I think you could only build these buildings where floods never happen, or are not extreme. Wouuld be cool tho if the lowest buildings were waterproof, and when they got flooded you could see out the window in to the water while it was raising in a flood, or lowering when drained.
@@mangomariel Could do something like real-world flood-parks where during the drier parts there's large parks and entertainment out in the open core part, with float-switch controlled automatic doors that lock down the level just above the waterline. Like maybe the exterior lighting on the actually submerged levels goes blue to illuminate the water (and make it look a little cleaner), and red on the level water is approaching to inform people that the doors are closing. And then the doors automatically close at a pace slow enough for people to get out of the way. Add some ramps for accessibility reasons, both inside the building and out in the open core, and then the lowest open level is only accessibly from outside. And then the pumps can be taking the water from the lowest point in the lowest flood-park and pushing it through the processing and filtration center and into the structure's integrated cistern. And maybe have the 'walls' go up 4 floors between parks, with cantilevered and suspended parks and entertainment centers into the open middle.Possibly as a way to make more real-estate in the structure, put a spire in the center with bridges going out to the cantilevered edge parks.
Or forced to, this was the nightmare envisioned by H.G. Wells in the time machine. The riff raff were kept out of sight underground, while the elite enjoyed having the surface all to themselves.
@@SteveLomas-k6ki mean who think otherwise. Also i dont get comments promoting this with cringe arguments. R they just bots or paid actors or just stupid woke lo, sers.
It could, but I question how often the average person even looks out the window unless checking on kids in the yard, or who pulled into the driveway. Neither of which is likely to be a concern here😄
My first thought for emergency evacuation would be "water-vators". Elevators with cars that rise naturally due to buoyancy in water. In an emergency, you could "cut the cable" and quickly float to the surface (with spare pods for subsequent trips). In theory, they should work even in a complete power outage.
yeah, pretty terrible idea imo. Some downsides were mentioned in the video but im just gonna list em anyways just as they pop into my mind so here we go: - Earthquakes suck a lot above ground when the building is super rigid while wooden buildings or just buildings with movement in mind fare way better. I doubt a rigid Earthscraper would fare to well after a few years of earthquakes weakening the structure. - Flooding or even rainwater will be a major issue. Unlike on ground level you can't just let it flow in some drainage system or let it cover the streets and flow into the next river. Every single drop has to be pumped up or you will turn you nice little earthscraper into a ducking lake. Also insulating the entire thing against groundwater is basically impossible to get 100% tight. - Sunlight is just not there. Forget about having real plants or Vitamin D without supplementing with special lights and pills. Also have fun getting depression from beeing in your home. Just ask people living far north how nice it is not seeing the sun for a few months. - Cost is gonna be crazy out of proportion. If you ever wanted to build a house with a basement you know how crazy expensive earthwork is. Just build regular appartment buildings i beg you. - Air quality will be shit too unless you have huge ventilation systems that cycle the whole place manually. Also, since a lot of fun gasses like carbon monoxide sink to the ground, have fun dying if these systems ever fail or maybe a fire breaks out a few stories above you. - Space efficiency is shit as well. You have to basically build a valley, not just straigth down to at least get some sunlight down in your pit of despair. And still there are no "views" to speak of and your earthscraper will take up a lot more space than conventional buildings with the same capacity. Most courtyards in conventional buildings suck already as you have to have a really big courtyard as not to always be staring into your neighbours bathroom across just a few meters away from your living room. - Emergencys are gonna really suck if you have to evacuate. You know the signs that says not to use the Elevators in case of emergency? Well thats all fine if you have to go down a few floors but imagine you are 75 years old on floor -32 and you have to get out due to a fire or your shitty soon-to-be-lake flooding because mildly above average rain than predicted. Congrats you gonna die 3 floors higher than anyone expected you to but you are still drowing at least 15 floors beneath the surface. Im sure there are many more reasons but that should be enough of a deterrent tbh. So please just get your zoning right and re-densify your cities and maybe move unsightly structures like roads and train lines underground if you got some money to spare.
You know you also named all the problems with traditional sky scrapers. Flooding weakens the structural entigrity for skyscrapers that have massive concrete foundations. A fire couple floors below you welp your fucked. Oh no a beam cant hold up bye bye. Strong storm or winds. Lightening. Glass...glass is not a structurally sound yet its used so people get their vitamin D. And most people still dont get it living underground wont make a difference. The only difference in a sky scraper vs earthscraper is do you want to die via falling or get burried where you die?
You've exaggerated a lot of these issues but yeah it's still a ridiculous idea. (earthquakes are location dependant, flooding can be protected against and is location dependant, emergencies carry a similar risk to a normal skyscraper, sunlight can be mimicked or let in through lightwells albeit badly) Cost and air quality are the big two imo. Just take mines for example. They're dug to a comparable depth and they have to have hundreds of millions of dollars of ore reserves to be economic. It's just not justifiable to dig something like this out to house people.
The idea sounds fun, until you're the engineer whose job is to design the plumbing to take away all the waste water out back to the surface (also accounting for excess rain water & flooding) That's not counting cleaning up debris and stuff falling into the depth. if you want to grow tree, expect a lot of dead leaves and stuff falling in.
You could do sewerage aquifers below the thing and treat it with everything else, then pump the rough treated liquid back up to ground level to transport them away, you don't need to fill the damn thing to the bottom as living space.
People have been living underground since the Stone Age, basically humans lived in root cellars providing protection from wind & cold. When we travel to Moon and Mars humans will move underground again.
That just sounds like the TV show Silo. I think we'd be much better off just focusing on building walkable cities with more even population density...~4-5 story buildings with retail/commercial on the first floor and apartments above. Fewer sprawling suburbs.
The only thing good about the sky scrappers is their cool factor. It is, in my opinion, a good argument to build a few of those. But for the Earthscrappers, I'm not even sure it is a cool enough concept to justify the cost and inefficiency.
Converting existing mines & quarries is definitely feasible, but excavating a location for the sake of construction would probably be unaffordable. Which usually means you won't be able to build these where they're needed most but hey - it's free real estate!
Yeah, I was thing about the same issue. The biggest problem by far is the price for excavation and to get rid of the the material. The cheapest way to circumvent this is to use already the dug holes left from carriers, but they are far from city centers, to say the least.
It's a great idea theoretically, but if there were as many earth scrapers as sky scrapers they would pose just as much risk of compromising the geographical integrity of the earth as skyscrapers, if not worse.
How do subterranean buildings actually behave in a earthquake? Tokyo has massive underground drainage so they should have some data. Also as a side, water is a massive issue. I live near one of the few mins in the UK where water pumping isn't needed. It normally is, active protection always makes me worried.
