Atlas City Project

I recently ran into Josh Strobl over the Auroville mumble meeting, and he talked me into coming back and trying this again.

So lets see if this is possible over here.

1.The first thing that we need to do is end scattershot. There are some things which are just kind of pointless and a bit silly and they don't help us to get anything done.

Cargo Containers, for instance, would be too small and will heat to ovens in
the daytime.

They are also an exorbitant use of materials. A wiser use of the same materials would be to chop them into beams and then use those beams in other construction.

2. Design process. The first thing you do to design a building is list the rooms and space that will be needed in that building. I have mentioned this in a few places now. What we need to do per building is actually list the spaces and rooms that we need per building. What will be done in those rooms and how big each of those rooms need to be.

The next thing is then stacking those spaces and rooms on top of each other to form a building, and then the next thing is to give that stack a nice appealing feel and walk through experience and porch spaces, and other such details so that the building is more than just the stack of rooms but an artistic and livable space.

3. The macro map. Once we have designed a building we can place that building inside of a larger map of city. It helps to approach the problem from both directions and start making maps in a general way of the whole city first, but in the long run the macro map will conform to the buildings
and structures.

4. Stages of growth. I have put forth a few different concepts for stages of growth, from zoning growth in concentric stages to creating a central theme park and then the city. It seems that both of these ideas were not understood, and lately I have heard Josh speaking the same basic truth, which is that you have to have a small micro city first and then once that is up and running it can build a larger city around it.

This being what it is, what we need to do is design the first set of buildings as miniature sky scrapers. 10 or 20 stories tall, not undooably large but still buildings in demonstration of the principles.

Once those buildings are finished, we will have more money and more energy
to build larger buildings, and that is when we should go much taller and larger, 100- 300 stories tall.

Depending on whether or not you use intermediate levels, that means that each type of building has at least two incarnations, the small and large version, or the start- up version and the later version.

5. Core design principles.

1. These buildings should reflect the ideals of an RBE, which means self sustaining society creating all of its own food, energy, and industry.

2. These buildings should be demonstrations of true modernity in design.

3. These buildings should be expressively open and three dimensional in ways that excite and liberate people rather than being tall boxes with windows.

4. Serious porch space should be included on these buildings since this gives opportunities for hydroponics and agriculture and opens the buildings up.


Aside from this, what other design principles might we list?

i believe sustainable materials as well as a cost conscious design should be implemented towards buildings. I consider wood to be an unsustainable material although it is widely used.

Once again, there have been many failures in building skyscrapers for residential living in this city. It may be more suitable for later cities, though it is more likely we will want to spread out and have our own individual homes in future designs. The smaller, more efficient design found on the forum and through the Wiki are the most efficient proposed design for the cost and space allotment. They actually run independently of each other (own food, power, water/recycling, etc.), making them the ultimate RBE building. They, of course, will be linked to the main grid as well, but should not have to burden them with overuse as our current communities do.

Eggsworth wrote:


Good point, wood is not sustainable and more importantly wood rots and burns.

So we want to use concrete and steal and foam crete and similar substances.

ChaseD702 wrote:


which city? Atlas? Where you live?




Okay, I come here and i see the skyscrapers featured on the top of the page
as well as "Atlas" to me signifying big and large.

In my opinion, people will embrace high density living when dsign catches up to the point of meeting peoples assorted needs instead of boxing people in cheaply.

If you stop and think about it, most recreational facilities, hotels and cruise ships and what not are high density, and we like them for the swimming pools and the easy food and etc.

For the same and similar reasons i think that high density living will be the wave of the future, and i had supposed or imagined that this was what
you guys wanted.

Maybe we need another early step where what is designed is more like a town or a village than a city.

I can design smaller buildings, tho i would prefer not to go under 5 stories.





i'm lost here, could you elaborate what you mean by this last part?

> concrete and steal

One of my concerns about steel is corrosion, especially in concrete.

To that end, I wonder how hard it would be to design a building out of blocks in a such a way that you could fairly easily unbolt and replace segments as they fail, without having to break the building up as you have to do nowdays.

Though the issue of waterproofing the outer skin comes into play as a concern, my thought there is perhaps we could look towards buildings being cast in a single mold for the outershell of a waterproof mixture (Perhaps with aerated or insulation (perlite for example.) layer.) without any steel reinforcement to avoid future failure issues. With the inner layer built up of aformentioned blocks bolted, or slotted/etc. into place.


> tho i would prefer not to go under 5 stories

Would that include lifts ?

My preference early on at least is one/two or three stories, with no lifts and ramps. (No lifts to cut down on capital investment costs and maintence costs.)


