One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower - io9 Comments

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

SkinnyChicken — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:37:10 PDT

Londoners ... I can't think of anyone better to use as guinea pigs for such a project.

SkinnyChicken

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

tequila1272 — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:02:54 PDT

For all of you idoits who think you know all the answers and have something negative to say about this tower....I have a question for you???? What do you people who live in London plan do w/ an extra MILLION PEOPLE? The only plausibe comment I read was the one made about terrorists and then, of course earchquakes.
Alls I know is that, if we are stil here in 2016 and there are really this many more people in London alone, I would like to know where all these people will go?

tequila1272

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

jrghoull — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:34:31 PDT

i'm not physicist...but that thing looks too tall to stay up on its own.

also, we basically have 2 options. come up with all sorts of answers for our various issues such as disease, food, and space (space and disease are actually intertwined) or have a big time die out from diseases at some point, and the people who are alive afterwards will have more food than they know what to do with.

jrghoull

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Yonderboy — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:55:14 PDT

You realize, of course, inserting this giant straw into London is a plot by aliens to suck our earth dry.

The holes in the straw are a lie. Don't fall for it.

Yonderboy

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Klebert L. Hall — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:10:54 PDT

@Garrison Dean:

Um, I live in Rhode Island... I guess it's sort of near Canada.

@Evil Tortie's Mom:

Technically, Canada is still part of the British Empire. Though they have broad local autonomy, all sovereignty is reserved to the Monarch, who also controls the budget by proxy. They act like a nation, and are treated as one, but are technically not one.
-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

cljohnston108 — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:16:22 PDT

@ZehnKatzen: Yep, that was the first title that came to mind.
The World Inside was the first SF book I read as a teenager with, um, "adult themes".

cljohnston108

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Laerad — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:12:56 PDT

"The tower, which at this point remains simply a novel idea, would take up little actual ground space and run like a proper democracy. It is literally broken up into municipal areas--the "neighborhood" is a singe floor of 600; the village is 20 floors and houses 6,000. There are also three super-districts that house 33,000 people each."

A more appropriate social structure would be that of a termite colony.

Laerad

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Brock — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:39:20 PDT

@Sh1fty: [URL=http:/

]Wingsuits[/URL]

Brock

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

SEXYLIKEMISO — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:01:18 PDT

@Sh1fty: How about a gigantic slide that runs down the spiral gaps of that building?

Imagine living on the higher floors and having to ride a massive slide to get to the ground floor. Wonder if it would still be fun after awhile.

SEXYLIKEMISO

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

zotts — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:25:22 PDT

I think you'd have to go with JG Ballard and High Rise.

zotts

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Klappstuhl — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:07:11 PDT

Awesome.

I'd take an apartment in the middle floor, so I can use my parachute to fly to work!

Klappstuhl

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

OldDog1 — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:44:16 PDT

That was on purpose, just in case someone did not know or care what an arcology is. And why wouldn't I leave in the citation. I did not write it. Plagerism is theft.

OldDog1

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Mister Adequate — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:35:44 PDT

I'd move to London in a heartbeat.

Mister Adequate

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Sh1fty — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:31:00 PDT

I can think of some other emergency ways out

- Do the space shuttle launch tower escape and have baskets that ride down wires. You'd have to come up with a way of shooting the wires out if you don't want them to be permanent.

- The pole-like thing that extends out of the shuttle hatch to allow the astronauts to bail out.

- escape pods. Rockets out or something, drift down on parachutes.

You need a way to get people that aren't young and fit...hmmm

Sh1fty

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Evil Tortie's Mom — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:40:03 PDT

@Garrison Dean: America, fuck yeah!!!

(it's true, though: the Canadians like to take credit for stuff in the War of 1812, but it was really the British Empire, and the whole Canadian military probably equals the civilian firepower of one Southern state... though the rednecks would probably LOVE poutine...)

Another archology story of merit: "Peaches For Mad Molly". Can't remember the author. Google it.

Evil Tortie's Mom

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

digitalcircus — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:15:39 PDT

anything think it would be cheaper to build a new island? of even say.. a ship with a fraction of the residential capacity, but capable of jump-starting a nice Mars colony. i hear there's enough room there for lots of towers, and so far.. no plane-missles.

digitalcircus

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:47:59 PDT

@Brock: Why thank you.

I just feel that as Americans we spend so much time going oversees to strange places to pick fights we are not sure we can win. Why do that, when all along we've had the class fat kid living right next door?

