Sky City - The Hitchhiker's Guide to Sky Angeles by Arda Ertan Yıldız

k S y

i y C t The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Sky Angeles

Table of Contents 0. SKY CITY MANIFESTO 1. TODAY 1.1. Where are we 1.1.1. Los Angeles compared to other cities 1.1.2. Urban sprawl and density 1.1.3. Urban mobility 1.1.4. Atlas of Infrastracture 1.2. Tendencies 2. TOMORROW 2.1. Introduction to Sky City 2.3. Basic Overview and timeline 3. WHO LIVES THERE? 3.0. Why Focus on Users? 3.1. Archetype Creation 3.1.1. Introduction 3.1.2. American Time Use Survey, 2008 3.1.3. Explaining and Modifying the ATUS Data 3.1.4. Extract the ATUS to create Archetypes 3.1.5. The 10 Archetypes 3.1.6. Simulating Archetypes 3.1.7. Probability of Activity and Duration 3.1.8. Simulating Archetypes 3.1.9. Future Changes 3.2. The Sky City Archetypes 3.2.1. The 10 Archetypes 3.3. Presenting Archetypes Schedules 3.3.1. Schedule Changes 3.4. Social Behaviour Changes 3.4.1. Introduction 3.4.2. Overwriting the Schedule 3.4.3. Simulation 3 3.5 Social and Visual Distance 3.5.1. Introduction 3.5.2. Visual Distance 3.5.3. Social Distance 4. WHERE DO THEY LIVE? 4.1. Objects Introduction 4.1.1. Towards a Sky City

4.2. Environment 4.2.1. Sprawl and Density in Sky City 4.2.2. Life in the Clouds 4.2.3. Sun Radiation 4.3. Sky Architecture 4.3.1. Sky Architecture Introduction 4.3.2. The Voxelised Grid: Why Voxels? 4.3.3. Elements, Pods, Objects, Hybrids 4.3.4. Bounding Boxes 4.3.5. Generic Pods and Specific Pods 4.3.6. Parameters 4.3.7. Circulation 4.3.8. Materials 4.3.9. Aggregation 4.4. The Pod Maker 4.4.1. Pod Maker Introduction 4.4.2. Podlist 4.4.3. Pod Maker Simulation 4.4.4. Pod Catalogue 4.5. The Object Maker 4.5.1. Shaping the City 4.5.2. Cluster Rules 4.5.3. Object Catalogue 4.5.4. Conditional Rules 4.5.5. Hybrid Objects 4.5.6. Reflections 5. WHAT IS THE CITY? 5.1. Sky Urbanism 5.1.1. Introduction 5.1.2. Sky City environment 5.1.3.Sky City agents 5.1.4. Sky City behaviour 5.2. Object flows 5.2.1. System overview 5.2.2. Flow behaviour 5.2.3.Intensity behaviour 5.2.4. Distribution behaviour 5.2.5.Separation behaviour 5.2.6. From users to sky urbanism 5.2.7. Subsystem memory behaviour 5.2.8. Subsystem densification behaviour

5.3. User flows 5.3.1. System overview 5.3.2. Flow behaviour 5.3.3. Bundling behaviour 5.4. Goods flows 5.4.1. System overview 5.4.2. Flow behaviour 5.4.3. Extreme bundling behaviour 5.5. Priority flows 5.5.1. Priority behaviour 5.6 Simulations 5.6.1 First simulation system 5.6.2 Second simulation system 5.6.3 second simulation system 5.6.4 Subsystem simulation

6. REFLECTIONS 6.1. Reviews 6.2. Work methodology 7. MOLECULAIR CITY 7.1. Towards a molecular city 8. APPENDIX 8.1. Objects cataogue 8.2. Evaluation criteria summary

Who said that the sky is only for birds? What has been a forbidden land for centuries has now bursted into a new kind of urbanism. No more pollution, but fresh air for everyone. No more buildings, only objects. No more cars, just flights. No more vehicles,

there are pods. No more commute, you’ll have your breakfast while you’re going to work. No more constriction, just freedom. No more streets, but a human-based city. Do you think that something just like this doesn’t exist? Well, Welcome to

SKY CITY!

Today 2018

1.1. Where are we now? 1.1.1. What is a city? A city is usually defined as an inhabited place of greater size, population or importance than a town or a village. This quantitative definition, as much as it might be appropriate for a dictionary, unfortunately, misses the most important aspects of a city and what makes it special as a construct of man. Throughout history, cities have been the pinnacle of civilizations achievements; they are the culmination of all technological achievements, societal revolutions and cultural distinctions that are characteristic of a society and its people. Like the ancient Greeks built their temples and forums, as well as the Romans that followed suit, so we build skyscrapers, train stations, and highways. These are the landmarks of our age and they directly reflect our contemporary way of life by materializing it into physical artifacts. But a city is much more than a collection of objects suspended in space, serving a purpose or reminding of times gone by. The core of a city are its people; cities represent diversity, they allow for individuality as well as a collectivity, they amplify every aspect of our life and in this way create a unique environment of unlimited possibilities. They are hubs of innovation, centers of revolutions and places of interaction. Above all, a city is a place, as the writer Richard Sennett put it, where strangers meet; where new ideas are formed in a public space. A common ground open to anyone and everyone. A place directly created by its inhabitants; a physical reflection of society itself. This ability of cities to not only exist as a reflection of our society but also amplify and affect its future evolution should be enough to recognize their importance as the true core of our civilization, which inevitably brings us to the question;

1.1.2. An Urbanising World

41%

% 31

Our world is in the middle of drastic change, the likes of which our civilization has not experienced before; population growth in recent decades has been the highest in history with Asia and Africa transitioning towards higher living standards and development. These processes have put enormous strain on our natural, as well as the built environment in ways we have never seen before. To accommodate this increasing development the City has become more important than ever before; within them, we are able to efficiently house our growing populations, enable them access to work, leisure, and other daily activities. As a result, urbanized regions are rapidly expanding and becoming the prime human habitat in which we are able to thrive. As part of the Old Continent and the Western developed world, Europe has been influenced by this evolution in our environment for quite some time. With a quick glance of a population distribution map of Europe we are able to effectively look into the future of our planet; In Europe, 72% of the total population live on only 17% of the total land area. This statistic becomes even more drastic if we look solely at urban areas where 41% live onArea 4% Population of the area. These are growing trends worldwide and in spite of the majority of Europe already being urbanized, the share of the urban 4 13% population continues to increase.

