Pyramid City

Eco and Sustainable City Concept

Promoted by IP Direct Group

October 2008
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Imagine

() an area the size of Amsterdam (150 km2), built over in accordance with traditional urban development. With pyramid cities 7 km2 (7 pyramids of 100,000 occupants) would suffice. The remainder of the same area would then be a recreational area or unspoilt nature (143 km2) ()

Picture 2 Profile of Pyramid City

Picture 3 Floor Plan of Pyramid City

PICTURE 4 - EXAMPLE OF SQUARE WITH TWO STOREY SHOPPING ARCADE

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PICTURE 6 - APARTMENTS

PICTURE 7 - CROSS SECTION OF BUILDING OVER MOTORWAY OR RAILWAY

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PICTURE 8 - BUILDING OVER OF A MOTORWAY OR RAILWAY

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PICTURE 9 - BUILDING OVER OF DYKES

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sustainable city

A sustainable city, ecocity or ecopolis is an entire city dedicated to minimizing the required inputs (of energy, water and food) and its waste output (of heat, air pollution as CO2, methane, and water pollution.) Richard Register first coined the term "ecocity" in his 1987 book, Ecocity Berkeley: building cities for a healthy future. Another leading figure who envisioned the sustainable city was architect Paul F. Downton, who later founded the company Ecopolis Architects. A sustainable city can feed and power itself with minimal reliance on the surrounding countryside, and creates the smallest possible ecological footprint for its residents. This results in a city that is friendly to the surrounding environment, in terms of pollution, land use, and alleviation of global warming. It is estimated that by 2007, over half of the worlds population will live in urban areas and this provides both challenges and opportunities for environmentally-conscious developers.

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EcoCity definition by Urban Ecology Australia

Ecocities An ecocity is a human settlement that enables its residents to live a good quality of life while using minimal natural resources. Buildings Its buildings make best use of sun, wind and rainfall to help supply the energy and water needs of occupants. Generally multistory to maximize the land available for greenspace. Biodiversity It is threaded with natural habitat corridors, to foster biodiversity and to give residents access to nature for recreation. Transport Its food and other goods are sourced from within its borders or from nearby, in order to cut down on transport costs. The majority of its residents live within walking or cycling distance of their workplace, to minimise the need for motorised transport. Frequent public transport connects local centres for people who need to travel further. Local car sharing allows people to use a car only when needed. Industry The goods it produces are designed for reuse, remanufacture, and recycling. The industrial processes its uses involve reuse of by-products, and minimise the movement of goods. Economy It has a labour intensive rather than a material, energy, and water intensive economy, to maintain full employment and minimise material throughput.

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Why Pyramid City 10 reasons

1. ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS CAN BE PREVENTED THROUGH THE INTEGRATION OF WORK AND LIVING 2. MANY TIMES LESS BUILDING LAND AND OIL 3. NO LOCAL TRAFFIC-JAMS AND AN ENORMOUS DECLINE IN INTERLOCAL TRAFFIC-JAMS 4. NO ENERGY FROM FOSSIL FUELS AND NO NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS 5. UNAFFECTED BY FLOODS, HURRICANES AND EARTHQUAKES 6. THE ANSWER TO DISADVANTAGED NEIGHBOURHOODS. LARGE DECREASE IN POVERTY 7. THE MYTH OF DENSITY 8. IDENTITY, INTIMACY, INTEGRATION 9. DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION 10. CONDENSING ON A SMALLER SCALE

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1. ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS CAN BE PREVENTED THROUGH THE INTEGRATION OF WORK AND LIVING

Our environmental problems are largely caused by the strange post World War II notion within urban development that living, work and recreation should be so far removed from one another that one cannot function without a car any longer. In fact, many Western countries forbid the combining of work and living: we employ industrial estates for work, residential areas for living and shopping centres for shopping. Even the smallest daily activity requires a car. Blinded by the mistaken belief that economic growth will increase our overall happiness, post-war policy has not at all heeded effective land and energy-saving urban development, leaving us with serious environmental problems such as future power-shortage, traffic-jams, traffic accidents, air pollution, stench and noise. While pointing the finger at the poor Third World countries for cutting too many trees for the sake of their economic development, we ourselves practice a far more damaging energy and land-devouring policy. We see the splinter in the other's eye, but fail to see the beam in our own. There is a disturbing worldwide lack of vision with regard to these environmental issues.

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2. MANY TIMES LESS BUILDING LAND AND OIL

We will have to construct in such a way, as to no longer be dependent on vast amounts oil, gas and building land. We will have to rid ourselves of our addiction to energy and land through a new means of urban development. Pyramid cities (view picture 1) can solve this problem and at the same time rise above the Vinex quality of post-war neighbourhoods, as they are more spacious, cleaner and without noise. Hardly any building land is required for these pyramid cities. Imagine, for example, an area the size of Amsterdam (150 km2), built over in accordance with traditional urban development. With pyramid cities 7 km2 (7 pyramids of 100,000 occupants) would suffice. The remainder of the same area would then be a recreational area or unspoilt nature (143 km2), onto which everyone has a permanent view from his or her town square and where he or she can recreate at walking distance. When properly spread out throughout the globe the entire world population would need no more than 250 square kilometres of the earth's surface. For urban development a total of land surface would be needed the size of The Netherlands or a tiny corner of the Gobi or the Sahara desert. The rest of the world can then be used for farming and horticulture or remain unspoilt nature. With the exception of heavy industry, industrial estates will be superfluous. This cuts back the amount of building land by thirty times. In such a city there is no traffic. Such a city is without traffic noise or air pollution and tremendous savings are made on oil and gas.