Whilst I'm not especially in favour of wood as such on the grounds of fire risk, pests eating it, and problems with waterleaks and rotting. It is a cheap material that maybe suitable for the early buildings on the grounds of cost alone, on the assumption that our budget will be small.


Generally when I come to think of design, I look at what the budget is first, and then think what can I do with that, rather than wonder what would be nice if I had the budget..

(You maybe able to buy flatpack wooden buildings very cheaply.)

Though choice is also somewhat dependant on the land your building on.


> Maybe we need another early step where what is designed is more like a
> town or a village than a city.

I think we do.

I reckon your budget will restrict you to starting small (Perhaps a single dwelling that could house say 20 people.) and using the income from that community to bootstrap itself to affording more buildings as time goes on.

As such, the first building types may well be built on a low cost, low skilled labour, low tool requirement basis, with only later ones being more advanced in design.

its so nice to see you here.

foam crete is cheaper than wood.

a steel beam encased in foam crete won't decay.

this has gone badly here in the past, so i will state before hand that these are just terms for growth stages and that any other terms are fine. (and all numbers flexible approximations.)

Stage 1; seed village

Buildings 3- 5 stories tall and a population which ranges from 20- 100
persons

Stage 2; theme park

Buildings 10- 25 stories tall, and a population which ranges from 100-10,000
people.

Stage 3; City

Buildings 100-300 stories tall and a population which ranges from 10,000-
10 million people.

I didn't explain the failure of skyscrapers well, my apologies. I meant to say that the design and feasibility have been voted against in several discussions and meetings. This is a reason the 3 story design was one that has been seen as the best for this city. With the 3 story building lifts will not be used except in select few lots designed for the handicapped that can not make it up stairs (I agree that they are an unnecessary expense and drain large amounts of power). At three stories and four columns (though this can be smaller or larger) you get 24 bedrooms per unit. With many units being couples and/or multiple children per room you can easily house 50-80 residents per unit.

The image on the site is an inspiring picture, but will not likely be the outcome of this city. Once again, as more cities are built there will be different designs so people can move to a different city easily if they wish for a different housing structure. As far as building villages first, this has been done for decades. Pretty much any eco-community (many were built in the 60's and 70's and still exist today, and many are popping up with the green revolution) is a small scale version of what we plan. The goal here is to be the first city to incorporate RBE ideas on large scale with advanced technology.

For the building materials, carbon concrete and steal reinforced concrete will likely be used. I'm not familiar with the foam concrete, but that sounds usable as well.

ChaseD702 wrote:


I'm sure that what that comes down to is that people are realizing that stage one buildings will need to be smaller. I doubt anybody objects to larger buildings at stage 3, was the conversation framed in such terms?



okay, thats a good basic set up then, but I'm still not sure whether to give you a new bulbulated apartment building vwallah very expensive or a
modern efficient material use building with those basic features. I can do both even. Er.



Well, its probably just as well, as I don't personally find those buildings to be that inspiring, just tall and sort of claustrophobic.

Aside from this, what we are looking at is stage three sized buildings which are nothing like what I assume our buildings will look like, which, makes me think that it would be a good time to start thinking about replacing that image with something we generate ourselves and import into pov ray.



The goal here is to be the first city to incorporate RBE ideas on large scale with advanced technology.


To do this pragmatically will require that we first create a much more modest miniature version. Until we start lucidly thinking in terms of phases, you seem to be talking cross to yourself, in one place saying three stories tall and in one place saying Large scale city and advanced technology. Its not either or, its both, but its one and then the other.



You seem to have found some good links in the other thread. Foamcrete is nice because you can make it at different fluff levels, emulating the weight of concrete, wood, or plastic.

Its also very low cost and very advanced.

Many of these questions have already been answered, but I'll sum some up again. The center is likely to have most, if not all, the buildings on the "buildings needed in Atlas" thread. I'm trying to visualize your 10 winged building, but I may not be seeing it right. It seems like it would be a bit cluttered, and making it from one wing to others may be difficult. This was the difficult part about working in a hospital, too much walking getting from wing to wing. Your proposal is very interesting. Kind of reminds me of old castles or Hogwarts from Harry Potter (if I’m visualizing it correctly), but more wings not connected at the ends.

There are many visuals of the vertical farms already in these forums so the only real question is how many stories we want and how tall each floor will be. For the sake of argument, let’s say 10 story and 10 feet tall each and 60 by 60 feet. This is just an arbitrary number since, like it has been stated many times before, WE DON’T KNOW how big these things will be. As with the water station. This is for well water collection, main city recycling, etc. These buildings must be made to fit the population. This means seeing how much each story and square foot will be able to produce, in what time, and how much the city will need to sustain itself. Will there be several in different districts or will there be one gigantic one in the middle of the city? There are many factors so if you just want answers I can pull some out of thin air, but they won’t mean much without more research, meetings and approval.