Population

Area 4 13%

% 31

41%

72% live in urban areas.....on 17% of the land area. Urban

Suburban

72% live in urban areas.....on 17% of the land area. Urban

Suburban

Rural

The process of urbanization as the settling of large amounts of people on a small area of land has been a fairly new phenomenon; for most of history, humans have lived in rural settings of low-density. According to estimations, prior to 1600, the world share of the urban population was lower than 5 percent. As time passed, the trend of urban living has dramatically risen; 7 percent by 1800, 16 percent by 1900 and finally in the 20th century the urban condition spread across the globe and became the predominant way of life. These trends of increasing global urbanization are clearly visible in the mapping of predominantly urban versus predominantly rural areas of the world. In a map from the year 2000, we can already see that the vast majority of the world lives mostly in urbanized areas; Europe, North, and South America and Australia are predominated by urbanized settlements with only the relatively undeveloped Africa and Asia lagging behind. Urbanization vs. GDP

In a later projection for the year 2050 100%based on assumed population growth and related trends in urbanization, we can see that prac80% tically the entire world will be living in urban environments with 60% the only exceptions being a handful of countries in central Africa 40% and small parts of Asia. Concluding from this it seems that a highly 20% urbanized environment - the city - really is the future of mankind and the optimal habitat for our survival. 1.000

100%

10 billion

80%

8 billion

60%

6 billion

40%

4 billion

20%

2 billion

10.000

Level of urbanization

100.000 GDP/capita

Level of urbanization

Urbanization vs. GDP

1.000

10.000

100.000 GDP/capita

1500

1600

1700

1800

Urban population Rural population

1900

2000

2050

Urban population majority Rural population majority

1.1.3. Cities of today Megacities are extremely large cities, typically with a population of 10 million people. At the time of writing there exist 47 megacities in the world, predominantly in Asia. A continental division would result in 3 in North America, 5 in South America, 4 in Europe, 3 in Africa and a whopping 32 in Asia, China is absolutely predominant with 15 megacities and India second with 6. While densification is generally referred to as good urban practice, especially with the ever-increasing world population growth, megacities also bring a fair share of problems still needing to be resolved in the decades to come. Among these are widespread degraded slum areas, concentrations of criminal activity, large numbers of homeless people, aerial pollution, as well as in many cases urban sprawl and related traffic congestions. All of these represent obstacles to efficient and pleasant life in a megacity - ones that we urgently need to tackle. Out of the plethora of the world’s megacities, four had been picked for analytical research; Firstly Los Angeles as the global symbol of urban sprawl and due to the fact that our time uses survey data was performed on citizens of the United States of America. This factor also influenced the second choice, which was New York, as the largest city in America. Next, we decided to pick a European counterpart to the urban sprawl of Los Angeles and decided on London due to its sprawling suburbs and sheer size. Lastly, due to the Asian predominance in megacities, we felt we required at least one representative and chose Dhaka as the densest city on Earth and the complete opposite of urban sprawl. These would be our four benchmark megacities of today used to understand the contemporary urban situation, as well as a useful comparison to our project.

New York - largest city in America London - European urban sprawl

Dhaka - densest city on Earth Los Angeles - symbol of urban sprawl

Megacities of the World Bangalore Bangkok Beijing Bogota Buenos Aires Cairo Chengzhou Chengdu Chennai Chongqing Delhi Dhaka

Guangzhou Hangzhou Harbin Istanbul Jakarta Jinan Karachi Kinshasa Kolkata Kyoto-Osaka Lagos Lahore

Lima London Los Angeles Manila Mexico City Moscow Mumbai Nagoya Nanjing New York Paris Rhine-Ruhr

Rio de Janeiro Seoul Shanghai Shantou Shenzhen Sao Paulo Tehran Tianjin Tokyo Wuhan Xi’an

Population density and Urban sprawl The cities chosen for analysis vary greatly in size as well as their number of inhabitants. Another difference between the results from the division of the city center proper versus the broader metro areas. Looking at the city center areas the most populous city by far is Dhaka with a total of 14.4 million inhabitants, followed by London and New York with 8.8 million and 8.6 million respectively, while Los Angeles takes the last place with only 4 million inhabitants. The physical boundaries of the aforementioned cities again vary greatly from 306 km² for Dhaka, 780 km² for New York, 1213 km² for Los Angeles and 1578 km² for London. The combined result of both factors is the population density per square kilometer; one of the most important indicators describing the urban fabric of a city. Dhaka has by far the highest population density of the analyzed cities with a density of 47.000 inhabitants per square kilometer, making it a truly hyperdense urban environment. The centers of London and New York find themselves in the medium to high-density range, while Los Angeles is last with a measly 3300 inhabitants per square kilometer. Looking at the broader metro areas the most populous city is again Dhaka with a total of 20 million inhabitants, followed by New York and London with 14.5 million and 14 million respectively, while Los Angeles again takes the last place with 13.3 million inhabitants. Again the physical size of the metro areas varies greatly from 2160 km² for Dhaka, 9100 km² for New York, 12500 km² for Los Angeles and 8300 km² for London. Combined, both factors again add up to the population densities of metro areas. Dhaka is again the densest with 7950 pers/km², with Los Angeles again being last with only 1060 inhabitants per square kilometer. The consistent statistics of Los Angeles’ low density together with its physical size - it has the largest metro area - strongly point towards an intense urban sprawl. This is also confirmed by the proportion of the metro area compared to the city center; a whopping 1034%.

