Tokyo's Sky City

Within this city will be housing, businesses, supermarkets, outdoor parks, stadiums, etc.; basically all city convenience flavours. If all goes as planned, individual Sky Cities will be bridged together to form "hyper-cities".

Imagine living in one of these towers heading off to work via elevator rather than car. Hitting the supermarket "down" on the 200th floor. Checking out an event at the city's stadium, or chilling out in the city park. All without ever leaving the confines of the building.

Take the tour.
media.dsc.discovery.com...

I have read about this, and at first all of the things you mentioned sounded VERY attractive, but I bet it isn't for everyone. For instance:

-What if I want a yard, and a pet?
-How is drainage handled?
-How is it safeguarded against a terrorist attack?
-What about earthquakes?
-Prices?

-P

Not an original idea, although there does appear to be some waste of usable space. Some disscussion of the idea was made in the 1950's with the idea of the Monad style of architecture.

Is this what happens when there is no more space to move around you, you have to move upwards to work and live??

Perhaps the next step is to make flying cars and name our dogs Cosmo and Orbit?

Originally posted by postings
I have read about this, and at first all of the things you mentioned sounded VERY attractive, but I bet it isn't for everyone. For instance:

-What if I want a yard, and a pet?
-How is drainage handled?
-How is it safeguarded against a terrorist attack?
-What about earthquakes?
-Prices?

-P

I saw a show on discovery about this structure and they mentioned that the structure is very safe when it come to earthquakes. Its, roughly, in the shape of a pyramid, so its able to withstand siesmic shocks. This is one of the reasons why they are building it in Tokyo.(Well planning on building it there). they also mentioned that a tsunami or tidal waves will be powerless against this design.

I love it....it seems very economical in terms of space being used up and its very creative.

can you imagine the time it would take to clean up the mess if it was hit like the world trade center was???

although, I do like the idea of our cities being enclosed buildings with everything retail, residential, industry, gov't ect...within it...would save on fossil fuels. Just would rather it only be on or two stories, spread out, built like a fortress, and well, having electic mini-trains or something for tranportation to get around inside it.

Originally posted by dawnstar
can you imagine the time it would take to clean up the mess if it was hit like the world trade center was???

although, I do like the idea of our cities being enclosed buildings with everything retail, residential, industry, gov't ect...within it...would save on fossil fuels. Just would rather it only be on or two stories, spread out, built like a fortress, and well, having electic mini-trains or something for tranportation to get around inside it.

I am thinking two planes aren't going to bring this building down. In fact i dont think it will be easy for terrorists to take this building down period. Its going to take a huge amount of explosives to do something of that scale. I am not saying its not possible but its going to take one hell of a plane or set of explosives. I think they would look at something more simple and higher chance of success...

Simple way to defend it from another 911 is to put some SAM systems on it that shoots down any aircraft that comes with in a certain distance of it. As for Earth Quake's I think they are going to use the same system that they have on there airport. I beleive the biggest threat to this building would be wind gust but im not sure about that.

I watched a program on this some time ago, very interesting the least to say. I do hope it's accomplished. The innovations the world will see to create such a city will surely be worth it, as will the realization that man has now the ability to reside in the very heavens he dreams of.

Deep

Not withstanding the AA Batteries that could be placed around the stucture, I see one area that could potentially be devistating if hit by a terrorist plane attack.

The Suspension bridges that support the Olympic-sized sports and entertainment stadium. Take out one of those and ALOT of people are going to fall a long way to their deaths.

Phae

Why does everything cool have to be ruined by the spectre of a terrorist attack? People see a tall building, even a giant one like this, and the first thing that comes to mind isn't how awesome it is, but instead terrorist attack. Just because it's a tall tower doesn't mean someone's going to fly a plane into it. There are plenty of tall buildings around the world and someone's only flown a plane into one (or should I say two) once in human history. We can't stop progress because someone MIGHT do this or that.

Besides, a plane into the side of that thing would be like a mosquito bite. Having SAMs that shoot down anything near the building would be wasting the potential of the building. Aircraft would actually be able to LAND in an Arcology.

[edit on 3/31/2005 by Flinx]

If you are interested in this, you might like my thread www.abovetopsecret.com... about an arcology under construction in Arizona.

Anyway, this is fundamentally different from the arcology in Arizona because this Japanese one would be much larger, as I understand it, and would also be a closed structure, whereas in Arizona it is an open structure utilizing advanced city planning to reduce wasted space. I made the argument for the arcology that it would take a very long time to build a city from scratch. This building would probably take years, if not decades, to build. I'm not sure how long our tallest buildings now take to build, but buildings on campus at my school that are only 6-8 storeys tall are taking 2-3 years, and this is one heck of a lot bigger. I think we have the technological capability of building this, but it's going to be really slow and really expensive to do.