Conference halls will be the general term used for rooms for many uses. There will likely be a variety of shapes and sizes as well to suite different needs. Lectures, concerts, meetings, religious get-togethers, game rooms and dozens of other activities will be held/reserved for that group or activity for that time and date. Because we plan on the city having many social aspects and groups we will need several of these. This needs not fit much specification, just be efficient and enough number and variety to suite the many and variety of needs.

For efficiency, the residential buildings have been made extremely efficient and each unit (group of condos) will be individually sustainable, with the potential for power and water from the main plants when conditions aren’t favorable. The skyscraper-type buildings (or anything a few more stories tall) will need most of its utilities from the main source, but need to use designs from some current efficient skyscrapers. I know important factors are passive solar, geothermal, and highly efficient materials/windows. There’s much more that needs to be studied, but I’m concentrating on other aspects right now and no one else feels confident and knowledgeable to take the reins. Feel free to post your knowledge on the subject so we can begin more deliberation on the topic.

Now understand, we are not SUPPOSE to do anything. We try, but it seems there are quite a few factors we must take into consideration that you are neglecting, thus the delay on exact specs you request. There are space requirements, social considerations, etc that we would rather think through thoroughly now instead of missing something later. We have given you the power to make any assumptions about these specs you want as well. If you don’t want to then either wait or post something besides “I need this measurement”. I’m sorry if I sound a little harsh. Lack of sleep and assistance may have made me a little moody today. There is progress being made, but exact building specs is almost purely speculative at this point. The only one that can be guessed at with some certainty would be the residential buildings. Guessing at the measurements is one thing, and it can be done, but we are trying to also make everything to a higher, more efficient standard. I don’t know the inner workings of a water recycling plant (besides what they show on television), as with many other buildings. And again, the most complex part is not just designing the building, but making them efficient and suitable for the entire population we expect to sustain. I mean, do you know how much produce will come from a vertical farm of X size? I don’t. And with the variety of produce and different growing times it’s even more difficult to estimate. There are problems like this with most of the buildings, thus no exact specs yet.

ChaseD702 wrote:


I posted bits of one sample done specifically to match these purposes.

I once had an architect buddy whos main purpose in life seemed to be
deciding whether to design 8 or 10 wings, and whether or not to join them via a courtyard or a tower.

I'm not that gung ho but the density does go up strongly if you use interior hallways, whereas ecotowns model is basically single units arranged in concentric arrays.

The thing most people fail to grasp about high density on the one hand is low density on the other, IE, the pool you can put in the middle or the garden or etc which you can have now instead of neighbors.

Good design is trading off those elements well so that you have both very high density and an aesthetic Eden.

What makes current "post modern" (pre modern) buildings what they are is too much density, not enough happy monkey perks. You can't take the animal out of us, the only way to make us happy is to give the monkey within us the trees and creeks and flowers we crave.

Thats not to say there aren't other elements also, but the point is that
what makes eden eden is perk density. So you start stacking perks. Line the roads with berries and fruit trees instead of inedibles, put in a lot of swimming pools and hot tubs, make sure to have frequent flower gardens, occasional sprawling lawns and assorted places to play.... etc.

You can stack all of that just like you stack any other element, and the point of the game is to stack agriculture, living, industry, and happy monkey perks all intertwined together.



It really depends on space use. Consider the square feet that each person
has is equal to mansion size and thats before we add porch space or the kinds of perks that used to only come with country clubs.

Cluttered can happen, and thats why you want everything bigger than it has to be by half.

If you organize effectively, every space is a stage built exactly for the life scenes that play upon it, and so there is not clutter, even tho there is a lot of density.


"and making it from one wing to others may be difficult."

540 meters in diameter so yes, to get from one end to the other is a long
walk, a little over half a kilometer. The hallways are moviesque ohmygawsh long compared to any you'd expect to find elsewhere.

They are also porchier, roomier, and etc.



Half a kilometer isn't bad, even most "Invalids" can make it that far twice a day if they need to, its a three minute brisk walk or a 20 minute crawl.

If we then have trams servicing from place to place, generally speaking nobody would have to walk more than two kilometers per day (assuming two way trip) and only maximum one kilometer one way to go anywhere in the city.



Is that a draw request yes or no?




Your getting hung up over it. Of course what happens is we become an online design group, design all kinds of stuff, things turn around a bit, and then we get money and land and pretend that never happened once we have the actual site and its particular issues ironed out.

The point of the game is to flex until you get strong flexing.

If I draw ten versions of such towers, and we don't use any of them, but Hire a better architect team to do something else...At least we bridge between here and there and get there.