Definitely with you on the need for active protection. It's the main issue I have with nuclear energy. Make all safety features passive and I'm on board.
Let’s see how our true modern society would adopt these architectural wonder, the wealthy would live on the top 1/2 the middle would live in the other half above ground, and the poor and veterans would be required to live in the sub basements were we all know there would be no law and order. I would turn into the dystopian horror show we all know is coming if the ultra wealthy are not reigned in like we did during the “First Gilded Age” because most economists already say we are in the “Second Gilded Age” that puts even the Rockefeller’s and the Carnegie’s to shame when it comes to the total wealth within just 5 to 10 Americans. So no thank you, we see how architects design buildings for art and social movements and it never works out for the average citizen.
Technology? Yes. Better protected from natural disasters? No. Earthquakes can destroy an underground building just as easily as one above ground. Also, it can be flooded more easily even with pumps. Also some people who are claustrophobic would not be able to handle being far underground even with artificial sunlight and windows. And a fire could spread quickly and be more difficult to fight without very good design and planning. Plus possibly toxic smoke would be widely distributed by ventilation systems.
Very cool and promising. I think the sweet spot, though, is a blend of both. Skyscrapers, with a very, very deep basement. Live above, put the pumps and other machines below. Also... - We already anchor our skyscrapers with pylons that go down to bedrock, this is just making use of that space. - Grow hydroponics in the underground area, helping to filter the building's air and provide fresh food. Not likely enough to sustain, but it'll help. - Circulate the air. In summer, bringing up the cool air from below will keep the higher levels cool. Likewise in winter, the deep air is slower to cool, and can thus warm the higher layers.
flood you have nuclear blast doors close in case of severe flooding, as for seepage lining the area with clay should do a good enough job so that sump pumps that handle underwater tunnels can handle it without a sweat.
in the past 10 years I spent around 14 hours a day inside in the same room the only time I leave is to work go the grocery store or to do some long distance cycling use to do other outdoor things but laws have changed and people have gone crazy
1. even the smallest earthquake shock would cause damage. The skyscrapers, however, manage to resist 2. The temperatures, even at just a few meters, become enormous. It would take a very high amount of energy to refrigerate the entire building. Imagine if it is 200 meters underground… 3. The sewer system would be very complicated for the lower floors. 4. lack of air and the absence of sunlight leads to madness, I want to ignore. It's true, for 99% of people it would be overcome... the remaining 1% will try to kill you.
@@erosgritti5171 There are thousands of functioning underground structures. ruclips.net/video/_s12KMTj1RE/видео.htmlsi=6Poe-M9VoQ2ilIMO and ruclips.net/video/89rytWMKsf0/видео.htmlsi=LABpUPjIX0cWF7g_ and you forgot to capitalize even.
Consider DUMBs. Deep Underground Military Bases. If the Pentagon considers the best ways of hiding, storing or developing black projects is deep underground, there there might be some interest for civilian usage too.
This is just the logical extension of the earth sheltered movement of the 1970's & 80's. Malcolm Wells used to design very fanciful earth covered houses. And some of the other architects in the field were Charles G. Woods, Jeremy Jones, and Larry S. Chalmers. Most of their work was in single family homes but Malcolm did do the Cary Arboretum plant science building in New York and he tried to do the Desert Park Visitors Center in Big Bend, TX but I don't know if it was ever built.
I think these types of designs fail to realized due to the scale of the first projects. Society did not start off with 60 story buildings. We started with 5 and 10 story "sky scrapers" Better to start with the same 5 - 10 story in ground structure. Build like an inverted pyramid. Don't try to be an "everything all at once" building. Just be a commercial or residential space. Keep it as simple as possible. Over time, lessons will be learned and improvements made as more and larger structures are built.
Logistics and transportation; Both would be a nightmare to try to maintain. You would have almost every issue you have in a skyscraper, but just underground. The cost to build it would be at least 3-5 times that of a equivalent skyscraper and still occupy the same footprint. Unless the plan is to move everything underground (power generation, waste disposal, water purification, air purification, transportation, agriculture to name a few), there is no benefit to doing this. I am not seeing any benefit in reclaiming land or keeping costs down to make it affordable for people to live in. This does not actually solve anything, and has the likely hood of causing even more issues then we have today. It is an interesting thought experiment and as others have mentioned this may be the ideal way to handle other planetary colonies but for Earth, this is a none starter.
Sunlight is not essential to human mental health, but natural Lighting is. Underground settlements are a great idea, and if well done, I'd love to live in them. The key is to have large, well lit spaces that simulate the outdoors, they must have natural light. We have certain "Happy Lamps" that produce natural light today. Most of our artificial lights only emit certain frequencies of light, such as red, green, and blue. The light source here would need to emit everything from the Visible light spectrum. This is key to keeping up human mental health, and the light would also be usable to grow plants. In addition, having standardized "fake windows" in rooms would be something that should be a staple in these Settlements. The fake window would basically be a tv screen emitting the natural light, and can take on the image of various scenery, anything real or fantasy. With all that, I think people could have happy lives in these places.
Glad to finally talk about the future of human habitation. I would rather live in a bunker underground and experience nature above cheaper,safer and more convinient. Than live above surrounded by bunkers and pay premium for it. As current paradigm becomes unlivable people will get it. Small houses and downsizing only go that far. Contrary underground IS free land. Reverse skyscrapers are not optimal though there is better forms. Helixes and spirals are better options. You still want to be able to have faster access to the surface. Above ground buildings are forced to be built vertically. Underground you unlock a new horizontal dimention in which buildings can grow and be built. Going straight down is suboptimal and put too much strain on the structure.
In regards to the flooding, rain water over the course of a day probably wouldn’t flood an 20 story earthscraper. If it’s bad, it might flood the lowest 2 floors depending on the area between “buildings”. (I’m thinking a version with empty space in the middle like the “hole-scraper” mentioned.) So one thing you would do is deliberately have a little lake area at the bottom (say 2 story’s tall) to collect any rain, condensation or leakages. This little lake could then be regularly pumped up to the surface to a nearby water treatment plant and redistributed as drinking water. But the main idea of the lake is to create a buffer so if there was a sudden flood, it wouldn’t be disastrous. Also, this concept would only work in environments that don’t have flooding on the surface and somewhere near like a cliff (to make waste drainage easier) I would guess 🤷♂️
I believe concepts like this of an enclosed city is called an arcology project. I understand that it's meant to be more efficient but honestly this just sounds dystopian. early models like this sounds good but it will expand and become larger until you do have the problem of people never leaving the project, it's inevitable that we would do so if we allowed our upper class to start stuff like this.
Most skyscrapers in big cities are built on sturdy bedrock, which is the exact opposite of what you want if digging a big hole. Instead, dig multiple deep access points and build sideways to unlimited measures. Sunlight is for farms, not buildings. Remote non-urban locations would be ideal - mountains, deserts, frozen wastes, Mars. It worked for the Lumarians!
As hunter gathers living in cave systems made sense because we probably would have spent the majority of our time outside anyway,,,,, is that any different to our modern lifestyles? How long does the average person spend in their homes today?
Heating and cooling could be done via a series of pipes, heat rises , cool air sinks, So if you have both above ground and below ground floors, you could transfer air from the lowest levels to higher levels as it should be naturally cooled by its depth and in return pull hot air from upper floors to lower levels. If done deep enough you could have turbines along the air shafts so that both hot and cold air lines could produce some power. While we are at it, you might as well build it like a vessel, setting up each floor into sub blocks with bulk head doors that could be closed to lock specific areas if the need called for it, no need to flood all 50 levels when you could easily lock away section 4 sublevel 12. All this is nice and fancy, with one major draw back, No one wants to look out their window and see nothing but the darkness of the hole they reside in. People want penthouse views, with separation from those who they consider / feel are beneath them.
Yep. Large lenses that focus sunlight onto bundles of fiber optic strands could "transmit" sunlight fairly large distances underground. There have been a few different skylight type inventions using that general concept already. Someone could easily adapt it to a scale necessary for this type of application.
It will require a lot of energy - aboveground constructions only require surfaces to be built. Underground will require not only that, but replacing all the stone with air. And pumps for water/air. Also, earthquakes, the construction has maximal cohesion with crust.
This is a nice video, and I totally agree. But buildings and roads actually just account for 1% of usable land use, while agriculture account for 50%. So It is much more important to find ways to eat food that require less land to produce. (spoiler: the solution is more beans, and less cow)
Which would be an absolutely moronic idea given that most of downtown Mexico City is built on top of what used to be a fricking lake and wetlands, meaning the ground in the area is soft. Add to that the fact that Mexico City is prone to earthquakes.
@@oscarmanzanoserna3115 In spite of never having gone further into Mexico than Tijuana, BMN, I did wonder about both of those things. Even so, it would be swell to do in some more practical location, maybe Times Square in Manhattan -- no, wait, it used to be a pond....
It's more efficient to build tunnels into separate rooms like an ant colony than to excavate that much earth. Removing that much earth before filling in with our own might also increase seismic activity because of the sudden lack of pressure to push back.
in an old 50's science mag (cant remember which one) I saw a very similar design using an open pit mine they were proposing in Russia with a dome over the top walls lined in office buildings 1st 3 levels being gardens and farmland cool idea hope some one does it
As long as it was done to spread people out more rather than to concentrate more people into a smaller area, I think it would be good. Every person needs at least an acre of land to live on. These places that are creating increasingly smaller apartments with no land to make use of are creating more problems than they solve.
See this sounds good until you realize that they'd only be particularly usable in certain areas, and they are particularly prone to water and ice damage in the shallow parts especially. Last but not least, living underground is stifling.
You could build this in a desert or inside of a mountain but if you build it anywhere near a river, this effectively becomes a deathtrap. Even just heavy rain would be a danger to a structure like this.
The concept of "Earthscrapers" make me remind the Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland Hotel in Suburban Shanghai, China, which was built on a big hole from a abandoned quarry.
80% of the problems of earthscrapers are already things that modern skycrapers have to deal with anyways, so frankly speaking. Not to mention that you could just build in both directions as well. Modern skyscrapers have to drill down to the earth's bedrock for a proper foundation anyways, so if you hollow it out, it'll be extra space to build. Sure, no 60 floors below and 100 floors above, but 30+30? Once you solve the 100% reliable air circulation issue, there's really not much left after safety studies to determine where they can be safely built with current technologies. As terrifying as it is to be buried alive in one, imagine how much worse it would be if your 50 floor skyscraper suddenly fell over for the exact same fault? Frankly, the threat of being burried isn't really much worse than falling to your death from the 50th floor or being crushed by the second floor falling on you in a two story building like what happened recently in Turkey.
Funny, I was just thinking this the other day. All grocery stores, storage units, dmv, financial institutions and of the sort by law need to be below ground level. Ground level is more for public easements, greenspaces, cafe's, ice cream shops, shops/shopping, etc.
Here I am just imagining there's no need to worry about farming because all the human wastes from the topmost floors will be sent down periodically to the lowest floor as fertilisers. Let the lowest floors be directly connected to the earth with access to groundwater and plenty of UV lighting facilities.
The worst idea in the world. Wait for a disaster, a collapse, a fire or whatever. It's a death trap. A high-rise building is ventilated and in the worst case, you can go down the stairs, they can take you out by helicopter. Try to escape from a hole by climbing 50 or 100 floors by stairs.
Schwab did not actually say it but it does come from media produced by the WEF. Anyway we don't any fancy ideas just practical solutions to balance the human and ecological world. ☯
The main feature ia that if we render the earth too hot to survive outdoors, underground structure s like these will be easier to seal and make their air and water systems self sustaining.
The lack of sunlight would be a big problem. There are lamps for reptiles that produce the necessary uv b light but they would have to be run on timers to avoid skin problems
I'm not educated on this subject enough to form a solid conclusion about this, I have no shame in admitting that. I will say however that whenever I hear about Earthscrapers, all that comes to my mind is Dwarf Holes commonly found in fantasy stories; and given the fact that the past several years have been absolute Hell for every single person on planet Earth, why not have that little spark of fun to help boost our happiness, right? Besides, we do already have the technology to build these things; missile siloes, bunkers & underground subway stations comes to mind; we just need to add "residential" to that list.
Maybe we should start from simpler, shallow structures? Small underground houses in hot places for savings on AC... Made from prefabricated concrete for cut price. Not underground sci-fi city costs billions.
I don't think an inverted ivory tower would solve many problems. The difficulties with urban environments have nothing to do with what is good about an earthscraper. Would it be a socially integrated habitat, the ultimate gated community, or a literal dystopian hell hole?
I don’t mind the idea of this. But I’m not confident it’d actually be safer from an earthquake. Even more concerning to me is drainage. I’d probably have nightmares about the earthscraper I live in flooding.
These structure on the surface would need to have a hardened ring like structure around the enter/exit points to protect from surface water. They would have to be defensive in nature. There would need to be more than one exit. Take control of the entrance/exit and everyone below is your hostage.
I've always had a dream of a giant magnificent futuristic looking city with gleaming glass towers and green spaces hanging from the buildings and all over the surface areas...the setting for this city? A giant red rock or grand canyon style canyon. Dwellings built along the side of the canyon walls with vertical skyscrapers along the canyon bottom near the river and open space. Similar to the hotel in Shanghai more than the underground individual skyscraper. Would be so interesting to see.
As the temp goes up to make life impossible on the surface, these underground complexes may be the only hope until human life on the planet is down to .0001 of it's current numbers and the Earth has time to heal itself.
the military in my country at least is already training soldiers to fight in underground environments. Tunnels and complexes. There are a few military analysts that believe that underground structures will become more and more common to cities and infrastructure better from weaponry that is continuing to evolve in lethality and precision. Personally, I just want affordable housing. Whatever it takes to drastically reduce the mass increase in rent is good enough for me.
the Chinese idea, is the most realistic, i think. there are far more abandoned mines, and they have an road infra structure in place, even if it needs upgrading.
II think 2 factors at play are that "down" instead of "tower" is no human status symbol, for which residents would pay a lot + some people who are afraid of flooding, or closed spaces / no view. The second thing is always, that it is much cheaper to build into empty space, instead of removing a mountain, and securing and waterproofing the walls first. You also have to deal with the earth volume. If you compare the cost of building a ground floor, and an underground floor for buildings. Much more expensive. So from an economic point of view there seems no viable reason to do such a thing, except there is a justified reason to think the skyscraper will be wiped from the earth. For Mars colonies on the other hand, that seems quite viable.
i personally am extremely fascinated with the idea of living underground, although, it never seems to workout in dystopian stories we know.. fallout, the 100, etc.. there is something romantic about it. i think they key is people need to stop being controlling like a govt. when you live down there, also just let people leave the building, and explore outside air, a few times a day i they like. our connections in life, rely on our connections to eachother, not jusst interpersonally, face to face, but also networkingly, on the internet.
I keep thinking we should move roads underground, not homes. Of course this will require all electric cars to ensure air quality in the tunnels will not get too bad.
A project invented by a person who never got to dig deeper than 2 meters/6 ft. It's not earth that's the problem, its water. Water everywhere, it seeps from water horizons, it falls from the sky, it leaks and condensates. Unless you build it in like desert or permafrost, just to have any space underground not flooded immediately you'd need to fight with several hundred cubic meters of water (which is like VERY HEAVY) every day. Try saving energy when lifting 100 to 500 tonnes of water to the surface per day is the first requirement already
Interesting concept. Playing the devils advocate solar chimney could be used to solve airflow and the floodwater can drain into the aquifer if you drill a hole to it...could make sense for converting old mines into something useful. Also living in the desert the insualtion and shade is really appealing.
Let’s rather sprawl out cities and connect them better with trains. Tbh earthscrapers sound better further out to preserve the landscapes. But city centers are activity hubs so they should be above.
Finally we are building the Dungeons that adventurers will explore after the apocalypse
as long as I can have my isekai waifu harem count me in
In case of catastrophe, you dont have to worry about burial arrangements.
A tsunami would suck even more than now.
In case of catastrophe like a strong earthquake, you still have more chances to be saved in the earthscraper than a skyscraper.
Well, if you were in a building that collapsed, you don't have to worry about anything again to be fair. And you're pre-buried either way.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@JuvoII Who would but ann earthscraper at the beach lol. Use your brain
Vaultec propaganda
more like Institute propaganda
That sounds like something a communist would say!! Liberty Prime is on it's way to your location.
That's what the brotherhood of steel would say.
Another settlement needs our help
@Curlywhrly The nearby raiders are closing in anytime now, geeze our farm will be decimated and our caps stolen.
Its pretty much every umbrella corporation bunker 😂
Welcome to Racoon City!
Seems hardly anyone thinks Um rella⛱️
One word: Floods.
I think this is a great idea overall, but only as long as you make sure the entire thing NEVER turns into a water level.
Yea there would need to be like a HUGE drainage system
Plus what if they use a protective shield/glass plane to protect the earthscraper
@@Ermac0Quico Massive pump systems for sure.
I think you could only build these buildings where floods never happen, or are not extreme. Wouuld be cool tho if the lowest buildings were waterproof, and when they got flooded you could see out the window in to the water while it was raising in a flood, or lowering when drained.
@@mangomariel Could do something like real-world flood-parks where during the drier parts there's large parks and entertainment out in the open core part, with float-switch controlled automatic doors that lock down the level just above the waterline. Like maybe the exterior lighting on the actually submerged levels goes blue to illuminate the water (and make it look a little cleaner), and red on the level water is approaching to inform people that the doors are closing. And then the doors automatically close at a pace slow enough for people to get out of the way.
Add some ramps for accessibility reasons, both inside the building and out in the open core, and then the lowest open level is only accessibly from outside. And then the pumps can be taking the water from the lowest point in the lowest flood-park and pushing it through the processing and filtration center and into the structure's integrated cistern.
And maybe have the 'walls' go up 4 floors between parks, with cantilevered and suspended parks and entertainment centers into the open middle.Possibly as a way to make more real-estate in the structure, put a spire in the center with bridges going out to the cantilevered edge parks.
This would be ideal for a moon base or on Mars. Protection from radiation, keeping in air and no earthquakes
no earthquakes but moonquakes that last hours.
@@alexblack8634I sware I was gonna say the same thing. And lol what if the moon is hollow lol???
Mars has quakes too oddly enough.
@@freedomtowanderthe moon is not hollow
@@viciousyeen6644 omg! Really? lol I was joking, if you could have seen my face as I typed you would have gotten my humor.
A Better Life: Underground.
Thank You for using Vault-Tec.
This is how you get Blade Runner, Coruscant, and Midgar
Forgot Trantor, Solaria and the Caves of Steel from Asimov's novels.
I didn't know the city in Blade Runner was called Blade Runner.
Tokyo-3
Uff need to read more azimov
Also Resident Evil. No way Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg wouldn't try to create the T-Virus in a giant facility under Racoon City if they had the choice.
That's great because the one thing everyone hates about skyscrapers is the view.
That's when you are not the owner...
I love the view
Ah yes, have people pay to live in the basement of a basement.
Or forced to, this was the nightmare envisioned by H.G. Wells in the time machine. The riff raff were kept out of sight underground, while the elite enjoyed having the surface all to themselves.
@@SteveLomas-k6ki mean who think otherwise. Also i dont get comments promoting this with cringe arguments. R they just bots or paid actors or just stupid woke lo, sers.
