Atlas City Project

So i took a good long hard look at the drawing, and a few things had to change. The most obvious one is that the windmills have to get larger, or they are pointless.

Aside from that, I'm a bit confuzzled as to where stairs and etc are supposed to be despite verbal description, but thats what process is for, so we can do a few versions until its right.

Aside from that i measured large rather than small, and there aren't measurements so i had to guesstimate, which i do hope we can get you guys to start providing.

I didn't put doors on this because i figure sketchup doors would do better...

So, you let me know how close that is, and I can make improvements, OR...

You can work on it yourself, I'll go load it up to the file share space.


globalcommunityportal.com/one/doku.php?id=atlas-city-uploader

Great job! This is the sort of thing I've been waiting for you to do. Take a chance so we can work from there. I have some better measurements now as well that may help. I'll try to get them up with pictures describing what/where everything is inside and out. I still haven't gotten into the inner wiring and plumbing, but I think I found a solution for that as well (will post with rest).

The windmills were solely based on a design i saw a while back that specified in small windmills that catch updraft on the top of tall buildings. I can't seem to find them anymore, and honestly may be more trouble then they are worth. Larger windmills are not idea on top of a residential area in case of problems with debris (even if seldom, it's not worth the risk). Plus the posts going all the way through the building would mess up my interior design ideas .

I didn't really include the stairs in this initial rough sketch so I can see where the confusion would be. I didn't even put doors on the outside of the other two buildings. I was actually tossing around the idea of just making them all internal (thus only one door on the east and west walls). It would use more material, but still may be a good idea. Plus it gives more space under the stairs for utility and storage needs. What do you think?

I think that it was well worth it to draw this version to hear you work through the process. I like windmills but not attached to buildings. The largest factor for a civil engineer is sheering stresses.

Windmills are notoriously bad until they get to be significantly large. You probably can't find that model you are thinking of because those people realized that their windmills aren't exactly very useful compared to the amount of weight they add and the materials cost they have, and then they realized that if they had built one windmill with all the same materials they could have got 100 times the yield. And kept the noisy clutter off the building.

Solar Power is on the other hand a great thing for roof tops.

I look forward to the next set of measurements and sketches and your next draw request on this project.

i would like to see some agriculture on the roof, with solar ontop of the agro, how about that?

also, is there a way to get the big beams out of the houses?

lastely, only one wall (south face right?) should be a glass wall. this is to take advantage of sunlight

Too much glass, which is very expensive, hard to make leakproof, easily make the inside very hot, could be prone to undue structual stresses especially considering if the wind turbine columns are attached to the main structure, not to mention easily broken by vandals.

Also issues with privacy with so much glass.

Wind turbines being so close you would see people inside and outside building suffer from noise pollution, pressure waves and optical flickering as the blades turn.


> The windmills were solely based on a design i saw a while back that
> specified in small
> windmills that catch updraft on the top of tall buildings. I can't seem to
> find them anymore

I've read about that, got some links here someplace...

(I think that careful building design could see us taking max advantage of this effect, even to the extent of buildings layed out as to funnal wind.)

www.kidwind.org/xcart/product.php?productid=167&cat=4

Humdinger is a possible low cost, low power generation device that might be suitable. (Though I would prefer a bladeless design myself if at all possible, or at least an enclosed nacelle to reduce visual pollution and perhaps noise.)

> Solar Power is on the other hand a great thing for roof tops.

Agreed, though do bare in mind to have panels strong enough to withstand rare large hailstones. (And ballgames..)


> i would like to see some agriculture on the roof

A green roof could be a good idea, as I hear they reduce local heat levels, reduce local flash flood issues by capturing rain, help pump out oxygen and scrub local pollution.

Green roofs can be placed there, it's a logical alternative. There is an issue with them getting adequate water in the desert thought, and doesn't allow for a rainwater catch on the roof.

There are no privacy issues at all. Every window will have ability to be shaded or electrically glazed (check materials thread).

We decided the wind turbines will probably be more hassle then they are worth and won't be on further designs.

The south facing wall is the only one that HAS to be glass, but I think the north wall should be as well to allow more lighting and better views. I did the inside floorplan based on both being glass, but it doesn't have to be. The east and west walls are solid, however.

The earthship is a great idea. recycled materials is a big part of them. but there is always room for improvement with our current green technologies.

"oo much glass, which is very expensive, hard to make leakproof, easily make the inside very hot,"

I'd prefer to go with plastic, since it doesn't break or melt.



This is the old version. Unless somebody like it. The new version will have
windmills placed away from the building.



The issue of vandals is one to be dealt with other ways.
hopefully by making peace with the locals and by being far away from major cities.




I think privacy is over rated. But you could create privacy by stacking enough plants and such along the outer edges.

Having lived in communes and such with for instance only one toilet out to the side of a parking lot and no structure on top of it, I can say it seems odd at first but then you get used to it, and eventually nobody thinks twice. Another example of how quickly people can adapt is rainbow gatherings, where theres a latrine dug in an open field and everybody just
uses it right out in the open, with a line waiting behind them.




yes, those have been moved in new versions.

> Every window will have ability to be shaded

Internal shading still tends to let in the heat, and external shading is rather expensive I hear.


> electrically glazed

I hear is very expensive!


Walls and lightbulbs are much cheaper


> The south facing wall is the only one that HAS to be glass

Not necessarly, I've seen a design that involved a rotating wall of concrete, that during the day heated up, and at night was roated so that the heat radiated out into the building.


> recycled materials is a big part of them

Some areas do not allow recycled materials to be buried, in the UK for example you cannot get planning permission for an earth sheltered building that you live in! (There is one built, but only as a visitors centre, and a second in the process of being built for a similar role.)


