Ultima Tower - Future City Concept
Eugene Tsui has designed a concept city called The Ultima Tower that would help solve the global population crisis. Acting as a human termite nest, and costing $150 billion, these two mile high green towers would house over one million people in a one mile wide area. Instead of floors, the building’s interior would consist of a multi-dimensional ecosystem complete with neighborhood districts and 30-50 meter high skies. Lakes, streams, rivers, hills and ravines comprise the soil landscape on which residential, office, commercial, retail and entertainment buildings can be built.
The concept can be thought of as what would happen if nature grew upwards with multi-soil levels. Of course the structure itself acts like a living organism with its wind and atmospheric energy conversion systems, photovoltaic exterior sheathing, and opening/closing cowl-vent windows that allow natural air into the interior without mechanical intervention. The exterior walls are made of structural glass that conforms to the criss-crossing, double helix, cable strand tension system that disperses all exterior forces along the surface. If wind or earthquake shock waves pushes or disturbs one portion of the structure the other portion absorbs and dissipates the forces. Ecological efficiency is a rule and all areas of the structure feature resource conserving technology such as recycled building materials, compost toilets, nature-based water cleansing systems for all buildings, plentiful amounts of forest, plant life and water-based ecosystems.
Considering the huge costs involved, and the current suburban culture, it is unlikely we will see anything like this taken seriously in our lifetimes. However, considering over half of the world’s population is already living in cities, ideas like this may one day be realized. What do you think future cities could look like?
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May 12th, 2008
Love this idea.
May 14th, 2008
Sounds like a good idea. Why not, what is there to lose from this?
May 14th, 2008
Growing plants in a greenhouse can be tricky.
Remember the biosphere?
Might want to create some well-functioning prototypes before breaking ground on the project….
May 15th, 2008
Why would anyone want to live there?
Really… would you want to live in a beehive of a
million souls stacked upon each other?
Is this the solution to the 10 billion humans who will inhabit the planet by 2030 or the 15 billion that will be here by 2050? If so we better figure out how we will feed them and keep them from killing each other.
Sorry but this is a very morbid idea in my mind. Looks a lot like something from “The Matrix”.
Maybe we should plan for a zero population growth world where average ages exceed 100 years and children can still grow up with REAL grass under their feet and older folks don’t feel obsolete halfway through their lives.
May 15th, 2008
Where you getting your population numbers? They don’t match my sources….
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Do have to agree with you on dense living. I really dislike city life.
But I suspect that this idea could be at least as good as city life and I’m sure some would love it. So it works great for me, if they can pull it off.
The nice thing about these sort of build ‘em higher, build ‘em denser ideas is that they get all those extra people rounded up and out of my view. ;o)
May 15th, 2008
My numbers, although I’ve seen them elsewhere. We like to think in terms of population growth via birthrate but we fail to factor age growth. In the next few years we will see the effect of “1st world” healthcare on south and east Asian populations. Africa will eventually overcome political instability to achieve modern mortality rates and… viola’… you have a population boom without a strong +birthrate.
We need to accept that the 100 year human is going to be the norm in this century. There is plenty of space but we have to learn to live in it without destroying it.
Putting “extra” people “out of view” has been an urban design concept since the Sumarians. Hopefully it will finally become obsolete before we become the “extras”.
May 16th, 2008
The UN is projecting 8.9 billion by 2050 and they’ve downsize their projections several times in the last ten years. And that ~9 is tought to be a ‘peak’ IIRC. Projections call for gradual post peak decreases.
Based on what we’re seeing in terms of dropping fertility rates I’ll not be surprised if the peak isn’t closer to 8 rather than 9 (as some are starting to predict) and the subsequent drop isn’t more abrupt.
One really good birth control technique, widely distributed, might make a huge change. I’m willing to bet that we get a really cheap “once every six months” pill within the next 20 years.
May 16th, 2008
Thanks Bob,
Maybe I’m too skeptical. Perhaps I need to remember that the entire world isn’t impeded by faith based scientific policies. The cost would be negligible to provide birth control to most of the third world and what we define as the “third world” seems to be shrinking daily. However I will believe we can overcome cultural bias’ when I see it.
I’m glad you pointed out some encouraging pop. estimates, they have temporarily pulled me back to optimism… but I still hate the idea of the hive city.
May 16th, 2008
Take a look at this list of fertility rates by country - 2000 and 2008 projected….
Work your way down the list and get a good feeling for where rates are high and how many countries are below 2.11 (the population replacement threshold).
Of the ‘higher than replacement’ countries I found less than 18 who were expected to see rises in 2008 and those weren’t large ones. (My counting was sloppy. Got interrupted a couple of times.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate
The high birth rate countries are largely the least developed. (I see only one where the birth rate might be religious or political.)
As countries develop they almost always experience a drop in birth rates.
Lots of possible reasons. Perhaps a combination.
In an agricultural society children are an asset. You just have to feed them and they start working at a young age.
In an urban society children are a liabiity. Have to feed and educate them for many, many years before they can produce income and often by then they’re off with their own families.
As societies “modernize” women get more education and power. Women start taking more control over their own bodies and have access to the information and materials to carry through.
The world might be mightily helped by China. China is seeing a looming (cheap) labor problem. They are likely to move some of their labor intensive manufacturing to places such as Bangladesh and parts of Africa. New jobs, better incomes could bring about the changes we see elsewhere.
We can hope….