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Jeff-Minor — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:45:43 PDT

Greg Bear's "combs" are more like pournelle's idea. I call them Living Mountains (LMs). There's something so cool about the idea of giganto-maga-supra-skyscapers.

Jeff-Minor

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Brock — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:34:54 PDT

@Garrison Dean: Regards, sir. That's some of the best Canuck trash-talk I've seen in quite come time. (has residence in both countries)

Brock

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

ideaman2020 — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:20:19 PDT

@Annalee Newitz: John Mayer here.

Yeah, like 600 X 20 != 6000...

ideaman2020

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

aspiringexpatriate — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:06:44 PDT

@braak: Well, cause then Milton-Keynes will happen.

aspiringexpatriate

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:59:37 PDT

@Ryan H: @Klebert L. Hall: Bring it on you syrup eating halfwits. You can dress up gravy fries and call it poutine, but you can't dress up a bunch of hosers in camo and call it an army. You walked big when you had England's empire behind you, but they could barely hold on the Falklands much less take the US of Friggin A at this point. We could wipe your moose riding asses across Manitoba with one arm tied behind our backs (which is probably what we'd have to do with almost all of our standing army in Iraq now, but nevermind that!).

First one of you jerky eating bi-linguists so much as set one foot across the boarder I'll give your precious universal health care something to take care of.

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

MarsFlyer — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:55:00 PDT

@cabridges: Yeah, Niven and Pournelle wrote about a similar concept, though that building was not a tall tower but rather a pyramid or somesuch. Sure enough, the residents saw themselves as separate from the city and in fact formed their own independent entity. Funny bit: years later Niven wrote "Madness has its place" in which he describes a giant city-building built to house ... ready? ... 1 million people, but it never filled up. There are dozens of bars and restaurants in it, however. Not too shabby!

MarsFlyer

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

92BuickLeSabre — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:53:10 PDT

@braak: Because the light's better over here.

92BuickLeSabre

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

braak — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:40:26 PDT

@Annalee Newitz: Maybe there should be ten of them.

Also, if you're going to build something like this, why build it in a city that already exists? Why not find a hunk of empty space somewhere and build it there?

braak

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:30:49 PDT

@braak: I am also confused by the math on this thing.

Annalee Newitz

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Skeller — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:25:45 PDT

Looks like a big tasty piece of terrorist bait. I don't think you'd convince me to live in there.

Skeller

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

taka2k7 — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:18:00 PDT

one possible mass evacuation route would be large blimps for each floor. They'd likely have to be 'pull to inflate', or you'd constantly have these things docked.

Either that or Mrs. Smith-esk cable guns (or NASA Shuttle escape system) to the nearest building.... (it would be a hell-uva a ride).

Better yet, escape pods... then it would really look like swiss cheese afterwards...

taka2k7

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Jeff-Minor — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:15:43 PDT

It's an amazing idea, but I think 100,000 is more realistic. And, if we expect London to be under water, the city will have to move up into archologies like this. I think the design will improve as such projects become more feesible.

Jeff-Minor

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

meneye — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:55:42 PDT

has anyone considered the giant shadow this cheese stick will place over all of london?

meneye

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Ken Keegan — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:53:24 PDT

That is such a massively disgusting eyesore. I hope this is a joke style-wise.

Ken Keegan

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Ryan H — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:48:18 PDT

@Garrison Dean:
@Hart:
You laugh, but the last time we traded in our hockey sticks for rifles it ended with the us using the White House to cook marshmallows :)

Ryan H

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Klebert L. Hall — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:44:30 PDT

@braak:

Heh - good point!
-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

maniacal — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:40:08 PDT

@amishjohn: For adventurous suiciders, you could put on some baggy clothes and try to make to the suburbs. Plan it well, since the last thing you want to do is get caught in a backdraft and get sucked into a cheesehole. Nobody below would see your great jump (or landing).

maniacal

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Brock — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:39:55 PDT

Post title is off by an order of magnitude. C'mon people, that's just basic reading for comprehension.

This building is pretty ugly, but the concept is cool. I've lived in Manhattan, and while I left my building there was no real need to walk more than 5 blocks for anything you could want. If you stacked those blocks on top of each other, that's pretty much what this is. It works.

There would need to be some very serious cargo transit and freight elevators though. You'd need a system that brought in (and took out) many, many standard cargo units worth of food, etc. every day to keep this place supplied. Some things could be made right inside the building (integrated greenhouses for veggies, etc.), but not everything.

I'm picturing what a whole city of these would look like though. If they were light green it would look like a stand of bamboo.

