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result(s) for
"Megastructures."
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Megastructures : tallest, longest, biggest, deepest
\"[This book] describes how and why these structures were designed and built. It explains the physics behind the designs, which allows buildings, dams or bridges to rise to incredible heights, withstand enormous pressures, and resist collapse from environmental forces.\"--P. [4] of cover.
Book
Indeterminacy as a Framework for Sustainable Architecture: Lessons from Spens, a Socialist Megastructure
In the second half of the twentieth century, the concept of indeterminacy in architecture emerged to address the realities of chance and change, with the megastructure representing a critical point of this ambition. As the aims of indeterminate architectural approaches align with current sustainable development goals, this study hypothesises this design concept as the basis for the sustainability of structures built within its framework. Through a case study of Spens, a socialist megastructure in Novi Sad, Serbia, the paper explores the potentials of megastructures in relation to requirements for more sustainable cities. Firstly, it evaluates Spens’ current social sustainability through focus group discussions analysing sense of community, place, and wellbeing. Findings demonstrate a clear recognition of Spens’ spatial qualities among users. Secondly, the paper examines the future environmental sustainability of Spens, focusing on strategies that enhance user wellbeing and urban life as a point of overlap between social and environmental sustainability, using the Green Space Factor (GSF) and Urban Greening Factor (UFG). Results reveal the significant yet underutilised potential for greening. The paper highlights the long-term societal value of such structures and strategies for leveraging their concepts for their sustainable adaptation rather than replacement amid ongoing retrofit or replacement debates.
Journal Article
Beyond utopia : Japanese Metabolism architecture and the birth of mythopia
Megastructure proposals by the Japanese Metabolism group are commonly identified with the concept of utopia. Beyond this partial understanding, the author suggests that rather than being merely utopian, the Megastructure of Metabolism represents a uniquely amalgam genre: the myth camouflaged as utopia. Although its Megastructure seemingly describes a desirable future condition as utopia does, it also comprises certain cultural images rooted in the collective (un)conscious of Japanese people, in accordance with the general interpretation of myth. The primary narrative of the book thus follows the gradual unfolding of the myth-like characteristics of its Megastructure. Myth is dealt here as an interdisciplinary subject in line with contemporary myth theories. After expounding the mechanism underlying the growing demand for a new myth in architecture (the origin of the myth), Part I discovers the formal characteristics of the Megastructure of Metabolism to give a hint of the real intention behind it. Based on this, Part II is a reexamination of their design methods, which aims to clarify the function of the myth and to suggest the meaning behind it. Finally, Part III deals with the subject matter of the myth by disclosing the meaning unfolding in the story, and suggests a new reading of Metabolism's urban theory: as an attempt to reconsider the traditional Japanese space concept.
Book
The oldest plans to scale of humanmade mega-structures
Data on how Stone Age communities conceived domestic and utilitarian structures are limited to a few examples of schematic and non-accurate representations of various-sized built spaces. Here, we report the exceptional discovery of the up-to-now oldest realistic plans that have been engraved on stones. These engravings from Jordan and Saudi Arabia depict ‘desert kites’, humanmade archaeological mega-traps that are dated to at least 9,000 years ago for the oldest. The extreme precision of these engravings is remarkable, representing gigantic neighboring Neolithic stone structures, the whole design of which is impossible to grasp without seeing it from the air or without being their architect (or user, or builder). They reveal a widely underestimated mental mastery of space perception, hitherto never observed at this level of accuracy in such an early context. These representations shed new light on the evolution of human discernment of space, communication, and communal activities in ancient times.
Journal Article
A very high energy hadron collider on the Moon
The long-term prospect of building a hadron collider around the circumference of a great circle of the Moon is sketched. A circular collider on the Moon (CCM) of ∼11 000 km in circumference could reach a proton–proton center-of-mass collision energy of 14 PeV—a thousand times higher than the Large Hadron Collider at CERN—optimistically assuming a dipole magnetic field of 20 T. Several aspects of such a project are presented, including siting, construction, availability of necessary materials on the Moon, and powering, as well as a discussion of future studies and further information needed to determine the more concrete feasibility of each. Machine parameters and vacuum requirements are explored, and an injection scheme is delineated. Other unknowns are set down. Due to the strong interest from multiple organizations in establishing a permanent Moon presence, a CCM could be the (next-to-) next-to-next-generation discovery machine for high-energy particle physics and a natural successor to next-generation machines, such as the proposed future circular collider at CERN or a super proton–proton collider in China, and other future machines, such as a collider in the Sea, in the Gulf of Mexico. A CCM would serve as an important stepping stone toward a Planck-scale collider sited in our Solar System.
Journal Article
Orientational Metaphors of Megastructure Worship: Optimization Perspectives on Associative Cultural Landscape Methodology
In the modernization of cities and buildings around the world, megastructures represent the integration of the means of material production and advanced technology. However, there has been little discussion of the reasons for the enthusiastic phenomenon, especially the associative style between humans and megastructures. Among the methodologies for discussing the material environment and the human spiritual world, Associative Cultural Landscape methodology, based on the cultural landscape, is selected, and the “verticality” and the vertical discussion depth of the megastructure are used to optimize Associative Cultural Landscape methodology by utilizing the “orientational metaphors”. This forms Orientational Metaphors—Associative Cultural Landscape methodology for interpreting megastructure worship. Utilizing the optimized methodology, megastructure worship is interpreted from three interpretative paths: body worship, political worship, and relationship worship. Nine applied models and the matrix that meet the applied scenarios are formed. Finally, the paper presents the framework and its main theoretical contributions: (1) it generates the 16 processes from topic selection to model interpretation; (2) it differentiates the three interpretative paths of megastructure worship; (3) it evolves and optimizes Associative Cultural Landscape methodology; (4) it establishes nine applied models, based on the three interpretative paths; (5) it provides a research outlook—combining the nine existing applied models, a total of 21 interpretative potential applied models have been constructed. Using Orientational Metaphors—Associative Cultural Landscape methodology, the spiritual relationship between humans and megastructures is established with “spiritual relevance” as the core, and three interpretative paths of megastructure worship are interpreted. A comprehensive analysis of the megastructure phenomenon is proposed, providing a framework and models for human emotions that are attached to environmental psychology. The study provides an optimized methodological framework with Associative Cultural Landscape methodology and applied models for city and building scenarios involving the emotional connection between humans and megastructures. In particular, at the methodological level, it provides a new discussion paradigm for philosophical and applied megastructures that explain non-quantitative problems.
