Sci-Fi Skyscrapers: 14 Futuristic Visions for Vertical Cities

https://weburbanist.com/2015/12/09/sci-fi-skyscrapers-15-futuristic-visions-for-vertical-cities/

As the global population grows and the world’s largest metropolises evolve into mega-cities, skyscrapers stretching higher than ever before could hold our transit hubs, parking garages, parks, museums and even food production systems. Some of these concept designs seem feasible for the near future while others could serve as the settings for science fiction.

Light Park Floating Skyscraper

This concept for a floating skyscraper takes a similar tack, reacting to the infrastructure problems caused by rapid, unchecked urbanization by literally having no earthly footprint at all. The Light Park features a helium-filled cap and solar-powered propellers keeping it looming over Beijing like a ghost ship, and it contains parks, sports fields, green houses, restaurants and other public facilities.

Alternative Car Park Tower

With all of its spiraling open levels, this parking garage tower envisioned for Hong Kong seems chaotic and unstructured, but it’s actually a well-thought-out automatic system that automatically sweeps cars from the ground floor to parking spots surrounding a central atrium.

Flex Towers for NYC

An overflowing, overpopulated New York City could be in dire need of new technology to meet energy needs by the year 2040, as designer Paolo Venturella imagines with his ‘Flex Tower.’ This moving skyscraper tilts and rotates itself to follow the sun to perfectly position its envelope of solar panels at all times of the day.

The Tall Tower by Project Hieroglyph

Sci-fi author Neal Stephenson, known for cyberpunk classics like ‘Snow Crash’ and ‘Quicksilver,’ has teamed up with the Center for Science and Imagination to design an incredible 12.4-mile-tall tower capable of launching rockets into space. 24 times the height of the Burj Khalifa, which is currently the world’s tallest building, Tall Tower would scrape the bottom of the stratosphere.

Twin Taiwan Towers

Tangled with lush greenery, these tall, narrow twin towers stretch up to an observatory and sky park looking down over Taiwan. The base is inhabited by a set of museums focusing on the nation’s past, present and future, while the stems contain four different kinds of hanging gardens as well as high-end residences.

Sand Babel

Taking inspiration from plants as well as skeletal systems, the 3D-printed Sand Babel tower system is designed to optimize cross-ventilation, encourage water condensation on the tops of the structures, and hide infrastructure like a multi-functional tube network underground. Connected beneath the sand, the towers offer scientific research facilities and tourist attractions in desert locations, with their ‘root systems’ helping to hold the sand dunes in place.

Fibrous Towers

Looking like part of a nervous system or the buds of a plant, this odd concept structure was envisioned as an observation tower and Taichung City Museum for Taiwan. Genetic algorithms found in natural growth processes were applied to digital models to create a system of tubes that separate and regroup to create an amorphous, flowing silhouette.

LED Observation Tower

Standing at the junction of two rivers in Doumen, China, this 328-foot-tall observation tower features a scaled facade mimicking the movement of water as schools of fish swim and jump into the air. Standing as a landmark for the area and a symbol of environmentalism, the tower contains a ground podium, technological programs and an observation facility. At night, it’s illuminated with LED lights from the inside.

Climatology Tower

“If the city is sick, what should we do?” ask the designers of the Climatology Tower. The answer is a research center that “evaluates meteorology and corrects the environment through mechanical engineering.” The tower purifies the air and water, collects and generates solar energy, inspects the local microclimate, offers green public space at its base and communicates with its sister towers around the world.

Spiraling Skyscraper for Taichung

Over 1300 feet tall, this iconic green tower is “an evolving column of life” acting as a vertical museum for Taichung, Taiwan, rotating to provide optimal views of historical landmarks around the city as visitors move up through the tower. The ‘roots’ start in the oldest part of Taiwan’s history, and as guests ascend, they also pass through time. The tower also acts as a carbon sequester, and its spiral form allows wind to pass through it to decrease structural loads and harvest energy.

Asian Cairns by Vincent Callebaut

Stacks of oversized glass pebbles reach into the sky in Vincent Callebaut’s ‘Asian Cairns’ design for Shenzhen, China. Encouraging density to deal with the region’s rapid urbanization, the system of towers produces more energy than it consumes and fosters the sense of an enclosed village by encouraging residents to also work within the towers, sustaining their own families and their neighbors.