I'm not attached, thats not the issue. The issue is my draw program wants a number and If you don't give me a number then neither it nor I has the fuel
required to do anything.

The nice thing about making a draw request then with numbers you pull outta
your but is if its not what you really want, your going to SEE it. Thats the point isn't it? Nobody expects to get the end product first drawing unless they have hired the architect and want to get their moneys worth for
what they are paying. Good architecture doesn't happen like that, it happens with 20 models between 15 architects, and its rather sloppy to start.




The other nice thing about pulling your numbers out of thin air is that the conversation can start in a very abstract way if somebody else makes a draw request with different numbers. You are approaching this the wrong way, all of you, and most people do. There are like 101 little ditties about how to talk to an architect and the mistake people make usually.

The number one thing is thinking like say, a husband and wife, that they have to iron it out over pillow talk between themselves to design their dream home. Thats the hardest possible way to approach the problem. Instead, each of them should give the architect their own personal full thoughts, get a preliminary treatment, and then they have something to show each other, in order to iron out the details over pillow talk.

get it?

Its a multi step process, there are no mistakes, just versions.




yes, tho the standard term i think is Agora and offices. But anyhow, what you need to do is think of one specific use series and then list the rooms and spaces you need for that specific use, and then there you go, you can use it for other things also, and design some other kinds bigger and smaller and shorter and wider and etc.





Well, I'm putting in full 3dimensionsal windows instead of sketchup 2d for the reason that you need to show pane thickness to determine insulation and etc, so I am thinking such things through, I think the thing to do is to get research on the table and then ask me questions about design choices.

What it comes down to is colder climates end up with double pane windows
or thicker glass/ plastic.

Foamcrete amongst other things is excellent for heat regulation and insulation.





I think the place to be is centered together in a client/ servant relationship. I could flood you with more information than you would have time for very easily. The smarter thing to do is to do the part of the process you can, and participate in self education as we go along the way.

The last thing anybody wants to do is invite me to lecture. Draw yes, podium no.



Its a matter of relaxing into it and just going with it on the one hand
and bringing things into an adult focus on the other. This is easy. You guys dream lucidly and I draw. You don't have to agree with each other I can draw the same building in 5 versions for 5 different people. If thats what it takes to bring about lucid communication and move things along,
then thats what it takes.

Its better to think it through the other opposite way. The limitations you are imagining you have are imagined.




You will best come to visualize those things by drawing things that are demonstrative of what you don't exactly want.

This is not to be feared or worried over or pained about, its part of the process.

Aside from this, I'm not going to let you make any serious weird mistakes,
I have the knowledge and understanding to bring things together in a way
that is pretty holistic.

I can point out pros and cons and answer questions about why i did something one way instead of some other, thats the best way to go about that together.

The best way to learn is to jump in. In this case it turns out that I'm the pointy teethed dolphin. Try not to be nervous about it.

The water is fine, I promise i won't let you drown.



At first thats good early on, but later versions get to be more exacting for specific reasons.



We are both feeling fussy. I think it may have been something in the astrology. No problem.

You are thinking of this the wrong direction again. Once again, if you speculate and the result is not what turns out to be the thing you really wanted, then thats when its time to refigure and make a new draw request.

The problem with going the other way is it never gets concrete enough fast enough. If you can SEE a version done not quite right then you can come up with a new set of numbers that will be a lot closer.




Yes, and thats the kind of challenge that can only be risen to by affording ourselves the free space to make a lot of versions and slowly work it out like that.



Well, i vaguely understand some very basic plumbing and I kind of know how to do a permaculture moss/sand/pebble based filtration system, but I'm no expert on plumbing and I'm definitely not the Electrician. As fate would have it what usually happens in real world Architecture is one architect handles the macro design and then hands it off to others who do those details. This only really makes for serious problems for air ducts, which are large enough to reconfigure walls.

Other than that it all ends up inside of the wall anyways.

Except in that particular case. The cure for it is google and more google.
And ten people making up for our lack of expertise by all of us working the problems together.



I can work that problem and I know which questions to ask to reduce it down to math. I'm not the guy to work the math, but I can point out the key variables, sure.



I think the miscommunication is right there. I'm not asking for exact specs, I'm asking for version specs, exact specs will be established once you see what you don't want.

Probably 3 times in a row. Get used to it.

The failure here is you are imagining I only draw anything one time. No, we draw everything as many times as it takes until its golden.

> a steel beam encased in foam crete won't decay.

The problem is keeping it encased I imagine.

Quality control issues during construction, and retro work afterwards, not to mention pests can easily break that encasing.

I've seen many steel corrision issues over the years due to these aspects. (As such I'm keen to either use a material that won't suffer if its not covered, or the entire segment of the building can easily be removed and replace should it fail.)