> I'd prefer to go with plastic

I'm unfamilar with plastics long term ability not to rot. (Its also prone to scratch damage more so than glass, which is probably a mayor concern in a desert environment with lots of abrasive sand around.)

If one goes with plastic, you will also need to choose a material that doesn't give off harmful gases. (As I hear this is a mayor issue with many of todays plastics.)

I'm also not up on the cost differences between glass and plastics.


> The issue of vandals is one to be dealt with other ways.
> hopefully by making peace with the locals and by being far away from major cities.

My experience with vandals is to plan for them


You also need to take into account future hostilities or natural diasters which could see ones buildings under seige, attack/etc.


> I think privacy is over rated.

Its not uncommon to find voyeur issues with folk peering into others windows, re. stalking/rape/burglarly.

Its also not uncommon for people to only choose properties that cannot easily be overlooked and put privacy quite high on their must have lists.


> it seems odd at first but then you get used to it, and eventually nobody
> thinks twice.

It would be interesting to get some input from women on this issue, as what little I know about say nudist colonies is that the men don't mind, but that the women do, which is why there is often a lack of women into the practice.

I can't say for example I would be happy to be seen naked by someone that I don't fancy, fancing me and getting off on my nakedness.


I think if you had windows without curtains/blinds, that people would on the whole install their own, and as such, it would be far better to provide standardised solutions ourselves that remove the need for people to drill holes in walls and fit a variety of probably highly combustable solutions! (Not to mention hazardious to small children if they include cords..)

Yes, another good design is to have an exterior wall on wheels, so that you can slide a whole wall in and out of place.





Yeah, i bet the evil zog basterds love rules like those..lol





Well, its clear you don't know much about it across the board. Some plastics do give off gasses or outgas, but others don't. Some plastics are very easy to scratch and others are very hard.

In short, there is a whole lot of different kinds of plastic, and I'm talking about plastic which is hard, transparent, doesn't outgass, and which is more or less as shatter proof as bullet proof glass.

The problem with glass is that its still a liquid. assuming the best case scenarios, a thousand years later the glass has melted enough that insects can crawl through the gap.

Plastics are forever in a whole different sort of way.

They have recently become actually compatible and in some cases less expensive than glass, especially if you want really thick for insulation and strength.







With b b guns or cake and joints?




Which is triply why glass is out of the question as i like to imagine these buildings still up and functional a thousand years from now.





I had a pervy girlfriend once who amongst other things proved to me that extremely square and uptight people are really only weeks or days away from
giving all of that up given the right social conditions.





You obviously haven't spent that much time in nudist colonies. They are generally actually pretty gender balanced as opposed to beaches or springs.

Women like to go naked just as much as men for the same reasons, and like to be looked at due to mammal brain hard wiring just like in the inverse of men liking to look.

All of these social mores you think are standard with the humans species are nothing more than republican con server status quo mental cages.

Once you step outside of them with other people, clothing and privacy needs actually seem ludicrous. Its not like anybody really pays that close attention to somebody else shitting at a rainbow gathering- largely because you can watch naked people roaming around. Once you remove the taboo you remove the "forbidden" aspect of it and then there are just two types of bodies and we all know, really, what they look like and how they work.

From that perspective "modesty" is ludicrous, we all know what other people look like under their clothes at least by the time we are 12 or so.

And we all have the same kind of anus, so thats doubly silly to "hide".

Now, I'm not saying that this is how it will be or should be or whatever, but the simple plain truth is that from a design and engineering perspective, privacy is only an issue if you are designing for republicans.
Anybody else will either create privacy if they need it, or skip privacy because they are allowed to do so.




If you detach the naked body from sexuality, its just a body.

Thats the mental obstacle- you have been programmed to sexualize the body and to associate nudity with sexuality.

Once that mental detachment happens, things flip the other way, and privacy and modesty look like social customs and nothing more.




Drapes are not about privacy they are about light and heat management and they would pretty much come standard. Sloping walls being a different issue, the way to deal with that is room dividers or inside rooms.

All in all, the trend is less and less clothing and concern with such things, if you look at 100 years of swimsuits or nudity on TV, or etc, the future will have us outgrow the religious social mores and replace them with functional tactics to manage our personal boundaries instead of trying to wear a personal boundary and having that usually fail badly as a personal boundary marker.






you mind races on, doesn't it.?

Internal shading does indeed let heat in (cover your window with a blanket and you can witness this), but when there is decent internal circulation it greatly reduces this effect. This is why Earthships rely greatly on window and roof vents during hot months. Electrical glazing is pretty pricy right now. I know we plan on having a glass recycling center so this may be something to encourporate later when we can build our own. Either way you will have one of these shadings for privacy at the very least.

I’ve never heard of the rotating concrete wall. That sounds awesome, but expensive to rotate that kind of weight. The wall on wheels would require too much cost and design, not to mention a place for the wall to be stored when it’s not covering it up. I think a better design for external would be a simple cover design that slides out of a ceiling compartment and goes straight out (it would also only have to be 2-3 feet to shade the entire summer sun, and can be set up in sections so different combinations of which are used can be implemented.



Plastics and off-gassing is a worry of mine as well (just like many paints). Security laminate can be placed on glass or plastic to protect against vandals, but it really wouldn’t be something to worry too much about in this city. The security laminate would probably be cheaper then an alternative (bullet proof glass was mentioned). I don’t worry about the fact that glass is liquid and suffers from gravity because it takes hundreds of years to do so. Likely, by then, other materials and technologies would have replaced it or fixed the issue. I also don’t see much problem with plastic if it fits certain criteria (no off gas, durable, doesn’t interfear with rays needed by plants, cost, etc.). I do like the debates we are having though. Gets everyones knowledge and opinions out to make more knowledgable decisions.