Himalaya Towers

Spiraling tendrils send the Himalaya Water Towers straight up into the sky to collect and store water, bringing it down to the settlements on the ground. This mountain range’s 55,000 glaciers contain 40 percent of the world’s fresh water, and the towers absorb it with their six stem-like pipes, which contain water-holding cells that grow stronger as they reach their maximum capacity.

Water Re-Balance Skyscraper

Shanghai’s water supplies are under serious strain from the city’s burgeoning population, but plentiful rainwater and monsoon season floods could be put to use to remedy the problem. This skyscraper concept envisions collecting and purifying both rainwater and water from the river, pumping the clean water underground. The organic matter sifted from the water is used to develop and feed farmland and wetlands and to grow green algae within the tower.

High-Speed Vertical Train Hub

The megacities of the future will require far more robust public transportation systems, ideally taking up the least amount of land space possible, since all square footage is already at a premium. The Hyper-Speed Vertical Train Hub “will ‘flip’ the traditional form and function of the current train station design vertically, and re-form it into a cylindrical mass to increase the towers train capacity. This tall cylindrical form aims to eliminate the current impact that traditional stations have currently on land use, therefore returning the remaining site mass back to the densely packed urban Mega City.”

Soviet footage of the Battle of Kursk (1943)

1975 Soviet educational film 'The Battle on the Kursk Arc.'

Conversation At The Fountain (1883) and Lorelei (1890) by Friedrich Bodenmuller.

Now listening to Slip Of The Tongue by Whitesnake and Bad Boys by Bill Conti...

On Georgia Street in Downtown Vancouver. Summer of 2017.

Georgia Street is an east–west street in the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Its section in Downtown Vancouver, designated West Georgia Street, serves as one of the primary streets for the financial and central business districts, and is the major transportation corridor connecting downtown Vancouver with the North Shore (and eventually Whistler) by way of the Lions Gate Bridge. The remainder of the street, known as East Georgia Street between Main Street and Boundary Road and simply Georgia Street within Burnaby, is more residential in character, and is discontinuous at several points.

West of Seymour Street, the thoroughfare is part of Highway 99. The entire section west of Main Street was previously designated part of Highway 1A, and markers for the '1A' designation can still be seen at certain points. 

Starting from its western terminus at Chilco Street by the edge of Stanley Park, Georgia Street runs southeast, separating the West End from the Coal Harbour neighbourhood. It then runs through the Financial District; landmarks and major skyscrapers along the way include Living Shangri-La (the city's tallest building), Trump International Hotel and Tower, Royal Centre, 666 Burrard tower, Hotel Vancouver and upscale shops, the HSBC Canada Building, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Georgia Hotel, Four Seasons Hotel, Pacific Centre, the Granville Entertainment District, Scotia Tower, and the Canada Post headquarters. The eastern portion of West Georgia features the Theatre District (including Queen Elizabeth Theatre and the Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts), Library Square (the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library), Rogers Arena, and BC Place. West Georgia's centre lane between Pender Street and Stanley Park is used as a counterflow lane.

East of Cambie Street, Georgia Street becomes a one-way street for eastbound traffic, and connects to the Georgia Viaduct for eastbound travellers only; westbound traffic is handled by Dunsmuir Street and the Dunsmuir Viaduct, located one block to the north.

East Georgia Street begins at the intersection with Main Street in Vancouver's Chinatown, then runs eastwards through Strathcona, Grandview–Woodland and Hastings–Sunrise to Boundary Road. East of the municipal boundary, Georgia Street continues eastwards through Burnaby until its terminus at Grove Avenue in the Lochdale neighbourhood. This portion of Georgia Street is interrupted at several locations, such as Templeton Secondary School, Highway 1 and Kensington Park. 

Georgia Street was named in 1886 after the Strait of Georgia, and ran between Chilco and Beatty Streets. After the first Georgia Viaduct opened in 1915, the street's eastern end was connected to Harris Street, and Harris Street was subsequently renamed East Georgia Street.

The second Georgia Viaduct, opened in 1972, connects to Prior Street at its eastern end instead. As a result, East Georgia Street has been disconnected from West Georgia ever since.

On June 15, 2011 Georgia Street became the focal point of the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot.