our world is divided into three zones
the lithosphere which is a solid earth
the rock that we stand on the
hydrosphere made up of water such as
rivers lakes and the ocean and the
vaporous atmosphere which we inhabit but
unlike fish that inhabit the Seas in
three dimensions fully from top to
bottom we are bottom dwellers stuck at
the bottom of the atmosphere which means
that we’re vulnerable to natural
disasters such as earthquakes tsunamis
floods and cyclones in the past decade
more than a million people have been
killed by these natural disasters
costing more than half a trillion
dollars in property and infrastructure
damage more and more people are moving
from the countryside into cities it’s
estimated in two decades that two-thirds
of the world’s population will be living
in cities one out of every three people
will be living on a sea coast Arctic ice
is melting at unprecedented rates faster
than we anticipated rates for sea level
rise are probably obsolete which means
that the cities on the coast are
vulnerable to these natural disasters
and sea level rise in 2008 New York City
held a design competition for post
disaster temporary housing they asked
designers to imagine a neighborhood
destroyed by a category three hurricane
and to propose temporary housing cloud
city is the concept based on an idea of
keeping residents within their community
by floating housing above their existing
neighborhood allowing them to
participate in the rebuilding of their
city this didn’t happen in New Orleans
after Hurricane Katrina
more than 50% of the population of New
Orleans was displaced after the
hurricane neighborhoods were broken up
communities were separated cloud city
consists of an inflatable bladder filled
with helium which would allow the units
to float above existing buildings
they’ll be prefabricated stored in
warehouses and rapidly deploy with
minimal site intervention plugging into
existing utility lines this early
project was a discovery in ungrounded
architecture architecture that can peel
up off of the surface of the earth and
it started a several year long process
of research into the atmosphere its
structures its qualities and also ways
in which we can support objects in the
air such as balloons kites and
satellites we found out that helium is
actually a finite resource with limited
supply it’s not renewable so balloons
are not so very practical we looked at
large man lifting kites and stable
structures in the atmosphere such as the
polar vortex or the jet stream with
constant winds of 150 kilometers an hour
that could support large weights and
then satellites the space station in the
space elevator which depend on orbital
mechanics and gravity to suspend things
in the air we also surveyed Architecture
from the beginnings of history when
people still lived in tents and were
nomadic since humans moved out of caves
buildings have become taller and taller
over time starting with the pyramids the
pagodas cathedrals the Eiffel Tower the
Empire State Building and the Burj Dubai
today
as buildings have become taller and
lighter more transparent we’ve started
migrating into the sky since 1989
there’s been a group of people
constantly living 400 kilometers above
Earth’s surface in a laboratory called
the space station on any given day
there’s a million people in the sky
traveling on airplanes right now and
Alima tower is a concept for a floating
skyscraper throughout history we’ve had
an increasing effect on our environment
today our impact is registered on a
global scale panel limit our proposes
inverting the traditional diagram of
earth-based foundations instead
depending on a space-based support by
hanging a high-strength cable from an
orbiting asteroid we can then build a
tower onto the cable the tower would be
placed into an eccentric orbit allowing
it to travel between the southern and
northern hemisphere on a daily basis it
would be constructed along the cable
stretching several thousands of
kilometers from the surface to a place
up in the atmosphere
programmatic uses would be distributed
vertically along the tower with business
and commercial uses towards the bottom
and ceremonial or funerary uses towards
the top and residential and gardening or
greenhouse uses in between the tower
taps into our desire for extreme height
seclusion and mobility tapping the power
of planetary design thinking its energy
would be provided by space-based solar
system panels place above the density of
the atmosphere with constant exposure to
the Sun there’ll be far more efficient
than surface based
solar panels access to the tower will be
provided by transfer stations along the
surface as well as passenger drones or
for a quick way down parachutes if we
can build a single building like this
then why not multiply it and build a
city that suspended offer there’s the
surface of the earth imagine a single
city a mega city that would house the
world’s population if it was at the
density of Paris how big would this city
need to be it turns out we can house
seven billion people in a city that’s
half a kilometer wide and 10,000
kilometers long and about 80 stories
high again
packing the idea of the space elevator
which has been around for a while we can
attach a counterweight to the top of the
cable and at the bottom we can build
towers off earlier surface we can
multiply these towers to build an entire
city that wraps around the equator of
the earth freeing up the surface to
allow it to regrow regenerate and become
wild again this idea proposes that
people living in current cities move to
this one single city around the equator
this relocation can be negotiated for
example if neighbouring countries who
aren’t friendly with each other moves to
the city that could be maybe be
dispersed along the equator the city
would stretch along the equator
occupying a sweet spot where there are
no seasons where the day and night are
equal length and the temperatures are
stable at about 20 degrees centigrade so
we wouldn’t have the need for heating or
air conditioning it would be optimized
energy efficient a portion of the
surface could be left over for managed
autonomous agriculture farming to feed
the city above this new organization an
adjacency of people would necessitate
new forms of living and a new politics
of cooperation
by condensing and minimizing our
footprint on the surface of earth we can
allow it to regenerate and regrow while
preserving humanity from the hazards of
living on the surface thank you
you