@@SteveLomas-k6kalso half of the points this vid make are straight up missingormation
♪♫I AM A DWARF AND I'M DIGGING A HOLE! DIGGY DIGGY HOLE DIG DIGGY HOLE!♪♫
Hey stop singing and get back to work we don’t want that human to whip us or kill us
I suspect that living underground and not having a clear view of the sky will harm our mental health.
It could, but I question how often the average person even looks out the window unless checking on kids in the yard, or who pulled into the driveway. Neither of which is likely to be a concern here😄
@@tracy419 most people still have to leave the house to work.
Eat vitamins
@@darkshadowsx5949 based on the number of accidents I tow, a good portion of them are staring at their phones😉😄
@@mega6076synthetic vitamins are a far cry from an actually healthy lifestyle and diet.
My first thought for emergency evacuation would be "water-vators". Elevators with cars that rise naturally due to buoyancy in water. In an emergency, you could "cut the cable" and quickly float to the surface (with spare pods for subsequent trips). In theory, they should work even in a complete power outage.
yeah, pretty terrible idea imo.
Some downsides were mentioned in the video but im just gonna list em anyways just as they pop into my mind so here we go:
- Earthquakes suck a lot above ground when the building is super rigid while wooden buildings or just buildings with movement in mind fare way better. I doubt a rigid Earthscraper would fare to well after a few years of earthquakes weakening the structure.
- Flooding or even rainwater will be a major issue. Unlike on ground level you can't just let it flow in some drainage system or let it cover the streets and flow into the next river. Every single drop has to be pumped up or you will turn you nice little earthscraper into a ducking lake. Also insulating the entire thing against groundwater is basically impossible to get 100% tight.
- Sunlight is just not there. Forget about having real plants or Vitamin D without supplementing with special lights and pills. Also have fun getting depression from beeing in your home. Just ask people living far north how nice it is not seeing the sun for a few months.
- Cost is gonna be crazy out of proportion. If you ever wanted to build a house with a basement you know how crazy expensive earthwork is. Just build regular appartment buildings i beg you.
- Air quality will be shit too unless you have huge ventilation systems that cycle the whole place manually. Also, since a lot of fun gasses like carbon monoxide sink to the ground, have fun dying if these systems ever fail or maybe a fire breaks out a few stories above you.
- Space efficiency is shit as well. You have to basically build a valley, not just straigth down to at least get some sunlight down in your pit of despair. And still there are no "views" to speak of and your earthscraper will take up a lot more space than conventional buildings with the same capacity. Most courtyards in conventional buildings suck already as you have to have a really big courtyard as not to always be staring into your neighbours bathroom across just a few meters away from your living room.
- Emergencys are gonna really suck if you have to evacuate. You know the signs that says not to use the Elevators in case of emergency? Well thats all fine if you have to go down a few floors but imagine you are 75 years old on floor -32 and you have to get out due to a fire or your shitty soon-to-be-lake flooding because mildly above average rain than predicted. Congrats you gonna die 3 floors higher than anyone expected you to but you are still drowing at least 15 floors beneath the surface.
Im sure there are many more reasons but that should be enough of a deterrent tbh.
So please just get your zoning right and re-densify your cities and maybe move unsightly structures like roads and train lines underground if you got some money to spare.
Most of them in the vid aren't even true lmao. I dont even think they genuinely doesnt know.
That is certainly a list of 'downsides'
You know you also named all the problems with traditional sky scrapers. Flooding weakens the structural entigrity for skyscrapers that have massive concrete foundations. A fire couple floors below you welp your fucked. Oh no a beam cant hold up bye bye. Strong storm or winds. Lightening. Glass...glass is not a structurally sound yet its used so people get their vitamin D. And most people still dont get it living underground wont make a difference. The only difference in a sky scraper vs earthscraper is do you want to die via falling or get burried where you die?
You've exaggerated a lot of these issues but yeah it's still a ridiculous idea.
(earthquakes are location dependant, flooding can be protected against and is location dependant, emergencies carry a similar risk to a normal skyscraper, sunlight can be mimicked or let in through lightwells albeit badly)
Cost and air quality are the big two imo. Just take mines for example. They're dug to a comparable depth and they have to have hundreds of millions of dollars of ore reserves to be economic. It's just not justifiable to dig something like this out to house people.
@@henrymccoy2306 in terms of mechanical stress, earthquakes are 🤓 far less problematic for underground structures
The idea sounds fun, until you're the engineer whose job is to design the plumbing to take away all the waste water out back to the surface (also accounting for excess rain water & flooding)
That's not counting cleaning up debris and stuff falling into the depth. if you want to grow tree, expect a lot of dead leaves and stuff falling in.
You could do sewerage aquifers below the thing and treat it with everything else, then pump the rough treated liquid back up to ground level to transport them away, you don't need to fill the damn thing to the bottom as living space.
bioreactor on the bottom sub-floors?
doesnt need to be pumped back to the surface at all. feces can be fertilizer, urine can be filtered
Oh yay, the domes, the silos and all the post apocalyptic sci-fi living. Let’s go
I am going to start a sump pump factory if this plan takes off.
Those cgi pics were cool and all, but they needed to be more yellow seeing as they're in Mexico. People will be confused.
People have been living underground since the Stone Age, basically humans lived in root cellars providing protection from wind & cold. When we travel to Moon and Mars humans will move underground again.
humanity doesnt deserve colonizing the stars at all.
Yeah this technology wiill be great for the Moon and Mars. I was thinking about somehting like this the other day.
These could be developmental experiments for interstellar planetary options.
Or settling some of the rocky regions of Antartica or the Artic
"Caves of Steel" Let's go!
Asimov's best novel IMO.
That just sounds like the TV show Silo. I think we'd be much better off just focusing on building walkable cities with more even population density...~4-5 story buildings with retail/commercial on the first floor and apartments above. Fewer sprawling suburbs.
The only thing good about the sky scrappers is their cool factor. It is, in my opinion, a good argument to build a few of those. But for the Earthscrappers, I'm not even sure it is a cool enough concept to justify the cost and inefficiency.
0:35 i love how he put a image of a minecraft earthscraper
Converting existing mines & quarries is definitely feasible, but excavating a location for the sake of construction would probably be unaffordable. Which usually means you won't be able to build these where they're needed most but hey - it's free real estate!
Yeah, I was thing about the same issue. The biggest problem by far is the price for excavation and to get rid of the the material. The cheapest way to circumvent this is to use already the dug holes left from carriers, but they are far from city centers, to say the least.
It's a great idea theoretically, but if there were as many earth scrapers as sky scrapers they would pose just as much risk of compromising the geographical integrity of the earth as skyscrapers, if not worse.
How do subterranean buildings actually behave in a earthquake? Tokyo has massive underground drainage so they should have some data.
Also as a side, water is a massive issue. I live near one of the few mins in the UK where water pumping isn't needed. It normally is, active protection always makes me worried.
Definitely with you on the need for active protection.
It's the main issue I have with nuclear energy.
Make all safety features passive and I'm on board.
water drainage and earthquakes have nothing to do with each other
@@nomercyinc6783 you robot?
What about the water collected from precipitation? Do the lowest levels just drown? Cool idea, but it needs a roof.
Ideally you would collect it and use it in the city itself. Having a place to collect rainwater could be very useful.
Let’s see how our true modern society would adopt these architectural wonder, the wealthy would live on the top 1/2 the middle would live in the other half above ground, and the poor and veterans would be required to live in the sub basements were we all know there would be no law and order. I would turn into the dystopian horror show we all know is coming if the ultra wealthy are not reigned in like we did during the “First Gilded Age” because most economists already say we are in the “Second Gilded Age” that puts even the Rockefeller’s and the Carnegie’s to shame when it comes to the total wealth within just 5 to 10 Americans. So no thank you, we see how architects design buildings for art and social movements and it never works out for the average citizen.
Technology? Yes. Better protected from natural disasters? No. Earthquakes can destroy an underground building just as easily as one above ground. Also, it can be flooded more easily even with pumps. Also some people who are claustrophobic would not be able to handle being far underground even with artificial sunlight and windows. And a fire could spread quickly and be more difficult to fight without very good design and planning. Plus possibly toxic smoke would be widely distributed by ventilation systems.
You glass is half empty
one upside of it ,is that you most never heat your home ,never cold , never to hot . looks cool :p
Actually depend on the depth, it can get very hot, 175-200 Degree F. Cooling and fresh air are going to be a major concerns.
Very cool and promising.
I think the sweet spot, though, is a blend of both. Skyscrapers, with a very, very deep basement. Live above, put the pumps and other machines below. Also...
- We already anchor our skyscrapers with pylons that go down to bedrock, this is just making use of that space.
- Grow hydroponics in the underground area, helping to filter the building's air and provide fresh food. Not likely enough to sustain, but it'll help.
- Circulate the air. In summer, bringing up the cool air from below will keep the higher levels cool. Likewise in winter, the deep air is slower to cool, and can thus warm the higher layers.
I guess this will be great for the Moon and Mars colonies; perhaps we should make one once here before try do it out there.
I like this idea. Although I'm curious how builders would handle flood risk and seepage in places with high water tables and significant rainfall.
flood you have nuclear blast doors close in case of severe flooding, as for seepage lining the area with clay should do a good enough job so that sump pumps that handle underwater tunnels can handle it without a sweat.
living underground makes the internal clock go crazy.
in the past 10 years I spent around 14 hours a day inside in the same room the only time I leave is to work go the grocery store or to do some long distance cycling use to do other outdoor things but laws have changed and people have gone crazy
that can easily be corrected
I have been thinking about this idea for 16 years know and the more I think about it the more I wonder why people don't do it...
1. even the smallest earthquake shock would cause damage. The skyscrapers, however, manage to resist
2. The temperatures, even at just a few meters, become enormous. It would take a very high amount of energy to refrigerate the entire building. Imagine if it is 200 meters underground…
3. The sewer system would be very complicated for the lower floors.
4. lack of air and the absence of sunlight leads to madness, I want to ignore. It's true, for 99% of people it would be overcome... the remaining 1% will try to kill you.
@@erosgritti5171 English please take your time....
@@erosgritti5171 Your grammar sucks ass and I am too stoned to try and make out what your trying to say.
@@erosgritti5171 There are thousands of functioning underground structures. ruclips.net/video/_s12KMTj1RE/видео.htmlsi=6Poe-M9VoQ2ilIMO and ruclips.net/video/89rytWMKsf0/видео.htmlsi=LABpUPjIX0cWF7g_ and you forgot to capitalize even.
Consider DUMBs. Deep Underground Military Bases. If the Pentagon considers the best ways of hiding, storing or developing black projects is deep underground, there there might be some interest for civilian usage too.
One word, fire
This is just the logical extension of the earth sheltered movement of the 1970's & 80's. Malcolm Wells used to design very fanciful earth covered houses. And some of the other architects in the field were Charles G. Woods, Jeremy Jones, and Larry S. Chalmers. Most of their work was in single family homes but Malcolm did do the Cary Arboretum plant science building in New York and he tried to do the Desert Park Visitors Center in Big Bend, TX but I don't know if it was ever built.
I think these types of designs fail to realized due to the scale of the first projects. Society did not start off with 60 story buildings. We started with 5 and 10 story "sky scrapers"
Better to start with the same 5 - 10 story in ground structure. Build like an inverted pyramid. Don't try to be an "everything all at once" building. Just be a commercial or residential space. Keep it as simple as possible.
Over time, lessons will be learned and improvements made as more and larger structures are built.
Logistics and transportation; Both would be a nightmare to try to maintain.
You would have almost every issue you have in a skyscraper, but just underground.
The cost to build it would be at least 3-5 times that of a equivalent skyscraper and still occupy the same footprint.
Unless the plan is to move everything underground (power generation, waste disposal, water purification, air purification, transportation, agriculture to name a few), there is no benefit to doing this.
I am not seeing any benefit in reclaiming land or keeping costs down to make it affordable for people to live in.
This does not actually solve anything, and has the likely hood of causing even more issues then we have today.
It is an interesting thought experiment and as others have mentioned this may be the ideal way to handle other planetary colonies but for Earth, this is a none starter.
Sunlight is not essential to human mental health, but natural Lighting is.
Underground settlements are a great idea, and if well done, I'd love to live in them.
The key is to have large, well lit spaces that simulate the outdoors, they must have natural light. We have certain "Happy Lamps" that produce natural light today. Most of our artificial lights only emit certain frequencies of light, such as red, green, and blue. The light source here would need to emit everything from the Visible light spectrum. This is key to keeping up human mental health, and the light would also be usable to grow plants.
In addition, having standardized "fake windows" in rooms would be something that should be a staple in these Settlements. The fake window would basically be a tv screen emitting the natural light, and can take on the image of various scenery, anything real or fantasy.
With all that, I think people could have happy lives in these places.
What about underground farming under every city and a network of underground buildings with parks, entertainment, transportation etc
Glad to finally talk about the future of human habitation.
