“why a pyramid, why not just a normal vertical sided box-shaped building?”
Thank God for that question, because compared to the usual “Why Not Domes?” question, it’s a no-brainer..!!
Let me reverse the question and ask “why do we build Big Box Buildings (B3) and not pyramids?”
Because when you consider the following facts it doesn’t look very good for B3 –
- B3 are potentially unstable and liable to collapse in an earthquake.
- B3 cast big long shadows that prevent light from reaching the streets
- B3 are built in close proximity creating urban canyons and a wind-tunnel effect
- B3 have dangerous vertical drops over which people, dogs, or TV’s can easily fall or be thrown.
- B3 either have gloomy totally recessed balcony’s or ugly bolt-on metal things, whereas Pyramids will have expansive, sunny, pleasant and plant-festooned indoor-outdoor lifestyle patios.
- B3 are, with few exceptions, very ugly buildings
- B3 have one over-riding purpose in life – maximizing income at the expense of esthetics and lifestyle.
- B3 are inefficient harvesters of solar power and water
- Last but not least – like Joshua proved at ancient Jericho, it has been convincingly demonstrated that when the holy words ‘Allah Akbar’ are uttered by his true believers, then B3’s walls come tumbling down.
The overwhelming advantage of B3 is that they can squeeze maximum floor space into a given volume – and on high value city center land this is a massive commercial advantage. Relative to their internal volume Pyramids have very large footprints; therefore, in the unlikely event that a large enough city site were to become available, a pyramids flats, offices, hotel rooms would have to be sold/leased at a large premium, probably 50% or even more.
This is why we don’t, and probably never will see pyramids built in existing city centres. An oft-quoted exception is San Francisco’s famous “Trans-America Pyramid”, a 1972 built office building. But the TAP’s inclination angle is so steep – like a church spire – it cannot really claim to be a pyramid. The best known modern pyramid, although not in a city center, is Las Vegas’ iconic Luxor Hotel/Casino, built in 1993 and the worlds only residential pyramid. But Las Vegas is a maverick city full of one-off replicas. If LV builds a replica of a pyramid or Venice it doesn’t mean that normal places are going to rush and copy the style.
That is why terraced-back apartment blocks and hotels which, like pyramids, also waste potential floor area, are always built on very high-value prime view locations, usually right next to the sea. Only vacationers and the wealthy are prepared to pay a premium for the expansive views and large deep entertainment patios provided by the stepped-back terraced design.
Pyramid Arcologies need large level sites where land costs are less than 10% of total build costs, which effectively excludes urban land with its small subdivisions and dense street plans. Possibilities include – inner-city ‘brownfield’ former industrial sites, un-subdivided city perimeter sites, marshland and coastal mud flats, or any reclaimed land. Where site costs are a relatively small portion the total, the odds swing back in favour of ‘land wasteful’ pyramids over Big Box buildings.
Another possibility might be arid coastal sites exploiting plentiful solar power to desalinate sea-water.
A more distant possibility, although this would require considerable political effort, would be to secure Hong-Kong-type autonomy leases on suitable coastal tracts in poor countries, eg, somewhere attractive but relatively sparsely populated like Madagascar. To those who would question why the Madagascans, or anyone else, might want to lease parts of their territory to foreigners, I could simply say “Money” or list dozens of very compelling economic and social advantages for the host country, but this would mean engaging in a heavy political and ethical discussion. So, as this is only a vague future possibility, let us not try to run before we can even crawl. The larger point is that, when one begins to look at all the various possibilities, there is much more to the Deltapolis concept than the ecological aspect.