A proposed 1,700-meter (1.056 mile) high "Sky Mile Tower" in Tokyo could house up to 55,000 people if built:
According to a report from the World Health Organization, in 2014 cities accounted for for[sic] 54 percent of the total global population, up from 34 percent in 1960, and continue to grow. This upward trend, coupled with rising sea levels from global warming, may leave some of the world's major metropolises vulnerable to overpopulation and massive flooding, among other natural concerns. In Japan, officials decided to launch an initiative called "Next Tokyo," where architects would create a futuristic mega-city that is adapted to climate change in the year 2045. Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates and Leslie E. Robertson Associates joined forces to propose a vision for a new city in Tokyo Bay. Their design incorporates elements that improve the bay's preparedness for natural disasters (such as earthquakes and typhoons) as well as a mile-high residential tower and a public-transportation-friendly district. The water development's hexagonal-shaped structures, ranging from 500 to 5,000 feet in width, were imagined in layers to minimize the effects of intense waves from the bay, while also allowing ships easy access in and out of the busy harbor.
What's more, some structures would be prefilled with water, allowing access to islands that are public beach harbors and urban farming plots. Salt water from the bay would also be retained to grow algae, a source of renewable and clean fuel. One component of the plan that has drawn much attention is the mile-high skyscraper. Sky Mile Tower, as it's being called, would soar some 5,577 feet—twice the height of the Burj Khalifa, the world's current tallest building.
(Score: 1) by YeaWhatevs on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:29PM
City skyscrapers are cool, but I doubt we'll ever see one built.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:50PM
We can only hope this monstrosity would never be built, at least not in Japan, where there is practically no square inch of land that is totally stable. Yeah, Japan has a lot of people, but this is just silly excess, mostly because it might be technically possible.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday February 09 2016, @07:23PM
> where there is practically no square inch of land
That's the real Tokyo problem, and why it will likely happen. If not this one, then later.
Stability isn't their main worry, as illustrated by Taipei 101 being built under similar acceleration constraints.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday February 09 2016, @07:36PM
A 7 story falls over, you kill a couple hundred.
A mile high falls over you kill thousands, probably everyone in the building (55,000), and maybe that many more on the ground.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Tuesday February 09 2016, @07:52PM
Agreed, which is why you design it not to fall [wikipedia.org].
The engineering is pretty much known quantities. It's the profitability and practicality that limit current implementations.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 10 2016, @12:17AM
Japan has a lot of people now, but I wonder what Japan will look like in 100 years or so.
The Japanese woman I work with reckons it will be empty because Japanese men are awful, and Japanese women don't want to breed with them, but then she's biased.
(Score: 2) by goodie on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:38PM
And give it a cool name, like Neo Tokyo or something like that ;). Then we'd also be protected against tsunamis and other... foreign nuisances :D
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:40PM
If you extend existing economic trends, there is no point in building that. Nobody will be able to afford it, nobody will have anything to eat, etc.
If you assume trendlines break, there is no point in planning that because the broken trendlines imply times are a changin.
Speaking of the sin of extending trendlines, you can graph the percentage of first floor used for elevators and pipes and cables vs building height and its well over 100% before you reach a mile. So it's gotta be pyramidal in some fashion. Given architects way of doing weird stuff because they can, I think we can assume this will be shaped like a wedge or UFO or a phallic symbol or ...
It seems strange that their idea of the best way to handle climate change is massive energy and resource expenditures on hyper centralization, rather than de-complectifying and distribution. A world where nobody commutes to the city is a lot more sustainable than one where we still drive giant SUVs into the office every rush hour.
In the really old days people used to die where they were born, a short distance anyway. Partially because of feudalism and lack of jetliner transport. But the world of the future will probably have plenty of drones and network access, so no need to move or commute, for the few who still have jobs, and the masses who don't have jobs will be frozen out of the economy and not be able to travel or move or commute.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday February 09 2016, @11:10PM
+
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/11/08/0910243 [soylentnews.org]
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 09 2016, @11:29PM
If you extend existing economic trends, there is no point in building that. Nobody will be able to afford it, nobody will have anything to eat, etc.
