Doomsday Structures (Part 10) - Cities of the Underworld. Structural inversion.

(Images: BNKR Arquitectura's "Earthscraper "Mexico City.  2013)

The Earth was born from Hell four billion years ago in fact the definition for its early manifestation is called Hadean, the hell from Greek mythology.  It is acknowledge that climate change is real, the science is absolute, but, there is probably very little we can do to reverse the effects of hundreds of years of carbon emitting industries. According to scientific estimates, the Earth now is at a tipping point unable to clear out the amount of carbon dioxide trapped in the upper atmospheres, even if we dramatically reduce carbon, the effects could be felt centuries to come. The weather is changing which we know this as a fact.  We can see it.  The main question is; How do we adjust our cites in such a manner that we can live within the natural world?    If the human race was to build now in preparation or at least as a potential place of habitation, to begin our adjustment of the changing environment, but also aware, at the same time, of conflict and wars.  The discussion may eventuate to whether or not we could live underground.  It's not a new idea, as discussed previously, creating structures that have occurred many times in the history of human expansion.  As a society we may need to ponder the deep philosophical and sociological ramifications of reestablishing our societies, but, we can't be slow in this introspection, we are amidst an urgency.  After the tragedy of 9/11, instigated by terrorist attacks on the World Trade center. All domestic airline flights were grounded, except for military planes. What occurred environmentally on the grounding of all passenger carrying jet planes, was discovered that the sky appeared to be clearer, as the contrails, the frozen vapor left begin high altitude domestic flights were nowhere to be seen.  Geographer David Travis and NASA physicists began to look at the clearing of contrails from the post 9/11 skies, noting that the temperature began to drop over the busiest flight routes across the U.S.  Further study revealed that these 'contrails', with an ability to trap warm air, also lead to increased cloud cover, apart from their carbon emissions of jet aircraft; there has been a significant warming effect on climate from plane travel – thus it is considered as one of the main contributors of global warming.  Our cities and their surrounding environments, as we have always perceived them, may need change, not only in a sudden manner but also via a dramatical event.

However, despite the possibility of a dramatic event or precursor to the reconfigurations of the city dynamic, the process maybe very difficult to mitigate, as mentioned via the effects of a consequence, significant enough to be that cataclysmic turning point; this could be the forcefulness that cities planners will need to instigate a new city design and concept.  The other issue which was discussed in Frei Otto's Arctic City concept (1970)  if the population has grown dramatically over the 20th and 21st Century and birth rates have risen disproportionation to the regions of the World. This with climate change will further exasperating the pressure on cities and more importantly the environment.  So, rather than plan for this future dystopic environment. I wonder if it is time to implement, as urban dwellers, to begin thinking about the migration to live underground.  Of course the engineering aspects would be immense, yet it has already been applied throughout some of the major cities of the world; be it extensive underground train and rail systems.  But, to sustain a larger populous they would need to dig deeper beneath the Earth, science fiction writers and concept artists envisioned that future cities would be compressed areas, overpopulated, but able to house the millions of its citizens within mile high skyscrapers. The great science fiction writer Robert Silverberg, envisioned two mile skyscrapers dotted throughout a dystopia style Earth, that houses hundreds of thousands of people.  This reality of a closed in city area makes sense – not just from a fictional perspective, but a practicable one in respect to urban planning, that the environmental aspects of a city growing outward does indeed put immense pressure on resources that if looked at despite its carbon emitting aspect, are finite.  Expansive and spread out growth is unsustainable.  The misjudgment of creating an uptake of population into the major cities of the world, has further lead to the over expansion of the city complex; leading to more cars on the roads, increased infrastructure, this in turn adds to the amount of carbon emissions, that as we now know are becoming trapped within the upper atmospheres.  This is global problem and we could be very well at a tipping point, the reconstruction of our cities may become, as mentioned, maybe be an urgency.

We can either build upward, shrink the city bases to a smaller land mass, contain all services utilities and energy, food creations within that area or we invert the skyscrapers into the Earth.  The city begins to, in a vertical construct, become an underground metropolis.