I would rather live in a bunker underground and experience nature above cheaper,safer and more convinient.
Than live above surrounded by bunkers and pay premium for it.
As current paradigm becomes unlivable people will get it.
Small houses and downsizing only go that far.
Contrary underground IS free land.
Reverse skyscrapers are not optimal though there is better forms. Helixes and spirals are better options. You still want to be able to have faster access to the surface.
Above ground buildings are forced to be built vertically.
Underground you unlock a new horizontal dimention in which buildings can grow and be built.
Going straight down is suboptimal and put too much strain on the structure.
In regards to the flooding, rain water over the course of a day probably wouldn’t flood an 20 story earthscraper. If it’s bad, it might flood the lowest 2 floors depending on the area between “buildings”. (I’m thinking a version with empty space in the middle like the “hole-scraper” mentioned.)
So one thing you would do is deliberately have a little lake area at the bottom (say 2 story’s tall) to collect any rain, condensation or leakages.
This little lake could then be regularly pumped up to the surface to a nearby water treatment plant and redistributed as drinking water.
But the main idea of the lake is to create a buffer so if there was a sudden flood, it wouldn’t be disastrous.
Also, this concept would only work in environments that don’t have flooding on the surface and somewhere near like a cliff (to make waste drainage easier) I would guess 🤷♂️
I believe concepts like this of an enclosed city is called an arcology project. I understand that it's meant to be more efficient but honestly this just sounds dystopian. early models like this sounds good but it will expand and become larger until you do have the problem of people never leaving the project, it's inevitable that we would do so if we allowed our upper class to start stuff like this.
Most skyscrapers in big cities are built on sturdy bedrock, which is the exact opposite of what you want if digging a big hole. Instead, dig multiple deep access points and build sideways to unlimited measures. Sunlight is for farms, not buildings. Remote non-urban locations would be ideal - mountains, deserts, frozen wastes, Mars. It worked for the Lumarians!
As hunter gathers living in cave systems made sense because we probably would have spent the majority of our time outside anyway,,,,, is that any different to our modern lifestyles? How long does the average person spend in their homes today?
just build a submersible building, no more need to worry about earthquakes, hurricanes, rising sea levels, etc...
1:30 "Hop on an elevator to take them down..." 🤣
This is a critical technology that needs to be developed if we are to have any significant presence and infrastructure on Luna and Mars.
Heating and cooling could be done via a series of pipes, heat rises , cool air sinks, So if you have both above ground and below ground floors, you could transfer air from the lowest levels to higher levels as it should be naturally cooled by its depth and in return pull hot air from upper floors to lower levels.
If done deep enough you could have turbines along the air shafts so that both hot and cold air lines could produce some power.
While we are at it, you might as well build it like a vessel, setting up each floor into sub blocks with bulk head doors that could be closed to lock specific areas if the need called for it, no need to flood all 50 levels when you could easily lock away section 4 sublevel 12.
All this is nice and fancy, with one major draw back, No one wants to look out their window and see nothing but the darkness of the hole they reside in. People want penthouse views, with separation from those who they consider / feel are beneath them.
I think it's a great concept, we already have ways of getting real sunlight in buildings.
And the constant temperature, plus security.
Yep. Large lenses that focus sunlight onto bundles of fiber optic strands could "transmit" sunlight fairly large distances underground.
There have been a few different skylight type inventions using that general concept already. Someone could easily adapt it to a scale necessary for this type of application.
It will require a lot of energy - aboveground constructions only require surfaces to be built. Underground will require not only that, but replacing all the stone with air. And pumps for water/air. Also, earthquakes, the construction has maximal cohesion with crust.
This is a nice video, and I totally agree. But buildings and roads actually just account for 1% of usable land use, while agriculture account for 50%. So It is much more important to find ways to eat food that require less land to produce. (spoiler: the solution is more beans, and less cow)
This looks very promising. I recall a proposal like this for the Zócalo in Mexico City.
Which would be an absolutely moronic idea given that most of downtown Mexico City is built on top of what used to be a fricking lake and wetlands, meaning the ground in the area is soft. Add to that the fact that Mexico City is prone to earthquakes.
@@oscarmanzanoserna3115 In spite of never having gone further into Mexico than Tijuana, BMN, I did wonder about both of those things. Even so, it would be swell to do in some more practical location, maybe Times Square in Manhattan -- no, wait, it used to be a pond....
It's more efficient to build tunnels into separate rooms like an ant colony than to excavate that much earth. Removing that much earth before filling in with our own might also increase seismic activity because of the sudden lack of pressure to push back.
in an old 50's science mag (cant remember which one) I saw a very similar design using an open pit mine they were proposing in Russia with a dome over the top walls lined in office buildings 1st 3 levels being gardens and farmland cool idea hope some one does it
All underground properties are basically a hybrid between a coffin and prison. No way in hell would I live underground.
Concider this, when you dig where do you put the rubble. And it is less costly to build up than dig down in both effort and resources.
Then there is the water table which would need to be contenually pumped out.
As long as it was done to spread people out more rather than to concentrate more people into a smaller area, I think it would be good. Every person needs at least an acre of land to live on. These places that are creating increasingly smaller apartments with no land to make use of are creating more problems than they solve.
Yes, I could live in an underground scraper. And yes, mankind will be doing that..he'll have no choice.
Could we? Sure. Would anyone want to? Probably not.
It may have limited viability in certain geographic zones for specialty usage. Broadly, it seems like a dystopian nightmare.
See this sounds good until you realize that they'd only be particularly usable in certain areas, and they are particularly prone to water and ice damage in the shallow parts especially. Last but not least, living underground is stifling.
Intriguing but implausible
You could build this in a desert or inside of a mountain but if you build it anywhere near a river, this effectively becomes a deathtrap. Even just heavy rain would be a danger to a structure like this.
OPS! The FACT that population is actually in reverse kind of kill this whole concept....ops!
Yeah most people are still going of dystopian concepts from the 70's and don't look at the actual current stats.
The concept of "Earthscrapers" make me remind the Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland Hotel in Suburban Shanghai, China, which was built on a big hole from a abandoned quarry.
80% of the problems of earthscrapers are already things that modern skycrapers have to deal with anyways, so frankly speaking. Not to mention that you could just build in both directions as well. Modern skyscrapers have to drill down to the earth's bedrock for a proper foundation anyways, so if you hollow it out, it'll be extra space to build. Sure, no 60 floors below and 100 floors above, but 30+30? Once you solve the 100% reliable air circulation issue, there's really not much left after safety studies to determine where they can be safely built with current technologies.