Journal Article
Making Habitable Worlds: Planets Versus Megastructures
With billions of planets in the galaxy, advanced civilizations could relocate planets within or into their planetary systems rather than destroy entire planetary systems to construct megastructures. Such shifts could create Strange Exoplanetary Architectures (SEA), with unusual planetary arrangements potentially indicating deliberate actions by extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). Searching for biosignatures and technosignatures in these systems could be a promising method for detecting ETI activities.
Journal Article
Brutalism, Film, and Dystopia: The Many (Cinematic) Lives of John Andrews’s Scarborough College
Since its opening to the public in 1965, John Andrews’s megastructure Scarborough College —currently University of Toronto, Scarborough— has received universal acclaim. Praised by Kenneth Frampton as “by far the most daring, comprehensive and radical”¦ of all the completed university complexes of recent years”, Scarborough has enjoyed, unlike many other brutalist structures, a peaceful and successful existence: untainted by later extensions, the Andrews Building, as it is known today, has not only survived, but become the revered core of a landmark university campus. However, adding to its prosperous history as a university facility, Scarborough has also led a prolific double life as a filming location, lending its architectural persona to an assortment of evil corporations, futuristic prisons, or government facilities. This article examines some of the many appearances of Scarborough on the screen, and the different ways in which cinema has depicted, appropriated, recontextualized, transformed, and even extended the building beyond Andrews’s original design and its as-built reality. Desde su apertura al público en 1965, el megaestructural Scarborough College de John Andrews -actualmente Universidad de Toronto, Scarborough- disfrutó del reconocimiento universal. Saludado por Kenneth Frampton como “con mucho el más atrevido, completo y radical... de todos los complejos universitarios completados en los últimos años”, Scarborough ha disfrutado, a diferencia de muchas otras estructuras brutalistas, de una existencia pacífica y exitosa: impoluto, pese a ampliaciones posteriores, el Andrews Building, como se lo conoce hoy, no solo ha sobrevivido hasta nuestros días, sino que se ha convertido en el núcleo reverenciado de un emblemático campus universitario. Sin embargo, junto con su próspera historia como instalación universitaria, Scarborough también ha disfrutado de una prolífica doble vida como localización cinematográfica, prestando sus rasgos arquitectónicos a una variedad de perversas corporaciones, prisiones futuristas o instalaciones gubernamentales. En este artículo se examinan algunas de las muchas apariciones de Scarborough en la pantalla, así como las diferentes formas en que el cine ha representado, apropiado, recontextualizado, transformado e incluso ampliado el edificio más allá del diseño construido por Andrews.
Journal Article
Middle-class mass housing between city and suburb: The case of Quinta das Lavadeiras
In the mid-1950s, millions of people left the rural areas of the Portuguese interior. They came to Lisbon in search of new and better living conditions. The population growth in the peripheral territories of the capital started to increase exponentially, completely changing its landscape, particularly on the northern fringe, with a huge impact on commuter traffic flows and property speculation, affecting an emerging middle class that was ignored by the state and exploited by an economically-driven market. Outside the narratives of high culture, these places have progressively embodied the image of postmodernity’s greatest evils: the anonymous character of (sub)urban life, mass housing and the ‘motorway’. Their study has been overlooked and, consequently, an important part of the city’s fabric. Using unpublished archival material, films and period news, this article reconstructs the history of the urban ensemble of Quinta das Lavadeiras on calçada de carriche, Lisbon’s northern gateway, developed during the 1960s by private developers. The crossing of information regarding the project, its construction and its impact on the landscape, in its intermediate condition, between rural and faith in urban progress, between centre and suburb, between social classes, allows a critical reflection on the divorce between the theoretical debate and the construction of a counter-architecture promoted by construction companies that acted in these expectant territories, defining them.
Journal Article
The megastructure concept for Indonesian architecture
The phenomena of mega-scale development around the world in recent years have attracted a lot of attention. From a dramatic underwater mega-tunnel to desert skyscrapers and Japanese supertalls, the tendency has shown incredible feats of mega-structure construction, including Nusantara the Capital City of Indonesia due to be inaugurated on August 17th, 2024. Despite the excitement of the general public, there has always been a pro and con to the replacement, one of the most major issues is the Indonesian-ness of the projects. The idea of the archipelago architecture design principles has been questioned as to whether it is related to the development of the city backbone, nor its architecture. This research aims to investigate the idea of the megastructure concept for Indonesian architecture from a theoretical perspective using a combination of historical and etymological approaches. The steps are: 1) Questioning the idea of megastructure, 2) Understanding the philosophy of Indonesian architecture, and 3) Building the concept representation of megastructure for Indonesian architecture. The research finding is there is a possibility of seeing megastructures differently according to a local context. The output is the megastructure concept based on Indonesian vernacular house typology. The novelty of the research is eight typological categories and three fundamental guidelines for developing Indonesian megastructure.
Journal Article