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The Earthscraper: Underground Skyscraper


Do you like this idea of an "earth"scraper?  

19 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you like this idea of an "earth"scraper?



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It preserves the iconic presence of the city square and the existing hierarchy of the buildings that surround it. It is an inverted pyramid with a central void to allow all habitable spaces to enjoy natural lighting and ventilation.

http://io9.com/58457...round/gallery/1

edit: for poll choice number 2, I attemtped to put "moo" but it keeps changing it to "moo" lol, no idea why.

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Interesting but impractical.

You can build a 5 story parking garage above grade for about the same amount that it would cost to build a 2 story parking garage sub-grade.

I imagine for something 65 stories deep, that multiplier would be significantly greater.

Throw in that Mexico has pretty frequent seismic activity. Engineering a building to sway and give when the earth shifts is one thing. This would be more akin to engineering a missile silo in a seismic zone that has to be able to withstand shear along it's entire 65 story height. Mucho dineiro !

Pretty renderings. Not gonna happen.

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Interesting but impractical.

You can build a 5 story parking garage above grade for about the same amount that it would cost to build a 2 story parking garage sub-grade.

I imagine for something 65 stories deep, that multiplier would be significantly greater.

Throw in that Mexico has pretty frequent seismic activity. Engineering a building to sway and give when the earth shifts is one thing. This would be more akin to engineering a missile silo in a seismic zone that has to be able to withstand shear along it's entire 65 story height. Mucho dineiro !

Pretty renderings. Not gonna happen.

What if they lined it with a closed-cell polyurethane foam rubber? Like what they make stress balls out of. The building goes down as an inverted pyramid, but the foam would go straight down within a box. During an earthquake, the box may be breached but the foam will absorb the shear rather than transmitting it to the inverted pyramid.

So. What are rents like in Mexico City for housing with no views and limited access to natural sunlight? :rolleyes:

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Interesting but impractical.

You can build a 5 story parking garage above grade for about the same amount that it would cost to build a 2 story parking garage sub-grade.

I imagine for something 65 stories deep, that multiplier would be significantly greater.

Throw in that Mexico has pretty frequent seismic activity. Engineering a building to sway and give when the earth shifts is one thing. This would be more akin to engineering a missile silo in a seismic zone that has to be able to withstand shear along it's entire 65 story height. Mucho dineiro !

Pretty renderings. Not gonna happen.

The article says the purpose of going underground is there are very limited places to build and that they have a height limit on buildings.

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What if they lined it with a closed-cell polyurethane foam rubber? Like what they make stress balls out of. The building goes down as an inverted pyramid, but the foam would go straight down within a box. During an earthquake, the box may be breached but the foam will absorb the shear rather than transmitting it to the inverted pyramid.

Didn't say it couldn't be done...

Volume of a cube is 3x as much as a pyramid. Sitework is pricey. But if price is no object, which I assume it isn't since the project probably hasn't gotten past the pretty rendering phase, then kudos to you for your unique solution.

I wonder how much 2/3rds of a cubic city block's worth of flubber would cost ?

The article says the purpose of going underground is there are very limited places to build and that they have a height limit on buildings.

That is for the historic city center only. I'm not sure what developer would want to build in whatever relatively small area that 'historic city center' entails so bad that they'd dream up a project 10x more expensive.

The rest of Mexico City is open for the business of building skyscrapers.

Edited by Highway6
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  • The title was changed to The Earthscraper: Underground Skyscraper

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