Brock

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

maniacal — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:31:08 PDT

The structure has a bit of a lean to it in this picture... I love technology, but maybe we need to start with something a little more realistic. I would love to see what their idea of a power grid, water handling, and transport would look like for this structure. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of faith in the construction industry, especially if the architect can't draw a straight vertical line.

maniacal

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

braak — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:29:38 PDT

@Klebert L. Hall: They're clearly preparing for a second invasion. 90% of their population is massed along our border.

braak

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Siegeman — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:21:05 PDT

If I was forced to live in one of these, I'd try to get the highest floor possible and stockpile parachutes. Oh, and take skydiving lessons before I even considered moving in.

Hopefully, when it starts to collapse I wouldn't get blown back into one of the cheese holes.

Siegeman

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Klebert L. Hall — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:17:57 PDT

Cool arcology.

Just to keep the tradition of somebody knocking the politics/philosophy of every place that's highlighted for some sort of futuristic development/architectural idea, I'm compelled to point out that the UK is a horrible police state and panopticon society ruled by a hereditary despot.

I don't particularly want to live in an arcology, but I know people who do.

@Garrison Dean:

Actually, the last time Canada invaded, they kicked our ass. there aren't really enough of them to do that anymore, but they fight pretty dang well.
-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

markuspants — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:14:43 PDT

The scale of this looks roughly like the Citadel from City 17 in the computer game Half-Life 2. It could change configuration; entire sections could interchange.

markuspants

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Einstein-Intersection — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:12:11 PDT

What an eyesore. It looks like a huge paper towel roll.

Einstein-Intersection

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Sandusky — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:07:16 PDT

If...IF...something of that scale was actually built, the method of vertical transportation it required would more than likely be switched off/shut down in case of an emergency. Whether it be high speed elevators or a spiralling train system that wound up the building (or even Futurama pneumatic tubes or Star Trek teleporters) chances are most if not all of that stuff would get switched off (or reserved for use by certain members of the society...emergency crews, police, govt officials). Everyone else would have to take the stairs...or know how to work a parachute.

Maybe helipads around the perimeter at certain locations...but yeah...ultimately...lots of stairs.

Sandusky

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

AmishJohn — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:36 PDT

Every suicide in Eurpoe who can afford a Chunnel ticket will flock here.
"aaaaaAAAAAAAA!!!"
*S*P*L*A*T*
"Bloddy tourists."

AmishJohn

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

braak — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:27:02 PDT

@m_faustus: Everybody in England already has crabs.

braak

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

ZehnKatzen — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:22:36 PDT

Actually, I liked it better when Robert Silverberg wrote about it in The World Inside

Urban Monads - you heard it there first!

(and god bless daddo, god bless mommo, god bless everyone!)

ZehnKatzen

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

braak — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:15:51 PDT

@burddog: Well, I think the Projects usually fail less because of their design, and more because we tend to fill them with the poorest people we can find.

braak

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

m_faustus — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:15:48 PDT

Am I the only one who immediately thought of Doctor Who with this? The Doctor visits places like this from time to time and they invariably suck. They are full of killer robots or cannibalistic grannies or have basements full of huge crabs. I can't imagine that they will be much better in the real world, although they might not have the giant crabs.

m_faustus

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

tetracycloide — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:13:01 PDT

@burddog: that's far more intrinsic to the culture than it is to the actual architectre. downtown seoul bares many similarities with this model and the crime rate in the seoul is among the lowest on the planet for major urban centers and fairs even better after you factor in the population density.

tetracycloide

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

femto — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:10:42 PDT

Impressive, but can it launch into outer space?

femto

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

braak — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:10:27 PDT

@tetracycloide: Laugh now, but who's the one who's going to escape the Mountie death squads?

braak

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

burddog — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:03:55 PDT

This is absurd. We've seen plenty of examples of this failing on a small level. Any public housing project (basically anything called 'the Projects') has been considered a hotbed for criminal activity. Has anyone heard of Corviale? Its a joke now. We can't possibly progress if we keep making the same architectral mistakes!

burddog

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Rus — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:59:42 PDT

@tetracycloide: That's a funny coincidence, because it was the last place on earth I wanted to vacation in, too, but I did it anyway. And man, was that some culture shock after Japan... had its moments, though.

Rus

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Rus — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:55:52 PDT

@Garrison Dean: More likely, that evil maple sugar candy would turn our kids into Canada's hyperactive slave army, to be used against us. Gentlemen, we cannot allow a maple sugar candy gap!

