Shimizu Corporation's Tokyo Bay Mega-City Pyramid on Discovery Channel's Extreme Engineering

"City in a Pyramid"
Extreme Engineering, Discovery.com

"Imagine a three-dimensional city 12 times higher than the Great Pyramid at Giza "floating" over Tokyo Bay, built largely by robots, and housing 750,000 people in skyscrapers dangling from it like fruit on a tree."

It's a visually stunning architectural concept with only one or two serious drawbacks:

• It requires materials that aren't readily available - yet
• It's possible that if one of the struts failed, the entire city would go down

The failure scenario is from an unsourced Wikipedia article, so I don't know how seriously to take it.

Discovery.com offers a limited, interactive sample of information from their Extreme Engineering episode: a tour; rotatable view; step-by-step look at how the structure would be built; and "The Big Picture" - a sort of overview, showing how big the thing would be.

What sets this apart from some 'visionary' architectural projects is that Shimizu Corporation is actually in the business of designing buildings. From my point of view, that means that they probably know what they're doing.

Discovery Channel DVD

Although you can view a distinctly low-quality copy of Discovery Channel's "Extreme Engineering: City in a Pyramid" on YouTube, complete with annoying breaks between segments, I suggest getting the DVD at Discovery Channel's Online Store. They've got the "City in a Pyramid" episode, and fifteen more from the Extreme Engineering series.

This copy, on YouTube, gives a grainy idea of what the Discovery Channel product is like:

"Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid 1/5"

tonskiy, YouTube
video 10:00

Shimizu Corporation's Tokyo Bay Pyramid Impossible? Today, Yes: Soon, Probably Not

What impressed me about the Shimizu Corporation's Tokyo Bay pyramid city was its modular construction. Although the Discovery Channel's Extreme Engineering episode showed the pyramid's frame built first, with buildings added later, I don't see that this is necessarily how a structure like that would need to be built.

In principle, one layer - or even one pyramid segment - at a time could be constructed, with another added as the first was filling up. This would spread construction costs over years - possibly decades - and allow the project to be started without trying to finance the entire structure.

The Shimizu Corporation's pyramid, as envisioned by Shimizu Corporation designers, requires on what is today an exotic material for its framework: carbon nanotubes. To my knowledge, carbon nanotubes are not available for commercial use: not in structures the size of the pyramid's components.

But, that's today.

I've seen exotic materials technologies like liquid crystal displays and fiber optics change from laboratory curiosities to components in consumer products. I can see no reason to assume that, as the U.S. Patent Office commissioner is supposed to have said (but most likely didn't), "Everything that can be invented has been invented." (The Quotations Page)

I may not live long enough to see a structure like the Shimizu pyramid completed, but my guess is that my children probably will.

More:

• "Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid"
  Wikipedia
• Shimizu Corporation
  • English
  • Japanese
• "VisionWorks" (pdf)
  Bayer MaterialsScience (Issue 5, 2007) page 35
• "The Nanotube Site"
  Cluster Science Collaboration, Condensed Matter Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University

Huge Bridge/Building Proposed for Copenhagen Harbor

"Town Gate Bridge in Copenhagen Harbor"
design addict (November 25, 2008)

"3XN’s proposal for a construction on Marmormolen in Copenhagen is both: a town gate and a bridge that links Marmormolen with Langeliniekaj, creating a new coherent area in Copenhagen Harbor...."

A very cool-looking idea, and one that just might work.


(from design addict, used without permission)
Scaled down - three more in the post.

Architecture Meets Physics: The Skyscraper and the Pendulum

"728 ton pendulum"
The Long Now Foundation (June 25, 02008)

"In my research of large pendulums for the 10,000 Year Clock I came across the beautifully designed tuned mass damper in the Taipei 101 tower. Basically really tall buildings are themselves massive pendulums, as they are built to sway in the wind and earthquakes. However very tall buildings in earthquake zones need something to dampen this motion...."

Illustrated, with a video.

Pretty good discussion of an important tall-building issue.

London Megastructure

"Populararchitecture: Supertower

"A tower of unprecedented scale conceived not as a building so much as a vertical
extrusion of the city..."

Very cool pictures, but with a page design that requires either a great deal of scrolling, or a monitor with very impressive resolution.

This proposed London megastructure is an interesting design: but I would like to see how the architects handled the vertical transportation and other design issues mentioned.

Still, very cool pictures, and artistic design. Even if it does look like a perforated paper towel roll.

Indoor Ski Resort in Dubai

"Pista de esqui en Dubai (27 fotos)" (I think that means something like "Ski Track in Dubai (27 photos)) - but I could be wrong.)

My Spanish is rusty, at best, and that might not be Spanish.

Never mind that: Those photos are worth looking at. Ski resorts are fairly common, here in Minnesota. Not surprising, since water is a mineral for several months out of the year. In Dubai, it's a different story.

The ski resort isn't a particularly large one, but it's all there, including a ski lift. My hat's off to the people who imagined, designed, and built it.

In my opinion, this shows how the perils of overcrowding are overrated. It's not being "crowded" that's a problem: it's what can be done with the available space.

XSEED 4000: A Really Big Building, or a Very Small Mountain

I ran into quite a few posts about "EXSEED 4000", a megastructure that's on the drawing boards in Japan"

• "X-SEED 4000: World’s tallest tower will house 1 million people" (August 20, 2007) (Looks like three different projects, judging from the pictures.)
• "X-SEED 4000: World’s tallest tower will house 1 million people" (August 20, 2007) (Looks like three different projects, judging from the pictures.) - same post, different URL
• "Japan Plans To Build The Tallest Structure Ever" (August 21, 2007) (Two of the pictures seem to be of the same structure - but the third doesn't quite match.)
• "Tobias Bernstrup / XSEED 4000" (probably early 2004) " We are proud to present Tobias Bernstrup's first solo show at the gallery. ... His new work, "XSEED 4000", is an interactive animation.... Exhibition: February 26 - March 27, 2004"
• "Tokyo high-rise X-Seed 4000 - The Eco City" (August 20, 2007) (looks like two of the three projects pictured in the other post(s) are here.)

I was going to discuss megastructures in this, post, but the startling similarities between these posts, and some inconsistencies, suggest another approach.

I'm running out of time today, so that will have to wait for another post.

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