City area population density

15 mil

10 mil

Dhaka 47000 /km² London 5600 /km²

New York 11000 /km²

5 mil

Los Angeles 3300 /km² 0

500

1000

1500

2000

km²

Metro area population density

25 mil

20 mil

New York 1560 /km²

Dhaka 7950 /km²

15 mil

London 1680 /km²

10 mil

Los Angeles 1060 /km²

5 mil

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

km²

.10.1

Built Builtdensity densityvs. vs.population populationdensity density Built density Analyzing built density has shown to be quite an unenviable task, FAR FAR as2.00 there is practically no publicly accessible data regarding average 2.00 Dhaka Dhaka land use of global cities. To tackle this issue and area of one square kilometer of a generally representative part of the city was cut out London and modeled in 3d to act as a base for of each of the fourLondon cities spatial analysis. These locations included Inglewood in Los Angeles, New New York York Westminster in London, Brooklyn in New York and Central Dhaka. 1.00 1.00 The results of the analysis showed a linear increase between coverage and floor area ratio, showing that Los Angeles is by far the Los Los Angeles Angeles least dense city out of the four, pointing towards considerable urban sprawl. Another important takeaway was the total built volume; 0.20.2 0.30.3 0.40.4 0.50.5 cov cov something we would use for later comparison of contemporary cities to our project. Again, Los Angeles was last on the scale with a 0.15% of built volume per km3, translating to 1.500.000 cubic meters of built area. Lastly, we calculated the amount of built area per person according to the population density in that area. In this case, London seems to be most wasteful, but this could also be misinterpreted, due to Westminster being part of inner city London - an area Built Built density density vs. vs.population population density with many commercial buildings and fewerdensity dwellings.

2.00 2.00

dha dha

ldnldn nyny

1.00 1.00

la la

0 0

0.10.1

0.20.2

0.30.3

0.40.4

0.50.5

cov cov

Built density analysis per km³ POP : COV : FAR : VOL :

470 0 0.27 /km³ 0.51 0.15 %

POP : COV : FAR : VOL :

110 00 0.45 /km³ 1.53 0.46 %

Los Angeles - Inglewood

London - Westmister

POP : COV : FAR : VOL :

145 00 0.33 /km³ 1.22 0.37 %

New York - Brooklyn

Dhaka - Central

LA 106 m²/pers LDN 139 m²/pers NYC 85 m²/pers Built area per person (area in m² per person)

470 00 0.55 /km³ 2.02 0.61 %

DHA 43 m²/pers

Urban mobility A direct consequence of the aforementioned sprawl is drastically reduced urban mobility due to long travel distances and congestion. An important side effect of this is also increased use of the car resulting in a large production of co2 gas and thus extreme unsustainability as well as pollution. Analyzing commuting times in relation to population density we see that low-density cities such as Los Angeles and hyperdense cities such as Dhaka perform the worst. The reason for the former is large distances due to urban sprawl, while for the latter the primary reason is the sheer volume of commuters overloading the network in every way. From comparisons between the four cities, we see that Los Angeles has by far the average daily commute distance - a clear indicator of extreme urban sprawl. This results in an extremely large percentage of car use as the primary mode of transport, which leads to unbearable congestion and also extreme co2 emissions.

Population density vs. commuting time Low density

Medium-High density

Hyperdensity

60 min

Dhaka

Los Angeles

40 min

London New York 20 min

2.500

5.000

10.000

20.000

40.000

pop/km²

Analysis of Urban Mobility

LA 29 NYC 17 DHA 16 Commuting distance

LDN 15

(average distance in km)

LA 84 DHA 26 NYC 22 Commuter car use

LDN 13

(% of commuters)

DHA 63 LA 47 LDN 40 Commuting time

NYC 34

(average minutes)

LA 11300 DHA 5400 NYC 3200 CO2 Emmisions

(average g per return trip)

LDN 2200

1.1.4. Los Angeles; the Symbol of Sprawl All of the analysis performed pointed towards a single “winner” - a city of extremely low population, as well as built densities, with a small center and an enormous supporting metro area around it. A city of extreme distances, long commutes and excessive use of the car as the predominant means of transport with no regard for public transport. Los Angeles; the international symbol of sprawl. This sprawling nature of Los Angeles is not a new phenomenon; it is deeply ingrained into the cities’ DNA and has steadily increased its influence as the city grew throughout history finally resulting today in the concrete carpet spreading as far as the eye can see. The influences contributing to its emergence have been many, but most important among them being strip development, the shopping mall and the private car as the symbol of freedom and of societal standing. The resulting cocktail is a city spilled over an enormous distance with an intricate web of roads and highways acting as always overburdened arteries trying to keep it all alive and running, usually to limited success. Although the earliest uses of the term “urban sprawl” appear to be describing London in the 1950s, the actual physical phenomenon is a quintessentially American invention. On a cultural level, it symbolises a society of free individualism and limitless wealth, while spatially assuming an unlimited supply of land and resources. These seemingly idealistic aspirations and intentions manifest as a somewhat different, even disappointing, physical reality. To live in sprawl means driving to work, driving to dinner, driving to meet with friends and driving to the supermarket. Most of the time the “driving” is even not actual driving but actually waiting in a traffic jam, wasting time, polluting the environment and, in most cases, being extremely frustrated. Convenience aside, sprawl also causes exorbitant land use and the destruction of natural landscapes. It is the spatial reflection of our mindset towards space and the environment, an emblem of our carelessness and towards the world, we live in.

