One Million Londoners Will Live in a Single Tower

London has to provide housing for a million more people by 2016, taking into account new arrivals, plus old-timers who need an upgrade. Since space is limited, UK company Popularchitecture is proposing a 5,000-foot high tower that would house pretty much everybody all in one shot--and reduce four city neighborhoods to a single cylindrical building. See the whole thing below.

The tower, which at this point remains simply a novel idea, would take up little actual ground space and run like a proper democracy. It is literally broken up into municipal areas--the "neighborhood" is a singe floor of 600; the village is 20 floors and houses 6,000. There are also three super-districts that house 33,000 people each.

Elected reps serve in a local government and have regular meetings to decide what to do with common areas, which would include an ice skating rink, a botanical garden, an open-air theater, and tennis courts.

Circular openings in sections of the tower will provide nature-y parks and gardens for citizens. Five circulation cores with massive elevators--think the Tube, except it goes up and down instead of weaving underground--transport residents from neighborhood to neighborhood. Water and waste will be recycled, and fresh water harvested from the clouds, which pretty much start right around where the tower's peak ends.

Since your workplace, your local movie theater, and all your friends will be in the same building, you'll never have to leave.

How convenient/scary! Images by Popularchitecture

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Everest said:

And if the wind blows straight down the tower it plays London's Burning.

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Everest said:

Because it's a fcuking stupid idea.

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Bad Ash said:

Is it just me or do they seem to use figures of 100,000 and 1,000,000 in that article?

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Downloaded Penguin said:

The idea in itself isn't stupid. When London runs out of land the only solution is to build up, like in Manhattan. The same solution could be applied to Brighton (the Marina Tower for starters?). However after 9/11 who would want to live their whole lives 1000s of feet up in the air.

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Kinky Gerbils said:

Put all the muslims in it, be safe from attack then.

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Kinky Gerbils said:

Put all the muslims in it, be safe from attack then.

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mattb said:

They must be taking the piss. They have to be.

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Circulation
The tower has 5 circulation cores. One of these cores contains the mass vertical transport units. These massive elevators, comparable to a London underground train , carry large numbers of people to the village floors where smaller lifts then take passengers to their individual floors or neighbourhood.

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Downloaded Penguin said:

The idea in itself isn't stupid. When London runs out of land the only solution is to build up, like in Manhattan. The same solution could be applied to Brighton (the Marina Tower for starters?). However after 9/11 who would want to live their whole lives 1000s of feet up in the air.

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Maximising the potential of sites
The Mayor will, and boroughs should, ensure that development proposals achieve the maximum intensity of use compatible with local context, the design principles in Policy 4B.1 and with public transport capacity. Boroughs should develop residential density policies in their DPDs in line with this policy and adopt the residential density ranges set out in Table 3A.2 and which are compatible with sustainable residential quality. (DPDs are Development Plan Documents, which all the London councils have to produce)

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