Good Idea or Bad?

There is a fact, which is that the amount of space and resources on Earth is fixed. However, there is another fact, which is that mankind would not be stopping its growth in population anytime soon. Already more than half of the World's green forest is lost, and it is not the end of it.

Especially in urban cities, the problem of finding housing and living environment is ever on the minds of urban planners. Putting all this into scale for Singapore, imagine a whole lot people squeezed onto a small island. In the beginning, it might be taken for granted and people would like to build their houses wide, expansive, and not very high. This might also be due them having larger families living under one roof.

Thus the solution was clear cut for many builders, if there is not enough space, build higher instead. And so it starts, the government building more public housing, also known as Flats. The first batch range from four to six stories. Later, with need and availability of technology and funds, it increases to average of 12 stories. Now in areas like Toa Payoh, public housing as high as 40 stories are mushrooming.

Of course, throughout the world, everyone is doing it, like Japan, especially the central economic areas of the city. In London, there has been some plan to carry out this idea of living high up to the extreme with a gigantic tower, although they are in fact one of the least dense major city in the world. I don't know how comfortably it would sit with people. Looking at it might seem "different", but its certainly feels weird in some sense. A tube emerging out of nowhere. Not to mention the potential of certain problems that might arise later. Anyway, here take a first look at this super tower.

Cheese Stick? or Stairway to Heaven?

Now, how many of you would not mind living in this tower? Forget the wet bracket earlier, the view would be first class, spectacular! And of course the fresh air. Living in such a technological feat would certainly be cool for some. Interested to know more? Here's some more information.

A Break Down of the Tower

If you realised, the floors actually exceeds a few hundreds and apparently the idea was to build a vertical living community. Could it be done? Probably yes with today's technology, but will people buy it? Only time will tell. Just how high would people be willing to live? The idea of living with birds might appeal to some. Most likely it would have its own medical centre, if on the 451 floor, a guy suffers an emergency, life threatening condition, by the time he takes the lift down, halfway, his body might not have enough patience. Maybe it should have its own flying centre, nice to just take off from there.

View from Bottom

Looking at the cars, would parking be a problem? Would there be underground lots, or a automatic system for storing cars? There might even be the possibility of not needing one, since, you might spend 80+% of the time in the tower, sleeping, resting, eating, working, relaxing there. So it might just come down to this:

I don't really excel in physics or any science at all, but I do play Jenga from time to time, and its seems logical that the higher you build your tower, the more unstable it would be and if it decides to topple or fall, 10 out of 10 times does not come down softly and someone unlucky will walk away with a bruise on his forehead.

Okay, maybe I exaggerated a little, but so is the physics of building this tower, exaggerated from the Jenga tower. The thought of having so much weight concentrated on a single point, reminds me of how I got prickled by the needle when sewing the ranks on my army uniforms. Of course the architects and engineers would have thought of it donkey years ago. Its just me.

Some thoughts actually come to my mind, not serene or beautiful ones, but rather ugly and negative. Probably due to my exposure to media. I can relate this tower to terrorist attacks (bombs at the foundation or airplane crashes), the power needed to pump the water up a few hundred stories, the number of lifts needed to ease traffic and waiting time. Since the lift is their basic mode of transportation, it might not seem strange for some super rich to own their own lifts, similar to cars. The depth which the foundation need to be layed and the pressure on Earth. Would the tower sink like Pisa?

A typical day in the "streets"

Whether you like it or not, you have to admit that it is a great technological achievement and is a milestone for high rise structures. So do you like it so much that you would stay in it? Why don't you let me know?

Learn more by reading about it here.