Urban sprawl in Los Angeles What is today the megacity of Los Angeles was once only a tiny pueblo counting no more than 650 residents. The year was 1821 and the city just fell under Mexican rule as New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire. Throughout the next decades, this small settlement that would one day form the Downtown area of Los Angeles slowly grew in size and population. It was not until the turn of the 20th century that the surrounding areas were starting to be settled in small population pockets described by Aldous Huxley as “nineteen suburbs in search of a metropolis” that would eventually expand, merge and sprawl out in the process of creating the megacity that is the contemporary Los Angeles. The cities’ growth started rapidly accelerating around World War I, following which it steadily densified until World War II and then finally burst out as a full grown sprawling metropolis from 1970 onwards. In recent history, the spread has considerably slowed and the city is expanding at a much lower speed. Nevertheless, the urban population remains on the rise, requiring careful management and planning on an urban scale. Recently the authorities are focusing much effort into densification of the city within existing limits, which is a sensible strategy, albeit its success is limited, due to the incredible strain put on the infrastructure supporting this urban machine.

Los Angeles urban area growth

1910

1930

1950

1970

1990

2010

Built density in Los Angeles The built densities of contemporary cities are hard to evaluate as in the majority of cases there is no comprehensive data describing a specific cities’ urban morphology and its parameters. Los Angeles is no exception; excluding the standard values of population densities per square kilometer which are measured on a regular basis in every city in the world, we found no additional data on the density of built tissue in L.A. In order to work around this problem the urban area of the Los Angeles inner city was split into two distinct types: firstly a low-density morphology describing the condition of urban sprawl and secondly a high-density area found in the city center and consisting predominantly of skyscrapers. In the second step, a specific part of Los Angeles was chosen as a representational cut-out of 1 km² for each of the two morphologies; a section of the Inglewood neighborhood was chosen as a representative of low density and the central Financial district as representative of high density. Both representative sections were modeled in three dimensions based on building height data and subsequently used for data extraction about built density. The differences in both areas were drastic; all of the spatial parameters, from coverage (COV) to floor area ratio (FAR) and subsequent volume indicated significant differences in spatial density. The central Financial district exhibited extremely high built densities, but unfortunately only covers approximately a mere 40 square kilometers; a measly 3.3% of the entire city area. All of the remaining space is covered by a sprawl morphology which, as shown in the earlier chapter, is of extremely low built density which leads to an unstoppable urban sprawl and all its accompanying problems.

Built density analysis per km³ POP : COV : FAR : VOL :

470 0 0.27 /km³ 0.51 0.15 %

96.7

of a

rea

Los Angeles - Inglewood

POP : COV : FAR : VOL :

330 0 0.48 /km³ 8.96 2.69 %

Los Angeles - Financial district

3.3% of a

rea

Mobility in Los Angeles Los Angeles and its expanses of urban sprawl also present other difficulties except high land use displacing parks and other nature. One of the most serious side effects is the negative impact on urban mobility. The average commuter in Los Angeles needs to travel 29 kilometers to reach their desired destination, on average lasting 47 minutes per person per day. This situation significantly worsens when we take into account the negative effects of congestion caused by the overloaded road network: on average the commuting times increase by 45%, while in the morning peak this percentage jumps to 62% and in the evening to 82%. All of this is compounded by the fact that car use is a whopping 84% compared to other means of transport. This also has environmental consequences with the average Angeleno producing 11.300 grams of CO2 per year, requiring approximately 125 trees to offset. The results of urban sprawl combined with needs for mobility are an enormous web of necessary road infrastructures in the shape of streets, highways, pavements and parking lots. In total the area taken by all roads in Los Angeles is a whopping 25% - a quarter of the city is a surface designated strictly for vehicles! Incredibly this trend shows no signs of slowing down and will continue to burden the city and its inhabitants for years to come. This huge footprint left by cars is also measurable in the total surface used only for parking purposes. In Los Angeles County the total amount of surface covered by car parking is four times Manhattan and only in Los Angeles that surface is bigger than the entire neighboring city of Pasadena that counts 142 647 inhabitants.

47 MIN

Average commuting time per person per day

AVERAGE +45% MORNING PEAK +62% EVENING PEAK +84%

45%

Average additional time due to congestion

84%

Predominant means of transport

25% ROADS

Total parking area in L.A....

...equals the size of Pasadena

Total parking area in L.A county....

...equals four Manhattans

1.1.5. Atlas of Infrastructure Infrastructures are the glue holding our contemporary world together by enabling everything from your daily commute to work, the delivery of your Amazon order and Christmas cards, to delivering drinking water to your kitchen tap and allowing you to instantly talk to your significant other at the other side of the world. Infrastructures are everywhere we look, and even more so in places, we usually do not see. These networks stretch across the globe, swallowing the surface of the planet, as well as permeating the ground. They vary in size from a single sewer drain through road interchanges and parking lots up to swathing expanses of terraformed artificial islands and deep mines. Functionally they encompass incredible variety like roads, parking lots, oil platforms, underground pipes, electricity poles, gas pipelines, railroads, subway stations, etc. In spite of all of these differences, they have one thing in common: they are the heart of our world and with every car, train or piece of information they pump through their veins they make sure everything is running as expected. It is due to this effect that we barely notice them in spite of their omnipresence; as long as everything is in order they are invisible to us and as soon as start breaking down they fall into the center of our attention. It is at this exact moment we can begin to realize our overdependence on Infrastructures and their unrelenting grasp on our world. Not only do they take vast amounts of space we can only obtain by cutting down forests, paving parks and in general destroying nature, but they also act as our self-imposed oppressors limiting our freedom to themselves; we can only call where there is signal, drive where there is a road and land an airplane where there is an airport. At this point we ask ourselves: could we imagine a future reality where infrastructure, once the cornerstone of the city and contemporary society, in general, loses its purpose and retains meaning merely as a monument of the past, while we as a society and Planet Earth as our home are freed from this oppression? This is the dream we are working towards.