Rus

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:52:55 PDT

@Bob_of_Mars: That made sense 20 years ago, but in the age of the interwebs, information and commerce is available to all with a phone line. A giant building like this will only prevent overcrowding in a city if these people never leave it.

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

tetracycloide — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:48:01 PDT

@braak: well we can't all live in the boondocks now can we?

@Rus McLaughlin: seoul was an very enjoyable place to live from an accesability and diversity standpoint but it is probably the last place on earth i would ever want to vacation at. there is very little to do there outside servicies that provide the regular inhabitants with practical utility. it's a very stark contrast between that and a city like, say, paris or d.c. where a very large portion of the space is occupied by sites of historic or artistic interest.

tetracycloide

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Bob_of_Mars — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:43:53 PDT

@Garrison Dean: Yeah, but you see, you missed the point: we're not running out of room in the WORLD we're running out of room in the CITIES, as in the places of greatest commerce and economic opportunities.

As far as Canada, never underestimate the underdogs. They may seem peaceful, but its all a front! They're pulling the wool over our eyes so that they can strike with great effectiveness!

Bob_of_Mars

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Bob_of_Mars — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:36:07 PDT

Wow. Everyone is a gorram expert in teh internetz. Didn't it occur to any of you geniuses that they have already thought of everything and are solving/already solved it?

I'm glad this is still just a concept, cause I certainly don't like the way that looks either. Needs some more work.

Bob_of_Mars

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Hart — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:31:12 PDT

@Garrison Dean: Aw, I'd imagine we could manage to carve out more than just one state from the bounty an ass-whooped Canada would provide the US. Shoot, I think at least as many provinces as they currently have. We could have sixty or more stars!

Hart

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:22:41 PDT

@Rus McLaughlin: Their little leaf shaped maple-sugar candy could cripple our children within a week.

I love that people feel that we are running out of room in this world... Clearly these people have never driven between the Mississippi and the Pacific ocean. Granted, I'd take a mile tall super tower over it any day, but its there for people who want room. You just don't get to have wifi, coffeeshops, and Apple stores on every corner.

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

randallnathaniel — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:22:04 PDT

Imagine your surprise when you buy a unit for a couple million Ameros on the 500th floor, and some upstart firm develops a building right in front of your view that's 10,000 feet tall.

randallnathaniel

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

braak — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:21:21 PDT

@tetracycloide: Hmm, I guess that's a fair point.

Manhattan, likewise, would be insanely difficult to evacuate.

Of course, if you got bottlenecked on the Schuylkill trying to get out of Philadelphia, you could pretty easily just get out of your car and start walking.

braak

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Tiwa — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:21:03 PDT

In order for a million people to want to live there and not care/forget about imminent terrorist attacks, the design of the thing has to be sexy. I'm thinking..shaped like the Jolly Green Giant.

Tiwa

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

tim_c — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:08:22 PDT

I would totally jump at the chance to live in a well designed arcology. No need for private transportation, everything conveniently close to home, clean & well maintained.
A definite improvement on a large number of areass I've called home.

tim_c

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

MickyK — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:06:04 PDT

It's doesn't look safe at all. Seems like a place that I would totally avoid

MickyK

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Pugcake — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:04:36 PDT

What about the thousands of people scared of heights? I'm generally not afraid of heights, but this tower scares me. I don't like this one bit. Of course most of the people afraid of heights don't have to live there... I just... er... I don't like this one bit.

And yeah, I can just see chaos starting, some terrorist attack or something, and people start freaking out. Sure a terrorist attack in a city is going to cause a lot of chaos, but at least your not over 1,000 ft. in the air (Feel sorry for the people at the very top!). Even if you issue every citizen a chute and set up courses for safety doesn't mean they're going to remember most of that in emergency situations. Then you got thousands of people with babies, children, and animals trying to all parachute down at the same time. Doesn't paint a pretty picture in my mind.

*hugs the ground*

Pugcake

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Rus — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:02:20 PDT

@Garrison Dean: Just so long as they bring their poutine with them. And their universal health care, which we'll need after the poutine.

Rus

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Rus — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:59:17 PDT

@Daveinva: Are you kidding? Most of Seoul is already one big indoor/outdoor mall. If everything's close and convienent and the roof's high enough, I can see people only leaving to take a vacation in another arcology.

Rus

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

aspiringexpatriate — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:56:19 PDT

"How convenient/scary!"

Scary indeed.

