Chinese 2008 floating city concept - Super Star

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYURrZqgMfM&feature=player_detailpage

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a Webstar! Actually, none of those are far from the truth. It's a Superstar. A floating, self-powered, self-regulated, self-contained metropolis.

Think that sounds nuts? Even when Beijing-based MAD designs something grounded in reality, it still look far-fetched and crazy: take the Sinosteel International Plaza in Tianjin, for instance. Now, MAD thought that the modern perception of Chinatown was becoming a little stale. How do they revamp it? By dreaming up the crystalline entity Superstar: A Mobile Chinatown, part of the "Uneternal City" exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale. From MAD:

It can land at every corner of the world... It's self-sustaining: it grows its own food, requires no resources from the host city, and recycles all of its waste; it's a living place, with authentic Chinese nature, health resorts, sports facilities and drinking water lakes; and it's a travelling Olympic party, that can journey to the host city every four years. There's even a digital cemetery, to remember the dead. The Superstar is a dream that's home to 15,000 people: there is no hierarchy, no hyponymy, but a fusion of technology and nature, future and humanity.

http://www.dvice.com/archives/2008/09/-its-a-bird-its.php

 

[chuck4]

The architecture firm involved is appearently not named MAD for nothing.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Indeed.

 

[Tony Williams]

I quite like the idea of arcologies - basically, a city in one building. It would provide a controlled environment year-round, with everything within walking distance, and if you want fresh air the outside would be only a few minutes walk away. Energy use would be very low, recycling of heat and materials very easy. The main problem would be the initial capital outlay. I went to some trouble to work on the specification of such a structure for a novel I'm writing.

 

[CaseyKnight]

I'm amazed something that big could float

 

[Orionblamblam]

there is no hierarchy

That would last how long? Five minutes? Ten? It certainly wouldn't extend much past the point that someone needed to make a decision for other people... or felt he needed to make decisions for other people.

no hyponymy,

Say what now?

 

[Orionblamblam]

I'm amazed something that big could float

While a floating city may be technically feasible, this floating city is just ridiculous. It doesn't float on water, it apparently floats on antigravity. It must rely on Star Trekkian structural integrity reinforcing force fields; otherwise it would simply collapse under its own weight.

It's bad science fiction. Worse, it's bad newage socialist science fiction. "On the star, we are all factory workers." "Pioneering neo-Chinese medicine is creating DNA therapy; the average age on the star is 157 years old."

Feh. A floating anti-gravity monstrocity populated almost exclusively by elderly (and seriously risk- and change-averse) superstitious Communists? Yeah, what could possibly go wrong...

 

[Avimimus]

there is no hierarchy

That would last how long? Five minutes? Ten? It certainly wouldn't extend much past the point that someone needed to make a decision for other people... or felt he needed to make decisions for other people.

no hyponymy,

Say what now?

I'm much more worried about the drinking water lakes...
I love how naive translations can help me learn about my own language...!

 

[riggerrob]

Floating cities are a good idea even if they don't cross oceans.
OTL I look at all the recent construction in Richmond, Britich Columbia (a suburb of Vancouver). The international airport is build on a island mere minimetres above sea level. Many of those high-rise apartment buildings are almost self-contained with gyms, dentists, shops, restaurants, spas, insurance offices, etc.Hundreds of thousands of people live in recently-constructed concrete buildings that are only a metre or two above sea level. All their basements and ground floors are going to flood during the next trunami, spring freshet, Pineapple Express, etc. The tallest buildings cast their shadows over the Skytrain (commuter light rail).

A few of the wiser building codes (e.g. Pitt Meadows on the Fraser River flood plain) already limit buildings to underground parking only.

It makes perfect sense to cast concrete basements that can float during shallow floods. How big of a concrete raft do you need to float a 20 story building?
The next challenge is durable plumbing.

 

[Apophenia]

OT but, for British Columbia, another challenge is to somehow simulate all that Richmond and Pitt Meadows farmland that has been built over. Those high-rises may be "almost self-contained with gyms," etc. Not so much with food ... and BC has precious little remaining arable land.

 

[edwest4]

Well, there's the Oceanix City concept.

New technologies and frontiers: Sustainable floating cities for China's coastlines and BRI

In Chinese the word for "crisis" is comprised of two characters: one meaning "danger" and the other "opportunity". The challenge of rising seas, due to the "crisis" of global warming, spells "danger". Technology and innovation rising to the challenge could offer new "opportunity"

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[riggerrob]

OT but, for British Columbia, another challenge is to somehow simulate all that Richmond and Pitt Meadows farmland that has been built over. Those high-rises may be "almost self-contained with gyms," etc. Not so much with food ... and BC has precious little remaining arable land.

Agreed!
Even with the Agricultural Land Reserve, arable land is rapidly being paved over. Every year some real estate developer requests an "easement" or "trade" to build condos or mega-mansions or industrial parks on flood plains. Most of that land is only suitable for growing vegetables because it traditionally floods every spring.

"The Hundred Mile Diet" was written by a couple of journalists who struggled to eat only foods grown in the Fraser River Delta (west of Hope) for an entire year.

The only agricultural improvement is the hundreds of acres of greenhouses (vegetables and flowers) sprouting up around Boundary Bay Airport. I tried wandering around the nearby Tswassen shopping mall, but all I found was boredom. I would rather see more greenhouses.
What really scares me is the rising cost of vegetables as the price of oil rises. Importing lettuce from California and Chile will become prohibitively expensive by the end of my lifetime (another 15 or 20 years)!

 

[Apophenia]

You said it! Not to add to your anxiety but drought-ridden California is already bracing for wildfires. That won't help.

California Megafires and the Effects on Agriculture

Wildfires are devastating, not only to the families whose homes are demolished but also to the land and farmers supplying our fruits, vegetables, wine grapes and cattle for dairy and meat production.

www.dirt-to-dinner.com

Going back to 'floating cities', maybe something more Dutch and less Chinese? Bonus: No need to wait for anti-grav technology