Mass transport infrastructures

Goods infrastructures

Road infrastructures

Production infrastructures

Terraforming infrastructures

1.2. Where are we going? 1.2.1. Evolution of Sustainability Since antiquity, our civilization has had an intense connection to nature and our planet in general. Throughout most of history, this relationship has been a symbiotic one; man and nature coexisted and thrived. Unfortunately, in recent history, this co-existence has transformed into a parasitic relationship in which the human race is exploiting the Planet and slowly destroying the same environment that enabled our existence. Fortunately, all is not lost! In the last decade, this exploitation has come into public scrutiny and triggered a newfound collective ideology of sustainability - striving towards an economic use of resources and nature preservation. With the development of Ecology as a discipline at the beginning of the 20th century, the path had been laid for the later emergence of the sustainable movement. From beginnings such as the publication of the book Silent Spring in 1962, environmental thought was rapidly gaining momentum, culminating in 1970 with the first Earth Day. In the following decades, sustainability has exponentially gained importance in the contemporary world through discoveries such as the Ozone hole and the Global warming phenomenon. A recent landmark for sustainability has been the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement in which 195 nations agreed to combat climate change and to work towards a sustainable low carbon future. Looking at recent trends one thing is sure: sustainability is only going to have a greater impact in the future of our society. As the Millenial generation grows older, conscious consumption is projected to become the norm, the possibility of agreeing on a global carbon tax becomes realistic, and sustainable fuels gradually but persistently displace fossil fuels as the core of our economy. Our society will become more and more sustainable and eventually, with technological advancements, we will become entirely circular.

Timeline of Sustainability

First Earth Day

M de

London clean air act

Ozone hole Montreal protocol

Beginnings of ecology

Silent Spring book on climate

1900

1950

Kyoto protocol

200

Low carbon economy predominates

Millenium evelopment goals

Conscious consumption predominates

Paris climate agreement Global carbon tax

2050

2100 Sky City

1.2.2. Evolution of Food Food is one of the most essential things for our survival and its production has always been one of our greatest areas of focus. As population numbers in the world continue to increase, the amount of sheer land use required for the production of sufficient food has become one of the biggest problems in the food industry. Through the history of food production, we have greatly increased our efficiency in production through various technologies; one of the first improvements from conventional farming had been factory farming quickly followed by the Green Revolution which brought new ways of increasing yields and helping us manage the constantly increasing demand. As innovations have progressed an obvious trend is emerging that is slowly freeing us from the shackles of the ground; construction of artificial growth environments which can be much more precisely controlled and thus more efficient. The roots of this approach lie in the invention of the greenhouse as a controlled piece of environment for optimizing growth. gradually this has advanced into hydroponics and the latest system: aeroponics. These improvements bring numerous benefits besides reduced land use; increased growth speed, significantly higher yields, drastically reduced resource use such as water and finally spatial efficiency due to the possibilities of vertical/stacked farming. The mentioned tendencies and evolution considered, is it beyond possibility to envision a future in which humankind becomes entirely independent of the ground for food production which enables us to theoretically produce food in thin air?

Timeline of Food production

Smart Farmi

Green Revolution

Factory Farming

Hydroponics

Greenhouse Farming Land-based farming

1900

1950

200

ing

Lab Cultured Meat

Vertical Farming

Genome Editing

3D Printed Food

Aeroponics

2050

2100 Sky City

1.2.3. Evolution of Assembly The act of assembly has been present in human society from the moment we first adapted our environment to ourselves and laid one stone on top of another to make a wall or a place to sit. Needless to say, the ways in which we assemble things have drastically evolved since and are its own legitimate science in the world of today. One of the first crafts in which assembly of objects and especially the way in which they connect was practiced and studied is woodworking. This resulted in an array of varied traditional wood joinery techniques that were in a way the precursor to modularity; if the leg of a chair broke, you were able to instantly replace it with another, provided the same joint was used. Later modularity was slowly starting to emerge through the establishment of the international ISO standard and various new techniques such as precast concrete. All of these inventions eventually culminated in the proliferation of ideas of modularity and adaptability in the utopian decades between 1950 and 1980. At this time the general belief in scientific progress and leaps in technology strongly affected various fields including architecture, resulting in dramatic speculations about the future of construction and built environment such as the Nakagin Capsule Tower built in Tokyo. After the 1970s and the ultimate failure of technology to solve all of man kind’s problems, the striving for modularity and ultimate flexibility reduced to a degree but has been slowly re-emerging in recent years. The main proponents for it are construction efficiency, spatial efficiency and increased technological capabilities such as prefab CLT panels, or repurposing of shipping containers into a modular housing. These tendencies point towards a slow reemergence of modularity, which is only going to increase as our technological proficiency for these systems improves. Everything considered, is it too far fetched to think of a future world where there is a globally accepted modular system of construction, where every part is able to connect to everything else allowing for extreme efficiency in construction, as well as maintaining infinite possibilities for spatial diversity.