May 20th, 2008
I think this would be a good idea if
A. They could come up with the money (The U.S. is too far in debt already)
B. Who would want to leave their home for this?
May 20th, 2008
In other words “this would be a good idea if
A. Someone else paid for it
B. Someone other than me had to live in it.”
;o)
October 12th, 2008
Two words: Architectural impossibility
October 30th, 2008
If we could overcome the expense issue of this project, i believe there would be a significant amount of people willing to give this life a shot. If the indoor agriculture and wildlife is able to be “naturally” sustained, would it really be that much different from living in a suburb? Also, think of it this way. “Hey, honey. I’m gonna go down to floor 11 and visit Dad, then maybe head down to floor 7 to see Uncle Ed and back up a bit to floor 13 to see Bella. I’ll be back in an hour or two. And yes, I’ll grab some milk and bread from floor 2 while I’m out.”
Sure, it sounds like a big change, but I think it could also be more convenient. In the end though, i do agree that it depends on the success this tower to maintain a similar lifestyle for those living in it in comparison to where they used to live.
After considering that, I also thought.. what about cars inside this tower? any transportation?
What about workplaces, buildings within this building?
Will there be higher floors to support skyscrapers?
These are some things to think about before we put a definite “YES” into the equation.
January 4th, 2009
It’s just “Future City Concept”
“One day” maybe..
January 4th, 2009
Presently, 300 million people live in the U.S.
Today’s news reports swarms of earthquakes beneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.
If the Yellowstone super volcano blows, a huge number of people will need to be evacuated.
Would large structures such as this located in the southeastern parts of the U.S. serve as emergency shelters leaving the remaining surrounding area for sealed and artificially illuminated green houses for the producing of food?
Like the Katrina disaster, the present U.S. government has no idea how to manage a Yellowstone blowout.
January 5th, 2009
Anything reported by the UN should be highly suspect b/c the Un is top heavy with corruption. For example, the Euro Un paid millions upon millions of dollars for an art installation in their Euro headquarters or some building over there, to paint artificial stalactites. Wow, great, entertain yourselves with artificial color on the ceiling while genocide and hunger and terrorism laps at your feet. Pathetic! And does anyone remember the Oil for Food Scandal? The Un and Iraq and many major Euro-Asian countries took total advantage of this program and yet people hate the US for going into Iraq and ultimately breaking up the scandal (and yes WMD’s WERE found, explain 500 tons of yellowcake shipped from Iraq to Canada for recycling fuel source) so who is the real pain in the ass? The UN!!!
January 15th, 2009
To do something like this, we would have to get rid of the monetary system. That is what creates corruption anyways. If we were a resource based economy, things like this would be possible and the norm. Money limits our technological advances. Think about it, what is the first question always asked? How much money will this project cost? If we could get past the monetary system and the idea of profit out of everything, we could then focus or technological efforts on bettering the standard of life for humanity. I mean third world too. Check out thevenusproject.com to see what I am talking about. This idea is wonderful as long as it was a voluntary place to live. However, with every idea, it might have too many problems or not enough people would want to live in it. That is part of the scientific process. I hope I live long enough to see something like this come to pass!
February 18th, 2009
We have already tried to build a self-sustaining ecological system that failed in Arizona. This one seems like it would create even more problems. Why don’t we build two of them and put them side by side and call them the Ultima twin towers. If I was the enemy, these would be great targets. I am surprised anyone would be interested in living in something that houses this many people. What happens if someone screams fire?
March 23rd, 2009
This is probably not the best idea due to the fact that a tower that is two miles straight up in the air would be a target for any terrorist organization. Not only that this project is most likely architecturally impossible, it makes you wonder why they’re no buildings exceeding or even reaching 1 mile into the sky.
April 11th, 2009
The quintessential concept behind the tower city is, in my opinion, ingenious but riskier than any architectural structure that has ever even thought of being built. The issue of the current global populational explosion has immensely hampered the attempted aid of societies like the UN on third world and developing countries. At the rate we’re going, there will be approximately 10 billion individuals by 2030, how on earth are 10 billion people going to survive in a planet with very limited resources? If people can’t spread horizontally across the earth’s surface, then there’s only 1 direction to go: up.
But then again, there is always the dilemma of the impromptu display of apocalyptic power that our beloved mother nature shows us. If, any form of natural disaster decides to throw it’s wrath upon the Ultima tower city, then I’m afraid that the concordant consequences could be macabre indeed. There is no method of mass evacuation for people living on the higher stories, or even for the lower floors in fact, save helicopter, which can hardly be considered as a method of mass evacuation to me at least. The disaster does not even have to be natural for morbid results to follow. If there is even a minor fire, it could erupt into a major disaster for there is a controlled atmosphere for something like this to occur.
On the whole, in my opinion the Ultima Tower Ciy COULD be an architectural masterpiece and solve the issue of the population explosion of the human race OR could end up as a controlled environment for a disaster or pathetically misguided acts of terrorism. People may not even accept the idea of living in a human ‘beehive’.
Life could be disturbing, or promising; all we can do is wait and watch.
April 11th, 2009
150 billion dollars, 1 million people - $150,000 per person.
Not bad, except, I like the idea of my own house.
October 18th, 2009
I do not like this concept, 1 m people living within such a small area? Look at the large cities, crime and violence everywhere.
I think the best solution would be to stop wasting space and soil, the buildings like that could be used as farms. Bring the soil needed into he building to stop wasting space for farming, use space to build family houses with back yards and garage. This would make cities less crowded. Many places with rich soil are covered with concrete and places with poor soil are used to grow food. Why? All the space can be one big city with Ultima Farm Towers. Few sky scrapers for 10km sq would be enoth to provide services and jobs for everybody. I am against this idea.