Atlas City Project

So, once again, I can't draw. Here's just a little sketchup I drew quickly during class. This is how I envision the residential zones being so I'd like some input, and maybe someone could make it look a little better . The residential buildings are based on the designs I posted on Atlas Single Resident thread in conceptualization.



They will all face south in this design due to catching the south sun for internal greenhouses (look over other specs if confused). I like just leaving natural dirt walkways so we don't spend useless money on concrete sidewalks that are just ugly and toxic anyway. The gaps would be filled with fruit trees and bushes that would greatly reduce the necessity for extra land for agriculture.

The new addition was the solar canopy. I so something like this before, but not sure where. It's just a metal triangle attached to three separate residential buildings. This allows for a large area of sky to house many many rows of solar panels. It also would help shade the area below and keep the residential zones cooler during the summer. In reality, this design could be modified to use mirrors all around the center of town to be solar collectors with a solar plant in the center. That would probably be a cheaper alternative as of now since solar panels cost quite a bit.

chase i am really liking this idea.

one thing we need to calculate, how space efficient can we make these buildings?

obviously, the taller they are, the farther apart they need to be so that each room gets maximum heating potential.

one thing that worries me about the solar triangle is winds and weathering... being up so high makes it dangerous, albeit efficient!

now, I think we can have a combination. we can have some areas where these building designs are employed, for a more rural feel, as well as having some condo-like towers (maybe 10+ stories) for space efficient housing as well.

although, your housing ideas will work best at the beginning stages of the city because of their smaller sizes.

Also, I like the dirt path idea, although we will at least need to make it level and generally rock-free for ease of use.

These are some things to think about. A lot of this will depend on the type of land we get. If it's flat desert land as we can expect if in NV then this design would work quite well. I don't think the solar canopy is too much of a worry for a few reasons.

First, it's not going to attain much more wind then the ones on the roof of the buildings because they will be at the same height. Of course, there will be variables due to the empty space below and wind can follow the pathways between buildings, but I think a lot of this would be dampened by the trees planted everywhere. I envision there being lots of trees to feed us without designating too much separate space to agriculture (besides the vertical farms). They will also help moderate the temperature greatly. We can even put trees and bushes that require more shade underneath the solar canopy.

Later, we could come up with much more elaborate residential buildings, but for now this one seems efficient and cheap (though I do welcome other ideas and constructive criticism). That's why I've been talking to the designer of Eco Town and sharing ideas with him.

If this design is used these are the figures I've come up with. In the drawing it is a 3 story by 4 column configuration with a one bedroom on top and increasing to three at the bottom. Since we don't need useless rooms like offices and gyms within the home these numbers assume being used only for people (families, friends that live together). This configuration gives a total of 24 rooms per unit, but we could just as easily extend them to 6, 8 or more columns. They are designed to have this modular, easily modified configuration. And yes, the taller they are the more space we would waste to make sure everyone has adequate sunlight for passive heating and indoor vegetation.

Let's assume we make them 8 columns instead, bringing it up to 48 rooms per unit. The units are approximately 40 feet by 320(this is a very loose estimate) which gives enough space for the typical 10 by 10 room and living space. This is also using the assumption that all stories have the same length (first floor to third floor have same length but different widths due to the slanted window). So to build 100 units will give us living capacity for 4800 people if only one person lives in each room. This may not be the case for each household, and doesn't take into account couples that share a room (which actually gives us close to around 5100 capacity).

Once again, many of these problems come down to what type of land we have, how much we will get, and what type of budget we will have on just residential. One problem I've been having difficulty in calculating is the required land to accommodate 100 of these dwellings, as well as the necessities of the rest of the city. I've made a list I think I will start a new thread for and have everyone help give input.

The solar canopy idea is already in use in many places. Ours will just be attached to our buildings instead of over a car parking lot.

Solar canopies! They are a great idea and work even better if instead of putting cars below them you put half sun half shade plants.

So if you build it on the roof of a building you have just saved(recycled) the land which you built upon.

again, all i can say is that to draft it for you i need more information.

if you give me more information i will begin drafting.

i want lot size first, then length and width and height measurements of things .

These are mostly complicated numbers and angles that will have to be plotted out and thought out. I'll see what I can do when I have some more time to. Believe me, I've put a lot of thought into this, but have no great way of determining some of these without trial and error.