One interesting argument one of my professors made against really huge buildings like this is elevators. Sure, we can make elevators that go up 100 storeys; we already have them. But unless you want to wait a really long time for an elevator car, you need a LOT of elevators to service a building with the population of an entire city. That means you use up a lot of space, which means your building has to be even bigger. It can be done, but it accumulates a ton of space.

I think this would be a great project in theory, but I see a lot of obstacles in its path, mostly the financial and the time aspect I already mentioned. I don't think we really need them yet, either, except maybe in really crowded areas where most of the land is gone. I guess living in the prairies of Canada it's hard for me to understand overcrowding, but in certain areas of the world it is definitely an issue, and maybe these sorts of buildings are necessary to make more room in those places. Provided one was designed well, I wouldn't have a problem living in one, myself, but I don't expect to see them for a very long time.

I to have seen this before on the Disovery Channel. I like the concept, fire and wind wouldn't be as big of a problem as you might think because of the seperations in it, letting the wind pass through it.

and I dont think a terrorist could bring this down, its just to big, with all the big columns surrounding it you would need to rent a dozen "U-huals" and have them packed with explosives and all blow up at once and you might get it to fall. But thats of course if there was a parking garage under it...which I doubt because of its height it would have to be anchored down significantly. and I dont think buildings should be worried about a plane hitting them, 9/11 changed the people mind set, before people figured the terrorist would demand something and land the plane somewhere, but now people would kill the terrorist on board before the even get into the cockpit. Which is a lot harder now, before 9/11 cockpits were often unlocked, and now the have thick bulletproof doors.

The costs of this building would be staggering, and thats the only reason that I think this amazing structure wont get built. If it does get built theres a good chance that it will be in Japan, since its very crowded there, and can only grow upwards. BTW, is this a real concept, or just the Discovery Channel using there overactive imagination?

Have any of you ever lived in Tokyo though? As crowded as it already is, with walk-in closet sized apartments going for USD 1000 a month or more in some areas, the place is an urban nightmare. Ever want to feel glad you live some place else? Just take a loop around the Yamanote line and watch the worker drones shuffle back & forth to work. The combined Tokyo-Yokohama-Kawasaki megalopolis already has 50 million people there on any given weekday, 17 million on a constant basis, and you wanna build archologies to add millions more? Thanks, but no thanks. Bad urban planning for a city already suffering from hardly any urban planning at all.

I think Japan has gone insane. Ever seen an Anime? Most of them are set in the future in a place called somehting like "Mega Tokyo" or "Tokyo 2"... a city built OVER the current Tokyo. They're trying to recreate their cartoons in real life!

On a second note... sounds like an "unsinkable ship" to me

Speaking of Anime and games, has anyone played Star Ocean 3(a very good scifi/fantasy game series)? In the opening video they have a building that looks almost exactly like that design! I just thought I would point that out...

Originally posted by Murcielago
The costs of this building would be staggering, and thats the only reason that I think this amazing structure wont get built. If it does get built theres a good chance that it will be in Japan, since its very crowded there, and can only grow upwards. BTW, is this a real concept, or just the Discovery Channel using there overactive imagination?

You're an engineering student aren't you Ribbing aside, this structure will only be built with cheap SW-Nanotubes. I do not see any other way, the fricken thing would be soooo heavy if built with steel and concrete yeesh. Overactive imaginations are good btw, if we have nothing to strive for why bother ... existing. Alot of things that people believed impossible in 1900 was the norm by 1950, people often Overestimate what we can do in a decade and underestimate what we can do in a century, it will be the same here. Does anything in physics prevent the existance of a material light enough, strong enough and cheap enough to make these structures impossible? The Phsyists seem to agree at least on structures under 3km in height, when talking Space Elevator dimensions then discussion gets a bit more heated. A good guide to watch will be the Aussie Solar Tower which will be fricken huge, bigger and taller then anything we have ever built before. The sucess or failure will give us valuable insight into these types of mega-structures.

I know you weren't referring to me, sardion, but I'm an engineering student too, and

this structure will only be built with cheap SW-Nanotubes

, well this is awhile off.

carbonsolution.com...
www.sesres.com...
www.cnanotech.com...

I don't think that's very cheap

I watched the show on a Japanese super tower close to a mile high and they said it would require more steel then the whole of Japan already uses. That included their whole car industry , normal buildings everything they use steel on.

It would likely put a strain on Global steel production. I wonder how much steel this would require

Originally posted by Flinx
There are plenty of tall buildings around the world and someone's only flown a plane into one (or should I say two) once in human history.
[edit on 3/31/2005 by Flinx]

The links I have provided, are a quick search. I'm not trying to be an a-hole, just pointing out that it has happened before.

history1900s.about.com...

www.usatoday.com...

uuhsc.utah.edu...

clubs.calvin.edu...