FEATURE 20 IDEASUNDERGROUND CITIES
As populations move away from rural areas, urban
planners look beneath their feet for answersWith space in cities so limited, often the only option for those who can
afford to expand their property is to go underground. Luxury basements
are already a feature beneath many homes in London, but with urban
populations set to continue growing, subterranean developments are
beginning to appear on a much larger scale.
One idea, still at the concept stage, is the ‘Earthscraper’ proposed for
Mexico City. This 65-storey inverted pyramid has been suggested as a way
to provide office, retail and residential space without having to demolish
the city’s historic buildings or breach its 8-storey height restriction.
Many questions remain as to the feasibility of such a project, however,
such as how you provide light, remove waste and protect people from
fire or floods. Some of these questions have potentially been answered
with the construction of the Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland hotel
in China. This 336-room luxury resort was built into the rock face of an
88m-deep, disused quarry that opened for business in November 2018.
The island city-state of Singapore is also exploring its underground
options. Not only are its Jurong Rock Caverns in the process of being
turned into a subterranean storage facility for the nation’s oil reserves,
but there are also plans to build an ‘Underground Science City’ for 4,200
scientists to carry out research and development.
In New York, the Lowline Project is turning an abandoned subway
station into a park. Expected to open in 2021, it uses a system of
above-ground light-collection dishes to funnel enough light into the
underground space to grow plants, trees and grass.- PRIVACY
MATTERS
After spending much of the last
decade handing our data over to the
likes of Apple, Facebook and Google
via our smartphones, social media
and searches, it seems as though
people around the world, and the
governments that represent them,
are wising up to the risks of these
corporations knowing so much about
us. The next 10 years looks to be
no different, only now we can add
fingerprints, genetic profiles and face
scans to the list of information we
hand over. With the number of data
breaches – companies failing to keep
the data they hold on us secure –
climbing every year, it’s only a matter
of time before governments step
in, or as with the case of Apple, tech
companies start selling us back the idea
of personal privacy itself.
- UBIQUITOUS
INTERNET
Between 5G networks, and internet
beamed down to us from Elon Musk’s
StarLink satellites, mobile internet
will get a lot faster and a lot more
evenly spread over the next decade.
These new networks will empower
entirely new fields of tech, from
autonomous cars, drone air traffic
control to peer-to-peer virtual reality.
But it isn’t without it’s drawbacks.
SpaceX is planning to launch 12,000
satellites over the next few years to
create its StarLink constellation, with
thousands more being deployed by
other companies. More satellites mean
more chances of collisions and more
space debris as a result. The satellites
have also been shown to interfere
with astronomical observations and
weather forecasting.
18Earthscraperscould
help provide living,
office and
recreational space
for ever-increasing
urban populations