As terrifying as it is to be buried alive in one, imagine how much worse it would be if your 50 floor skyscraper suddenly fell over for the exact same fault? Frankly, the threat of being burried isn't really much worse than falling to your death from the 50th floor or being crushed by the second floor falling on you in a two story building like what happened recently in Turkey.
Funny, I was just thinking this the other day. All grocery stores, storage units, dmv, financial institutions and of the sort by law need to be below ground level. Ground level is more for public easements, greenspaces, cafe's, ice cream shops, shops/shopping, etc.
Here I am just imagining there's no need to worry about farming because all the human wastes from the topmost floors will be sent down periodically to the lowest floor as fertilisers. Let the lowest floors be directly connected to the earth with access to groundwater and plenty of UV lighting facilities.
The worst idea in the world. Wait for a disaster, a collapse, a fire or whatever. It's a death trap. A high-rise building is ventilated and in the worst case, you can go down the stairs, they can take you out by helicopter. Try to escape from a hole by climbing 50 or 100 floors by stairs.
"You vill life in ze pod
You vill eat ze bugs
You vill own nothing
and vill be happy!"
Who said that?
#CitationNeeded
Schwab did not actually say it but it does come from media produced by the WEF. Anyway we don't any fancy ideas just practical solutions to balance the human and ecological world. ☯
that quote is dumb as hell from a dumb video
The main feature ia that if we render the earth too hot to survive outdoors, underground structure s like these will be easier to seal and make their air and water systems self sustaining.
It would be interesting to an underground city like this constructed in Australia's Outback region.
The lack of sunlight would be a big problem. There are lamps for reptiles that produce the necessary uv b light but they would have to be run on timers to avoid skin problems
I'm not educated on this subject enough to form a solid conclusion about this, I have no shame in admitting that.
I will say however that whenever I hear about Earthscrapers, all that comes to my mind is Dwarf Holes commonly found in fantasy stories; and given the fact that the past several years have been absolute Hell for every single person on planet Earth, why not have that little spark of fun to help boost our happiness, right?
Besides, we do already have the technology to build these things; missile siloes, bunkers & underground subway stations comes to mind; we just need to add "residential" to that list.
Considering most of the population of planet earth couldn't stay indoors for 2 weeks, no, we couldn't ALL live underground.
it takes more energy to get fresh air down than to simply have a skyscraper
Maybe we should start from simpler, shallow structures? Small underground houses in hot places for savings on AC... Made from prefabricated concrete for cut price. Not underground sci-fi city costs billions.
These would be perfect in the midwest, preserve farmland while also building a LARGE city...
I don't think an inverted ivory tower would solve many problems. The difficulties with urban environments have nothing to do with what is good about an earthscraper. Would it be a socially integrated habitat, the ultimate gated community, or a literal dystopian hell hole?
Horizontal elevators would become more popular and you'd need a few hospitals down there for emergency.
I don’t mind the idea of this. But I’m not confident it’d actually be safer from an earthquake. Even more concerning to me is drainage. I’d probably have nightmares about the earthscraper I live in flooding.
These structure on the surface would need to have a hardened ring like structure around the enter/exit points to protect from surface water. They would have to be defensive in nature. There would need to be more than one exit. Take control of the entrance/exit and everyone below is your hostage.
I've always had a dream of a giant magnificent futuristic looking city with gleaming glass towers and green spaces hanging from the buildings and all over the surface areas...the setting for this city? A giant red rock or grand canyon style canyon. Dwellings built along the side of the canyon walls with vertical skyscrapers along the canyon bottom near the river and open space.
Similar to the hotel in Shanghai more than the underground individual skyscraper. Would be so interesting to see.
yes, ants and termites already use this to compensate with their enormous population.
As the temp goes up to make life impossible on the surface, these underground complexes may be the only hope until human life on the planet is down to .0001 of it's current numbers and the Earth has time to heal itself.
the military in my country at least is already training soldiers to fight in underground environments. Tunnels and complexes. There are a few military analysts that believe that underground structures will become more and more common to cities and infrastructure better from weaponry that is continuing to evolve in lethality and precision. Personally, I just want affordable housing. Whatever it takes to drastically reduce the mass increase in rent is good enough for me.
the Chinese idea, is the most realistic, i think. there are far more abandoned mines, and they have an road infra structure in place, even if it needs upgrading.
II think 2 factors at play are that "down" instead of "tower" is no human status symbol, for which residents would pay a lot + some people who are afraid of flooding, or closed spaces / no view. The second thing is always, that it is much cheaper to build into empty space, instead of removing a mountain, and securing and waterproofing the walls first. You also have to deal with the earth volume. If you compare the cost of building a ground floor, and an underground floor for buildings. Much more expensive. So from an economic point of view there seems no viable reason to do such a thing, except there is a justified reason to think the skyscraper will be wiped from the earth.
For Mars colonies on the other hand, that seems quite viable.
i personally am extremely fascinated with the idea of living underground, although, it never seems to workout in dystopian stories we know.. fallout, the 100, etc.. there is something romantic about it. i think they key is people need to stop being controlling like a govt. when you live down there, also just let people leave the building, and explore outside air, a few times a day i they like. our connections in life, rely on our connections to eachother, not jusst interpersonally, face to face, but also networkingly, on the internet.
I keep thinking we should move roads underground, not homes. Of course this will require all electric cars to ensure air quality in the tunnels will not get too bad.
"Innovative" and "forward thinking" architects trying not to make a building fit for a dystopia challenge (impossible)
It is a very good idea for space exploration and the creation of human settlements on asteroids and other planets.
A project invented by a person who never got to dig deeper than 2 meters/6 ft. It's not earth that's the problem, its water. Water everywhere, it seeps from water horizons, it falls from the sky, it leaks and condensates. Unless you build it in like desert or permafrost, just to have any space underground not flooded immediately you'd need to fight with several hundred cubic meters of water (which is like VERY HEAVY) every day. Try saving energy when lifting 100 to 500 tonnes of water to the surface per day is the first requirement already
Cities are not a problem.. we can put all of humanity in a city of a mid size island.
I’ve actually lived in climates where an underground city would be preferable. Tucson Arizona, specifically.
Interesting concept. Playing the devils advocate solar chimney could be used to solve airflow and the floodwater can drain into the aquifer if you drill a hole to it...could make sense for converting old mines into something useful. Also living in the desert the insualtion and shade is really appealing.
Let’s rather sprawl out cities and connect them better with trains. Tbh earthscrapers sound better further out to preserve the landscapes. But city centers are activity hubs so they should be above.