Japan is doing well enough. They're not getting poorer or less able to grow food. On the global scale, we're seeing more wealth per capita and improving income equality which is a thing some people here care about. We're seeing a substantial slowing down in population growth which is expected to result in negative population growth by 2100 for every continent. So which existing economic trends would those be?
My view is that the building just isn't a net positive given Japan's situation and the cost of the building, not that it isn't affordable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 11 2016, @06:39AM
Shut up you foggot. Nobody wants to hear your rants on the best way to run society. At best you are some peon coder in a dead-end job, and at worst, a basement-dwelling troglodyte with an unrealistic world view.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by isostatic on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:42PM
This won't happen. Not in the west.
However it's a concerning growth of the shopping mall. No longer do you have public spaces, paid for and owned by the public, with clear laws controlled by the public. Instead you have mega-corps owning the streets. People don't own apartments, they lease them from their feudal landlords, who pass whatever rules they want to increase their happiness at the expense of their tenants. Want to ban guns? Simply construct a society where the world is privately old, build a situation where it's impractical to live anywhere but on other people's private property. Congress may not be able to ban guns, but Google could ban them from their cities. Sure you may be able to buy some land (how will you get money to earn enough to buy it), but how are you going to work when you need to travel to the private city which, to enter, you need to log in with your Facebook account?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @07:00PM
No kidding. The article is talking about Japan.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday February 10 2016, @12:03PM
No idea why but I read Toronto?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @04:43AM
Don't worry, Amazon will kill the malls.
(Score: 3, Funny) by looorg on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:57PM
Gojira will be so happy for all the new playthings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @07:07PM
I was thinking Godzilla.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday February 09 2016, @08:03PM
Same Kaiju.
"Gojira" is the Japanese spelling/pronunciation of the 1954 movie. It became "Godzilla" when it was released in America in 1955.
And the Big G would have a field day with a super Arcology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology [wikipedia.org]
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @07:02PM
People who get up on this thing will be able to "join the mile-high club" without leaving the ground. Although I'm not sure the expression has much currency in Japan.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday February 09 2016, @07:20PM
Their mile-high will be 50% shorter, but 200% noisier
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @07:17PM
I once thought that telecommuting would shrink cities once band-width was cheap enough. However, it turns out that if your job is tele-commutable, then you are often replaced by less expensive foreign labor. If you can telecommute from 100 miles away, you can also telecommute from Timbuktu, all for less than half the same pay.
Thus, more of the remaining jobs in the developed world have a social/political aspect to them where being face-to-face matters. Most "heads down" jobs are either being offshored or automated, or are doomed to be offshored or automated soon.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday February 09 2016, @08:07PM
"The 1st Redoubt" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Land#The_Last_Redoubt [wikipedia.org]
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @08:08PM
I remember a proposal a few years back to build a floating pyramid in Tokyo Bay and then hang building from it, "Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid"; it relies on as-yet not invented materials such as well. It seems to be some great concepts but the way Japanese demographics seem to be swinging, I think they will be looking at a reversal of urbanization. I saw some really interesting articles (Freakonomics podcast) on the peculiarities of Japanese real estate and the effects it has on the demographic shift. Namely, in the cities there is a lot of land sitting idle with rotting carcasses of dwellings that are no longer habitable because they are worthless but the owners cannot redevelop it because the lot is too small and nor are they willing to sell the land.
http://freakonomics.com/2014/02/why-are-japanese-homes-disposable-full-transcript/ [freakonomics.com]
(Score: 1) by cngn on Tuesday February 09 2016, @10:53PM
I have no clue about contruction and maths and science that goes into building large structures, and I can't even begin to imagine the enormous compressive forces the bottom of this building will endure. Especially people living on the bottom floor and the risk they'll be taking.
I would also wonder if people in the topmost stories age slower than those at the bottom since they'll be travelling at a faster rate of speed from the centre of the earth's core with the planet's rate of rotation.
Just a few musings....
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday February 09 2016, @11:13PM
They'll also be exposed to more radiation, as if they were flying!
But if aging isn't cured by 2045-2060, fuck everything.
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