DESIGN STRATEGIES

Hanging City

SquareOne and ThyssenKrupp join forces to investigate new urban forms based on MULTI magnetic levitation technology.

“Hanging City” is an investigation of vertical urban growth. It follows the inevitable trend of urban densification to the only available direction- upwards. We believe that the horizontal sprawling of cities will sooner or later come to an end: we are simply becoming too many (UN: estimated population of  9.7 bil. in 2050 at 68% urbanization rate).

Currently, vertical growth is bound to well-known elevator technology. There is a vicious circle at play here. The taller we go, the more lifts we need, but the bigger the core gets , the more floor are we’d better have to make the endeavor worthwhile. But the bigger the floor , the more elevators we need, etc. A classic catch 22.

At the same time, as buildings become increasingly taller and stand increasingly closer to one another, it becomes evident that the ground level is too far away to move from building to building. There must be a way to take a shortcut. And, as it often happens, today’s shortcut might just be tomorrow’s main street.

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