@Daveinva: "because nobody wants to live like that, not by choice" I think the point being that eventually overpopulation will be such a problem that there won't be a choice. But yeah, not anytime too soon, but soon enough on a grander scale. Leveled cities. Both interesting and terrifying.

aspiringexpatriate

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Rus — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:55:11 PDT

@Crystal: Judging by the design, the terrorists will miss even if they fly the plane straight at it.

Rus

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Rhainor — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:53:07 PDT

Sweet. Arcologies are fun.

Rhainor

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:51:47 PDT

@tetracycloide: If Canada invaded nobody would be able to go anywhere because we'd be laughing to hard and saying, "Awe thats cute that you tried. Thanks though, we needed a reason to have 51 states."

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:48:56 PDT

@MaxTwice: Its London chap..That means it's a giant fag.

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

tetracycloide — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:48:14 PDT

@braak: what could be simpler than issuing every citizen a chute and enrolling them in a safety course on base jumping?

seriously though, the idea that a 'normal city' is easier to evacuate is not entirly accurate. take d.c. for example, if canada invaded and everyone in the city had to evacuate or face the mounty death squads i'm sure a good 80% of the city would try and get out by motor vehicle on 95. the bottle necks are still there, they're just less obvious.

tetracycloide

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Citizen Kang — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:45:07 PDT

Two words: airplane magnet.

Citizen Kang

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

tollwaytroll — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:40:29 PDT

Uhmm.. how many floors is it? That'd be a sucky elevator ride.

tollwaytroll

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Daveinva — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:38:56 PDT

You have plenty more ways to evacuate a normal city. In a vertical building, there's one way out.

Honestly, arcologies will never happen, because nobody wants to live like that, not by choice. In real life, these things are Kowloon Walled City, not some Dubai paradise.

Daveinva

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

MaxTwice — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:35:35 PDT

@Gann: bad planes.

Looks like a giant cigarette--being vaporized!

MaxTwice

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

braak — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:34:16 PDT

@tetracycloide: Well, the exit routes for a city I'd imagine to be a little simpler than the exit routes if you were living on, say, the 1,036th floor.

braak

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Final — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:27:32 PDT

@braak: You beat me to it. It does look like a cat scratch tower.

But you couldn't pay me to live in that thing. 100,000 - One Million People in that close of a proxity, it doesn't take a terrorist just somebody with a strong enough bass driver/ subwoofer at 3 am to cause a riot that would tear that thing down.

Final

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

icelight — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:26:23 PDT

@OldDog1: Congratulations, you quoted Wikipedia. You must be so proud. Although you could at least have removed the citation numeral.

icelight

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:23:25 PDT

With something that shape and that long sticking out of the ground something tells me Capt. Jack won't keep Torchwood in Cardiff for long.

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Gann — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:23:05 PDT

Were the holes added to make it 747-proof?

Gann

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

tetracycloide — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:20:22 PDT

@Crystal: how is that different than a normal city? fires and terrorist attacks have always caused mass chaos whenever they occur around masses of people.

tetracycloide

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

OldDog1 — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:19:40 PDT

Arcology, from the words "ecology" and "architecture,"[1] is a set of architectural design principles aimed toward the design of enormous habitats (hyperstructures) of extremely high human population density. These largely hypothetical structures, which are themselves commonly referred to as "arcologies," would be self-contained, contain a variety of residential and commercial facilities, minimize individual human environmental impact, and possibly be economically self-sufficient.

OldDog1

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

greetings — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:17:11 PDT

Looks kind of creepy, somehow. Does it whistle when the wind blows, like a giant Toot Sweet(from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)?

greetings

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

Crystal — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:14:37 PDT

I can't imagine living in a building with that many people much less the thought of what would happen if there were a fire or a terrorist attack or the like. Talk about mass chaos.

Crystal

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

cabridges — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:07:55 PDT

Didn't Niven and Pournelle already write this, "Oath of Fealty"...?

cabridges

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

ManchuCandidate — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:05:08 PDT

Paging Judge Dwedd (sic.) Mega Tower One is now open for business.

ManchuCandidate

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

zenpoet — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:04:28 PDT

I actually love the idea, though the punctured swizzle stick look leaves a bit to be desired.

Now if there was only some kind of assurance that a structure like this would mean that more green space could be created, and not just create more room for urban sprawl.

zenpoet

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

tetracycloide — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:57:44 PDT

Massive Oblong Dwelling is Overtly Grotesque

tetracycloide

One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

braak — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:53:22 PDT

Doesn't 3 33,000 super districts only equal 100,000 people?

Also, it looks like one of those cat jungle gyms.

braak