And Now: The Clean, Green Ziggurat with Room for One Million People
September 6th, 2008Via: Ecogeek:
When it comes to sustainability, there may be lessons to be learned from ancient Mesopotamania. An environmental design company called Timelinks (based in the surprisingly environmentally innovative Dubai) has come up with an idea for a city complex that rivals the pyramids.
The ancient ziggurats were towers of receding stories with a temple at the top (better for the priests, apparently, to escape rising flood waters). Timelinks envisions its Ziggurat to be a carbon-neutral city of as many as a million people living in 2.3 square kilometres where cars aren’t allowed. Much like a pyramid-shaped Masdar. The prototype will be exhibited at Cityscape Dubai, a business real estate convention in October.
The Ziggurat will be almost totally self-sufficient energy wise, according to Ridas Matonis, the managing director of Timelinks. Powering the city will be through steam power and wind turbine technology. Part of what makes Ziggurat so sustainable is piling people on top of each other means using less space. The developers believe that whole cities can be accommodated in less than 10% of the original land surface.
Research Credit: PD
Don’t forget Google’s patent for a floating data center…
It bears pointing out that ziggurats were the original structural symbols of hiererarchical power and control.
Will it have a menacing Eye at it’s apex? Those Dubai people are crazy, with money, and that means anything can happen. I would go with F. Buckminster Fullers “Old Man River City”, as it has a sports arena at the centre. The Dubiacs could have public beheadings, and play polo with the skull. A second Babylon is actually quite appropriate as Dubai attracts the corrupt wealthy including the entire Bush clan, and Michael Jackson (charges of molestation require 2 witnesses, and the accuser is also beheaded).