Timeline of Assembly

Gemini docking system

Traditional wood joinery

(ISO) International Standardization

Kiosk K67

Panel housing construction Precast concrete

Dymaxion House Brick wall Nakagin tower capsule

1900

1950

200

Total building prefabrication

International docking system

Ready-made prefab housing

Container architecture

2050

2100 Sky City

1.2.4. Evolution of Ownership Ownership has been a crucial part of human society throughout history; it has defined social status and thus played a crucial part in an individual’s life. While in the past direct ownership of commodities and property had been the ultimate measure of one’s status, today these structures are experiencing drastic change. In contemporary society ownership of things is less and less valued; there has been a fundamental shift in society from commodities towards experiences; people want different things all of the time and do not want to be tied down by ownership of a specific object. This has given rise to a new and extremely powerful global economy: the Sharing Economy. The foundations for this drastic change had been laid by the invention of the Internet at the end of the previous century and its inherent capabilities of universal communication. This first resulted in the global sharing of data and virtual content on platforms such as Youtube and Facebook. In the past two decades this phenomenon has slowly spilled from the virtual to the physical world and is now present everywhere; people do not buy music but the buy subscriptions of Spotify, when traveling they sleep in other people’s homes by using Couchsurfing or Airbnb, when commuting they order an Uber and instead of buying movies they watch them on Netflix. Today it is all about the experience and experiences, as opposed to classic ownership, are impermanent and transitory. Future trends, especially with the Millenial generation, show that the Sharing Economy is only beginning and will exponentially grow into the foreseeable future without an end in sight. Considering this tendency and its unrelenting growth, is it impossible to imagine a future society where classic ownership is an exception, rather than the norm; where people share practically everything, not only bringing them more satisfaction but also drastically increasing our efficiency of consumption?

Timeline of Ownership

Personal Property

The Internet

Public transport

Co-housing

Hotel

Social Medi

Land Ownership

Taxi

1900

1950

200

YouTube

Spotify

Uber

Netflix

Airbnb

2050

2100 Sky City

1.2.5. Evolution of Artificial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence is one of the youngest strands of technological development, only being present since the mid 20th century. Since its establishment as a field of study, it has exponentially grown into one of, if not the main technological goals of the 21st century. The starting point of A.I. was the invention of the Turing test as late as 1950, intended for testing the capability of machines to mimic the responses of humans. Soon after this the notion of machine learning as a mechanism for self-improvement of machines firmly established itself in the field, but significant progress was somewhat halted by two Artificial Intelligence winters. It was in the 1990s when the next big breakthrough happened with IBM’s Deep Blue chess computer, which managed to beat grandmaster and then world champion, Garry Kasparov. After this, a resurgence of A.I. happened that lasts until today and brought the first AI human-robot Asimo, the first virtual assistant Siri, the first self-driving car and eventually IBM’s Watson, a question-answering computer system based on deep learning. Today the future tendencies of A.I., while still very vague, strongly point to increasingly rapid development and application of similar systems in smart home systems, advanced virtual assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, increasing autonomy of all vehicles and widespread application in commercial systems such as Netflix to name just a few. Eventually, with the sufficient advancement of machine learning, Artificial Intelligence will start taking over complex tasks such as medical assessments and medicine development. Beyond the year 2050, the intelligence level of A.I. will start approaching that of a human and exceed it with the result of that still remaining unpredictable. With all of these developments in mind, is it unrealistic to imagine a future reality where Artificial Intelligence reaches a scope of overarching proportions - a single neural network assisting and coordinating every process on Earth, acting as one virtual assistant, an infinite repository of knowledge at everyone’s fingertips?

Timeline of Artificial Intelligence

Honda A humanoi

Shakey - first autonomous robot

Deep blue chess computer

Machine learning

Turing test

1900

1950

200

Asimo id robot

AI exceeds human learning capability

Self-driving commercial cars

Widespread AI use

IBM Watson supercomputer

All transport autonomous

Siri - first AI assistant

2050

2100 Sky City

1.2.6. Evolution of Production Production technology has been one of the cornerstones of our society since the dawn of civilization. As with other core technologies of such importance, production has also experienced a drastic evolution in recent history. The steam engine kickstarted the First Industrial Revolution at the end of the 18th century and ushered in the era of mechanized production. As time went on technology advanced from strength to strength resulting first in the Second Industrial Revolution with the beginnings of automation and mass production on the newly invented assembly line and later the Third Industrial Revolution, affected mostly by developments in information technologies such as computers and the internet, resulting in the emergence of robotics and drastically increased levels of automation. Today, as we are slowly approaching the Fourth Industrial Age, one of the main emerging trends of today is the advent of mass customization, fueled by the invention of additive manufacturing, more commonly known as 3d printing. This technology brings potentials for revolutionizing the whole production process through its extremely high degree of product customizability at when the technology becomes commercially widespread, an extremely low price. Another area of improvement is its very high degree of automation while simultaneously allowing for unprecedented decentralization, eventually reducing the need for factories and distribution of produced goods. Lastly, material efficiency can theoretically be drastically improved by using only the minimally required amount of raw materials which points to the possibility for extreme sustainability of the production process. Taking into account these mentioned trajectories, is it not possible to envision a reality in which production becomes super efficient and completely decentralized while enabling us to fully embrace mass customization as the only mode of production.

