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NOAH - New Orleans Arcology Habitat


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Gargantuan NOAH 'Ark' Proposed to New Orleans with Straight Face

How do you know when your building plan has gotten unnecessarily crazy and pretentious? When it's named after a Biblical figure who was fabled to save life as we know it...that might be a clue.

NOAH (New Orleans Arcology Habitat) is a massive, 1200-foot city within a building that's hurricane-proof and can actually float (don't worry, it's tethered to something or other). Conceptualized through a mind trust of three architectural firms, green (wind, solar and water) energies would help power the structure's 20,000 residences, 1,000,000 square feet of commercial space, school, hospital and, just for fun, 3 casinos.

On one hand, this floating triangle seems like nothing less than a feat of modern engineering, a clever idea that's both structurally sound and handy in an emergency. On the other, have we given up so much on New Orleans that architects should abandon existing infrastructure altogether? If culture and way of life are not things we're looking to preserve, then why not just tell residents to move and be done with it?

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Renderings:

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These kind of peculiar plans pop up every now and again. I'd like finally for someone to build one so we can find out if it would work or not. How many people could you get in a building that size? I'm guessing not all that many if it's supposed to be a "city within a city."

Strange that it would be in New Orleans, though.

The building I'm in is about the same height, and if the office portion was converted to residential would comfortably house about 4,000 people (also assuming that all the amenities were doubled for the increased number of people). Since this thing has three legs, I'd guess that it would hold 12,000 people. I'm not sure where New Orleans would find 12,000 people who could afford to live in something like this, even if a portion was set aside for low income housing. You don't want that portion to be too large, or you end up with the crack stacks ("Ghetto In The Sky") that they ended up with in Minneapolis.

Again, though -- I'd love to see one of these crazy plans finally come to fruition. But it would take a crap load of money and a metric assload of leadership. Both are in short supply these days.

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Aren't they seriously overestimating the navigable width of the river at that point?

That's right between the old highway 90 bridge and the algiers ferry. The scale to me seems completely off. That looks as if it would cut off at least half the channel, making it effectively a one-way for the big ships.

Definitely a neat idea, though. People will laugh now, but in another 50 years, in Manhattan, I can see it.

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Aren't they seriously overestimating the navigable width of the river at that point?

That's right between the old highway 90 bridge and the algiers ferry. The scale to me seems completely off. That looks as if it would cut off at least half the channel, making it effectively a one-way for the big ships.

Definitely a neat idea, though. People will laugh now, but in another 50 years, in Manhattan, I can see it.

Don't bet on it. Arcologies were conceived of over 50 years ago by an architect with ambitious dreams. It's 2009, why don't WE have arcologies? We don't even robots that can take out the trash! <_<

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Don't bet on it. Arcologies were conceived of over 50 years ago by an architect with ambitious dreams. It's 2009, why don't WE have arcologies? We don't even robots that can take out the trash! <_<

Because IRL isn't the same as SimCity.

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  • 1 month later...

Aren't they seriously overestimating the navigable width of the river at that point?

That's right between the old highway 90 bridge and the algiers ferry. The scale to me seems completely off. That looks as if it would cut off at least half the channel, making it effectively a one-way for the big ships.

Definitely a neat idea, though. People will laugh now, but in another 50 years, in Manhattan, I can see it.

Thank you! It looks like a 1st year architecture student designed it the week before it was due. Cesar Pelli unimpressed.

Sidenote: In the early 80's, there was a design competition for a tower in downtown NOLA. Cesar Pelli's design was one of the entries. In a follow up publication (which I cannot find any info on atm) he was ripped for not having a clue as to how his spatial dynamics affected perception. Simply terrifying, like looking into the abyss or posting on /b/. Him and Moneo were so clueless as to the effect of their work at the time that they and their boasters had the publication pulled. Thankfully the project flopped. It would be hard to see an oblique and contorted MGM style pyramid atop the skyline. blink.gif

Don't bet on it. Arcologies were conceived of over 50 years ago by an architect with ambitious dreams. It's 2009, why don't WE have arcologies? We don't even robots that can take out the trash! <_<

Who is this architect with ambitious dreams?

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