the lithosphere which is a solid earth
the rock that we stand on the
hydrosphere made up of water such as
rivers lakes and the ocean and the
vaporous atmosphere which we inhabit but
unlike fish that inhabit the Seas in
three dimensions fully from top to
bottom we are bottom dwellers stuck at
the bottom of the atmosphere which means
that we’re vulnerable to natural
disasters such as earthquakes tsunamis
floods and cyclones in the past decade
more than a million people have been
killed by these natural disasters
costing more than half a trillion
dollars in property and infrastructure
damage more and more people are moving
from the countryside into cities it’s
estimated in two decades that two-thirds
of the world’s population will be living
in cities one out of every three people
will be living on a sea coast Arctic ice
is melting at unprecedented rates faster
than we anticipated rates for sea level
rise are probably obsolete which means
that the cities on the coast are
vulnerable to these natural disasters
and sea level rise in 2008 New York City
held a design competition for post
disaster temporary housing they asked
designers to imagine a neighborhood
destroyed by a category three hurricane
and to propose temporary housing cloud
city is the concept based on an idea of
keeping residents within their community
by floating housing above their existing
neighborhood allowing them to
participate in the rebuilding of their
city this didn’t happen in New Orleans
after Hurricane Katrina
more than 50% of the population of New
Orleans was displaced after the
hurricane neighborhoods were broken up
communities were separated cloud city
consists of an inflatable bladder filled
with helium which would allow the units
to float above existing buildings
they’ll be prefabricated stored in
warehouses and rapidly deploy with
minimal site intervention plugging into
existing utility lines this early
project was a discovery in ungrounded
architecture architecture that can peel
up off of the surface of the earth and
it started a several year long process
of research into the atmosphere its
structures its qualities and also ways
in which we can support objects in the
air such as balloons kites and
satellites we found out that helium is
actually a finite resource with limited
supply it’s not renewable so balloons
are not so very practical we looked at
large man lifting kites and stable
structures in the atmosphere such as the
polar vortex or the jet stream with
constant winds of 150 kilometers an hour
that could support large weights and
then satellites the space station in the
space elevator which depend on orbital
mechanics and gravity to suspend things
in the air we also surveyed Architecture
from the beginnings of history when
people still lived in tents and were
nomadic since humans moved out of caves
buildings have become taller and taller
over time starting with the pyramids the
pagodas cathedrals the Eiffel Tower the
Empire State Building and the Burj Dubai
today
as buildings have become taller and
lighter more transparent we’ve started
migrating into the sky since 1989
there’s been a group of people
constantly living 400 kilometers above
Earth’s surface in a laboratory called
the space station on any given day
there’s a million people in the sky
traveling on airplanes right now and
Alima tower is a concept for a floating
skyscraper throughout history we’ve had
an increasing effect on our environment
today our impact is registered on a
global scale panel limit our proposes
inverting the traditional diagram of
earth-based foundations instead
depending on a space-based support by
hanging a high-strength cable from an
orbiting asteroid we can then build a
tower onto the cable the tower would be
placed into an eccentric orbit allowing
it to travel between the southern and
northern hemisphere on a daily basis it
would be constructed along the cable
stretching several thousands of
kilometers from the surface to a place
up in the atmosphere
programmatic uses would be distributed
vertically along the tower with business
and commercial uses towards the bottom
and ceremonial or funerary uses towards
the top and residential and gardening or
greenhouse uses in between the tower
taps into our desire for extreme height
seclusion and mobility tapping the power
of planetary design thinking its energy
would be provided by space-based solar
system panels place above the density of
the atmosphere with constant exposure to
the Sun there’ll be far more efficient
than surface based
solar panels access to the tower will be
provided by transfer stations along the
surface as well as passenger drones or
for a quick way down parachutes if we
can build a single building like this
then why not multiply it and build a
city that suspended offer there’s the
surface of the earth imagine a single
city a mega city that would house the
world’s population if it was at the
density of Paris how big would this city
need to be it turns out we can house
seven billion people in a city that’s
half a kilometer wide and 10,000
kilometers long and about 80 stories
high again
packing the idea of the space elevator
which has been around for a while we can
attach a counterweight to the top of the
cable and at the bottom we can build
towers off earlier surface we can
multiply these towers to build an entire
city that wraps around the equator of
the earth freeing up the surface to
allow it to regrow regenerate and become
wild again this idea proposes that
people living in current cities move to
this one single city around the equator
this relocation can be negotiated for
example if neighbouring countries who
aren’t friendly with each other moves to
the city that could be maybe be
dispersed along the equator the city
would stretch along the equator
occupying a sweet spot where there are
no seasons where the day and night are
equal length and the temperatures are
stable at about 20 degrees centigrade so
we wouldn’t have the need for heating or
air conditioning it would be optimized
energy efficient a portion of the
surface could be left over for managed
autonomous agriculture farming to feed
the city above this new organization an
adjacency of people would necessitate
new forms of living and a new politics
of cooperation
by condensing and minimizing our
footprint on the surface of earth we can
allow it to regenerate and regrow while
preserving humanity from the hazards of
living on the surface thank you
you
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