Timeline of Production Mass production

Autom produ

Mechanized production

Computer

Combustion engine

Standardisation

Electricity

Steam engine Automation Assembly line

1900

1950

200

Mass customization

mated uction

Internet Of Things Artificial intelligence

Internet

Biotechnology

Distributed production

Robotics Nanotechnology

Additive manufacturing

2050

2100 Sky City

1.2.7. Evolution of Materials From the dawn of civilization, man has tried to modify and adapt the environment he lived in through the use of various materials. Through time, our knowledge of the world around us, and the matter it is created from has gradually increased and we have learned how to manipulate it with increasing success. Through history, we have gradually advanced from first using only natural materials such as wood and stone towards increasingly complex ones like ceramics, metals and later concrete. As with other technologies the biggest leap would happen in the 20th century when many new materials appeared; glass, polymers resulting in plastics, composite materials, biomaterials, smart materials and much more. Today the tendencies of materials research strongly point toward an increasing capability to modify matter on an ever smaller scale and consequently, instead of using merely what nature had given us, constructing our own super-materials with superior properties. Excellent examples of this are the inventions of carbon fiber, vantablack, and carbon nanotubes, just to name a few. The field of research making these inventions possible and that will lead us into the next generation of material production is the field of nanotechnology, giving us the capabilities of manipulating matter on a molecular and atomic scale, allowing for practically unlimited possibilities. Considering the tendencies of material research and our exponentially growing ability to control physical matter, is it impossible to predict a future in which we are able to produce extremely efficient supermaterials of extreme strength, lightness, pliability, etc. allowing us limitless possibilities in creating the world around us?

Timeline of Materials

Fibre glass

Steel

Composites

Metamat

Metals

Polymers

Semiconductor

Organic materials

Plastics

1900

Biomimicry

1950

200

Smart materials

terials

Bio membrane

Bio composites

Nanotechnology

2050

2100 Sky City

1.2.8. Evolution of Energy Energy production and its efficiency are one of the main indicators of a civilization’s development level. Throughout history, our society has been on a consistent upward trajectory of energy production starting from wood as fuel, through fossil fuels and on our way to transitioning to more sustainable alternatives. An important trajectory observable today is the gradual rise of efficiency in energy production resulting in an ever-increasing amount of energy at our disposal. This evolution started in the 18th century with the invention of the steam engine which kickstarted the era of fossil fuels which is still predominant today. Environmental drawbacks aside, fossil fuels have a very high degree of stored energy but are extremely unsustainable in the long run as after only a couple hundred of years we are already running out of them. The main candidate to replace and drastically improve our energy yield is nuclear energy, but as opposed to the already established nuclear fission processes and their many drawbacks, nuclear fusion has the largest potential to fulfill all our future needs. It is based on the same processes that take place in our Sun and produces theoretically unlimited amounts of energy at practically no cost and zero pollution. The second tendency is one of slowly increasing decentralization of energy production. Where we once only produced electricity in large thermal, nuclear or hydropower plants, today a trend towards self-sufficiency is emerging, creating a network where everyone is a producer as well as a consumer. This can be observed most strongly in the recent proliferation of solar panels, seemingly covering every roof and facade, as well as in the spread of wind power plants. The same phenomenon can to a smaller degree also be observed in compact nuclear reactors in ships, aircraft carriers, and spacecraft. Taking these tendencies into account, is it impossible to envision a future in which our civilization has a practically infinite amount of energy at its disposal in the form of decentralized compact fusion reactors making every building a small self-sufficient power plant?

Timeline of Energy

Fossil fuels

Sustainable fuels

Hydroelectric power plants Fission power plants

Solar power plants

Thermoelectric power plants

Win

Photovoltaic panels

Nuclear fission Compact fission reactors

1900

1950

200

Nuclear fuels

Commercial Photovoltaic panels

Fusion power plants

nd power plants

Hydrogen fuel cells

2050

2100 Sky City

1.2.9. Evolution of Flight The ability of flight has been one of the ultimate dreams of humanity since antiquity. This notion of complete freedom of movement released from all constraints was an obsession of many people throughout history and it has brought us incredible advances in only a couple centuries time, setting us well on the path towards the ultimate goal. The first predominant tendency one can draw today is the continuously increasing accessibility of flight for everyone. As aviation evolved from initial experiments conducted by enthusiasts through military and later private aviation for the wealthy, today it is one of the main modes of transport, yearly carrying millions of passengers worldwide. It is available to the rich as well as the poor and is thus extremely accessible. This accessibility is only increasing as the technology becomes more evolved, efficient and consequently dominant in the global market. Another tendency which strongly related to that of accessibility is autonomy. From the advent of the first autopilot, aviation has slowly been on a consistent trajectory towards complete autonomy. First major advances in this field have been made from the 1980s onwards in the form of military drones, a technology that has slowly trickled down and is today showing in the growing commercial drone market. This trajectory toward autonomy is expected to take the next step in the coming years with the introduction of autonomous air taxies by companies such as Uber and Airbus in selected trial cities worldwide, kickstarting the commercial market of autonomous distributed air transport. In time this advance will also slowly free air travel from cumbersome airport infrastructures allowing it to become almost as flexible as a car, being able to take off and land anywhere. Considering these predominant trajectories of today, is it impossible to foresee a future where flight is possible for everything, not just people and cars, but also objects and buildings?