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3. NO LOCAL TRAFFIC-JAMS AND AN ENORMOUS DECLINE IN INTERLOCAL TRAFFIC-JAMS

All vertical transport is essentially done by lift (or staircase). The lift takes you to your living square and from there you walk to your home (view pictures 2 and 3). The place where you live is free of traffic noise, stench from cars, air pollution, CO2-emission, or roads that make traffic accidents possible. Traffic-jams will be impossible in town and will be reduced enormously with regard to intercity traffic, as policy should aim to have people find work as close to home as possible. Because the cities are self-containing economic units there will hardly be any intercity traffic-jams and the greenhouse effect will gradually disappear.

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4. NO ENERGY FROM FOSSIL FUELS AND NO NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

Because of the compact cities there is no more need for energy from fossil fuels. There is hardly any loss of heat, because the working accommodations have no outer walls and the pipe network can be very short. All heating, cooling and electricity may be supplied by the burning of one's own household refuse, which can be stored in the basements. But this is also effectively possible using terrestrial heat or solar panels. If we move to building walkingpyramids, nuclear power plants and wind mills will no longer be necessary. Also, the household refuse problem will be solved at the same time.
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5. UNAFFECTED BY FLOODS, HURRICANES AND EARTHQUAKES

Such economic units can be built anywhere, even in the most hostile of areas, but also at sea, along the coast, over banks or in lakes. They are unaffected by floods and the sea level rise caused by global warming. They can be constructed such as to relieve any fear we were to have had of hurricanes and earthquakes. In that sense they act as Noah's Ark. Existing banks could also be built over linearly, as is shown in picture 9.
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6. THE ANSWER TO DISADVANTAGED NEIGHBOURHOODS. LARGE DECREASE IN POVERTY

If we were to pull down the disadvantaged or slum neighbourhoods in and around our major cities and start rebuilding them in phases with pyramid cities, there would suddenly be a large increase in recreational green space in those same cities. In addition, everyone would have clean water, sanitary and sewerage. Furthermore, the building of such pyramids provides an enormous impulse to the city's employment, making possible effective combating of poverty in the Third World, through IMF loans. People would then live in independent economic units, enabling poor people to provide for themselves without having to own a car.

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7. THE MYTH OF DENSITY

It has been scientifically shown that there is a direct relationship between poverty and unsafety, and not between density and unsafety. The fable dating from the seventies about lemmings, claiming that they commit suicide when the population density is too high, does not apply to human beings or other animals living in colonies. Only wealth or poverty is of consequence. A density of 1000 residents per ha seems like a lot, but basically does not differ from the current density in the major cities, as long as the same measuring techniques are applied. Because in both the pyramids and in current cities the measurements must be carried out excluding roads, canals, parks, offices, stores, work rooms, parking space, etc. In the pyramids these functions are located underneath the houses. In contemporary cities they are located next to the houses. This means that in our contemporary cities one usually looks out onto houses across the street from his or her house, at a distance of approx. 15 meters, whereas in a pyramid city one always lives facing a large square of, on average, 80 x 80 meters. The size of these squares can be compared to, for example, the Great Market in Haarlem, where the Great Church is taller than the buildings facing onto the square. But almost every fine city has one such square, think of Siena, Brugge, Rome, Toledo, etc. etc. Pyramid cities are made up exclusively of many of these various large squares.

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8. IDENTITY, INTIMACY, INTEGRATION

Children can play safely again on the park-like squares. There are only closed building blocks that guarantee intimacy and social security. Besides living there, the squares also offer many stores, offices and schools (view picture 4). There is enough employment in the vicinity, which ensures there are always social activities taking place on the squares. The living and the work surface take up approximately the same amount of space and everything can be done on foot, using escalators if necessary. Square cities offer a sense of well-being that Vinex locations lack. Contrary to Vinex locations pyramid cities focus on Identity, Intimacy and Integration (of living, shopping, working, traffic and recreation). They function as an apartment block. Via two main roads crossing one another on ground level underneath the pyramid, totalling 2 km in length, you enter the city, leaving your car downstairs, near the elevator belonging to your living square. Underneath this main road lies the underground or railway, including a station at the heart of the pyramid. The municipalities need not prepare the site for building. They do not need to provide roads, sewerage, lighting, green spaces, etc. This means there are no expensive preparatory costs. Road maintenance is minimal, as these roads are located frost, sun and rain-free.

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9. DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

The design and construction of the square walls are entirely free, provided verticality is the keynote, if need be strengthened by the colour combination. The houses may have a modern appearance or that of the Amsterdam canal side walls, depending on the wishes of the occupants. Each house, including the ones on top of one another, can thus receive a different appearance. The occupants may also freely choose bay windows, balconies and loggias. Although staple construction is used (as it is in beautiful cities such as Dubai and Monaco), one fifth of the houses have roofs and large gardens (view picture 5). The building method is cheap, because the pyramid construction can be built almost entirely from market model parking decks.
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10. CONDENSING ON A SMALLER SCALE

Pyramid cities are the large-scale solution to our environmental problems and the poverty in the world. But our current cities can also be condensed effectively, with exactly the same advantages. This can be done in two ways, namely: a. by building apartment pyramids that need a much smaller surface than our modern buildings, while offering the same advantages as the pyramid cities (view picture 6 and 7). The NOVEM calculated some time ago that such a building method no longer has need of fossil fuels energy. b. by building over existing motorways and railways. This way a city like Amsterdam could still offer accommodation to 200,000 more residents, if the ring road around the city was built over

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Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_city http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimizu_Mega-City_Pyramid http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/

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