Post by justjohn on Oct 3, 2011 4:54:50 GMT -7
The Earthscraper, a 65-story-tall skyscraper buried under Mexico City
The Earthscraper is the Skyscrapers antagonist in a historic urban landscape where the latter is condemned and the preservation of the built environment is the paramount ambition. 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.
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Architecture firm BKNR is a company with a dream. A dream of building a 65 story inverted skyscraper or “earthscraper” in the heart of Mexico City. It’s an interesting idea, but not one without a number of problems.
Designed to be built smack-dab in the center of Mexico City, BNKR’s Earthscraper wouldn’t ruin the skyline there…and is designed in such a way that it would incorporate Mexico’s history in its design. The top ten floors — which, here, would be the “bottom” ten — is a museum and cultural center dedicated to the Aztecs. Below that you’ve got retail space, then apartments and finally, deep underground, businesses. Because, you know, that’s where business do their best work. It all terminates some 300 meters below the surface.
I’ve seen inverted skyscraper concepts before, and while they look cool in drawings, they tend to not be something people would actually want to live in. Sure, it’s incredibly environmentally friendly in that it would probably require no heating or cooling, but there’s the huge mental hurdle in that living or working there would feel like a deathtrap.
Since it’s got a roof, you wouldn’t have to worry about flooding (which isn’t a concern in Mexico City anyway) or a car crashing down there, but what about cleaning up the constant quiet rain of debris, dirt, junk, trash and stuff? It’s completely unavoidable and would have to be shuttled to the surface on a regular basis Or some xxx throwing a bomb down there? Or someone just standing on the edge and taking a pxxx because he’s had too much to drink? And then he falls down the hole.
No sir, not for me.
