| The Hyper Building is an Arcology. In an Arcology, architecture
and ecology come together in the design of the city. Arcology
is the implosion of the flat megalopolis,
the modern city of today, into a dense, complex, urban environment
which rises vertically.
The concept of a one-structure system
is not incidental to the organization of the city, but central
to it. Such an urban structure hosts life, work, education,
culture, leisure, and health in a dense, compact system which
also puts the untouched open countryside at the fingertips
of the residents. The compactness of an Arcology gives 90
percent more land to farming and conservation than today's
urban and suburban sprawl. This compactness makes an Arcology
a more workable system.
The automobile divides a city by scattering it across the
landscape. Greater attention is given to human scale in an
Arcology. In it the pedestrian reigns. Distances are measured
by walks and minutes. Within it the automobile is nonsensical.
|
In an Arcology energy is
used more efficiently than in a conventional modern city. Pollution
is a direct function of wastefulness, not efficiency. The increase
in efficiency and reduction of wastefulness means a reduction
of pollution. One role of the three dimensional city is
to stop the spreading out of suburbia and its perniciuos effects:
hyper-consumption, segregation, waste, pollution, and ecological
catastrophe. Therefore we must consider not only this initial
Hyper-Building: future developments in the area must be considered.
All developments surrounding the Hyper-Building must be Arcological.
For reasons of economy, to do more with less, life is always
framed three-dimensionally. This imperative can be referred
to as the Urban
Effect. Since the Hyper-Building is emblematic of the
Urban Effect, it is not just an expedient though indispensible
proposition: its stands for the ontological dynamics of life
itself. |