Timeline of Flight Autopilot

Commercial flight

Helicopter

Propeller

First Unmanned aerial vehicle

Jet propulsion Military UAV use

First airplane Supersonic flight

1900

1950

200

Flying car

Commercial autonomous UAV

Martin jetpack

Autonomous Air taxi

Commercial UAV use

2050

2100 Sky City

Sky City 2122

2.1 Introduction to Sky City Sky City is situated around 1300 - 1800 m from the level of the sea. It occupies a volume of 1 Km³ for a population of 20 000 people. Sky City displays a new form of urban life. Changes in mobility and movement determine a shift to a new way of living. Inside Sky City, people’s desires are fully satisfied in a short amount of time. The freedom of movement created by the possibility of flying shortens distances, letting people be a few minutes away from their beloved ones. This change in the way of moving affects every aspect of everyday life, producing positive effects on citizens who are not forced anymore to commute for an insane amount of time. Sky City has been thouroughly studied under every aspect of its urban dimensions. Consequently, the following chapters are divided per topic, focusing only on one of the three main elements that define a city: the Users, the Objects and the Flows. Users are at the basis of the evolution of urban patterns. A city develops accordingly to users behaviours and needs. Sky Citizens have been created upon the basis of the American Time User Survey. Ten different citizens archetypes constitute the main groups of Sky City citizens. They are not fixed, but they are based on percentages that allow a unique special variation for every citizen, as in a real life. A new form of architecture takes shape in Sky City. Objects have substituted buildings, and they are now detached from the ground and able to fly as well. Clusters of pods form the objects by detaching and attaching to each other, and this system is governed by Artificial Intelligence. Eventually, this new system is organized and controlled by flow rules. The last main aspect that is analyzed in the book, in fact, concerns the flow management of all elements inside the City, defining how and when they have to move to ensure a safe and organised city.

91 Mount San Antonio 3069m

Treeline 2900m Altitude

2000 meters

1750 meters

1500 meters

1250 meters

1000 meters -

Sky City Altitude Temperature Humidity Air pressure&density Oxygen Population

1300 - 1800 m Ø 6 C (min), Ø 16 C (max) Ø 70,9% 79-80 kPa 16,3 - 17,3% 20 000 inhabitants

750 meters

Los Angeles 500 meters

Altitude Temperature Humidity Air pressure&density Oxygen Population

87 m Ø 13 C (min), Ø 22 C (max) Ø 75% 101,59 kPa 16,3 - 17,3% 4 million inhabitants

250 meters

0 meters

Los Angeles

Who lives in Sky City?

3.0. Why Focus on Users? When imagining a city in the sky, questions of congestion, density, efficiency and speed immediately spring to mind. These are quantifiable aspects of life, and it’s easy to imagine future improvements and progress. However, when designing a city, there is always the question why. Why should commuting be faster, why should the city become more dense? Questions like these could be answered in economic terms, i.e. designing for economic growth. They could be answered from a mobility point of view; facilitating efficient movement for all. While these are valid approaches, in the end it boils down to the inhabitants of the city, the users. Only by designing for real people and adapting to their daily lives can an aggregation of buildings truly become a city. The question is then, who will live in Sky City? How can we make it a truly vibrant, bustling setting for everyday life? Since no-one currently reside in the sky, we had to create a society where each individual has their own habits, their own family and group of friends. The challenge was to simulate a population where every single individual is unique, but where recognisable patterns can be discerned from the population as a whole. This would then lay the foundation of every design decision made, every pod, every object, all the flows - everything done with the users in mind.

3.1. Archetype Creation 3.1.1 Introduction Taking Los Angeles as a starting point for Sky City and using the American Time Use Survey as a base for the creation of the agent database, it is logical to base the demographics of Sky City on American society. The United States Census Bureau and the Bureau for Labor Statistics provide data about the distribution of age, family life, employment and job occupation and the mutual dependence between them. Using this data makes the agent database representative for current society, and it also raises questions of how future society might differ from the present. Do people retire at a later age? Does family size change? Are there new ways of living together possible in Sky City?

3.1.2. American Time Use Survey, 2008 The data used for creating our agent-based system comes from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). This dataset contains data of more than 50.000 United States citizens. The dataset is easily accessible online and contains very detailed information about time usage of the American population. A few side notes are to be made about the data from the ATUS.

First, the database covers data of the entire United States, without distinguishing between people living in urban of rural conditions.It is therefore in no way possible to filter out data for the ‘urban’ population of the U.S. The data is also ten years old, and from a time of economic crisis, which would influence employment numbers. Second, the dataset only contains data of people older than 15, meaning the time use of children is not available. Gender

Age Male

15-24

Female

25-64 65+

Household type

Household size One person

Couple

2-3

Couple + children

4-5

Single parent + children

Extended with family members Extended with non-family members

Employment

Company size Not part of labor force

1-4

Part-time job

5-9

Regular worker

10-19

Data sources include the ATUS, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, US Census 2008

100-499

20-99

500+

100

ype

3.1.3. Explaining and Modifying the ATUS Data While the ATUS contains vast amounts of information, for the purpose of creating the archetypes, we only selected the following categories: - UserID - Start time of activity - End time of activity - Duration of activity For instance, for one specific respondent; User 47899 activity at 11.43: Waiting associated with relaxing/leisure. For 7 minutes. The dataset attaches a UserID to each survey respondent. For each UserID we have information about which activity is performed, Activities the start and end times, and the Step 1: Clustering

e American into 9 macro 410 activities

All sub-categories are clustered into Macro Activities

macrocategories categories 139macro

Civic Education Eating/ Home Sleeping Work Drinking Job

Household

Home House Caring Religion Shopping Sleep Social Sports Work Sport Shopping Civic Religion Social Other Education Leisure Activity

101

duration of the activity. There are a lot of activities listed in one minute time slots. They are very specific, and include such activities as “Waiting for your food” to “Travelling for the care of a pet.” In total, the ATUS contains 410 different activities. Simplification of the data is needed to make it more comprehensible and easier to employ. At first the original 410 activities were clustered into eight categories. One of the categories, the “Home activity”, is much bigger than any of the others, and was subdivided into five categories for the sake of differentiation. The result was a list of 13 activities. The 1-minute time slots are sorted into 15 minutes slots. This means that when an acitvity from the ATUS lasts

Atus Time Slots

New Time Slots

duration

start time

duration

start time

3 min