawn when the Jeremy Clarksons of this world, if not his bigself himself, will thank me for exorcising this scourge..!!

 

An arcology such as DP may begin life as a stand-alone structure, but eventually it will be just one of many in a newly-formed ‘ecocity’ or ‘ecopolis’.  If we assume each arcology has 10,000 inhabitants – some may have more, others less – then when ecopolis has grown to 1 million inhabitants in total, it will consist of 100 separate arcologies.  Please bear in mind that the arcologies themselves – the buildings that is – will only cover a fraction of the land – 20% is my benchmark proposal but of course it might be more or less.  The beautifully landscaped areas separating the arcologies will be common-land for the benefit of everyone who lives in the greater ecopolis, although in practice it will of course become the pleasure domain of the local arcologies.

 

Individual arcologies within ecopolis would be equivalent to a city neighborhood and will be places where distinct planned communities of like-minded souls, or “intentional communities”, form.  Unlike communities in former villages near London, later to be smothered and submerged by the grey cancer of suburban sprawl, Arcology communities will forever remain individual entities and will never be built-out or built-over.

 

‘Ecopolis’ itself would consist of many individual arcologies separated by an arcadian delight of landscaped gardens, arboretums, lakes, streams, cascades, grottoes, etc.(think of PatrickWatson’s ‘wilderness’ sanctuary surrounding the ‘Palace of the Lost City’). In fact there would be more (and much more attractive) public parkland per capita than in a conventional sprawl city, it would be much more easily accessible (5 mins walk), and everyone (not just the ‘rich’ suburbs) would have equally convenient access. The incorporation of rainwater harvesting, solar and wind power, waste heat re-cycling, natural air-conditioning, total waste re-cycling, and ‘urban community agriculture’, would make the arcology virtually self-sufficient in energy, food, and water.

 

(Note that an arcology is NOT a ‘skyscraper city’ like HongKong or Pudong, Shanghai).