I think you could only build these buildings where floods never happen, or are not extreme. Wouuld be cool tho if the lowest buildings were waterproof, and when they got flooded you could see out the window in to the water while it was raising in a flood, or lowering when drained.
@@mangomariel Could do something like real-world flood-parks where during the drier parts there's large parks and entertainment out in the open core part, with float-switch controlled automatic doors that lock down the level just above the waterline. Like maybe the exterior lighting on the actually submerged levels goes blue to illuminate the water (and make it look a little cleaner), and red on the level water is approaching to inform people that the doors are closing. And then the doors automatically close at a pace slow enough for people to get out of the way. Add some ramps for accessibility reasons, both inside the building and out in the open core, and then the lowest open level is only accessibly from outside. And then the pumps can be taking the water from the lowest point in the lowest flood-park and pushing it through the processing and filtration center and into the structure's integrated cistern. And maybe have the 'walls' go up 4 floors between parks, with cantilevered and suspended parks and entertainment centers into the open middle.Possibly as a way to make more real-estate in the structure, put a spire in the center with bridges going out to the cantilevered edge parks.
Or forced to, this was the nightmare envisioned by H.G. Wells in the time machine. The riff raff were kept out of sight underground, while the elite enjoyed having the surface all to themselves.
@@SteveLomas-k6ki mean who think otherwise. Also i dont get comments promoting this with cringe arguments. R they just bots or paid actors or just stupid woke lo, sers.
It could, but I question how often the average person even looks out the window unless checking on kids in the yard, or who pulled into the driveway. Neither of which is likely to be a concern here😄
The idea sounds fun, until you're the engineer whose job is to design the plumbing to take away all the waste water out back to the surface (also accounting for excess rain water & flooding) That's not counting cleaning up debris and stuff falling into the depth. if you want to grow tree, expect a lot of dead leaves and stuff falling in.
You could do sewerage aquifers below the thing and treat it with everything else, then pump the rough treated liquid back up to ground level to transport them away, you don't need to fill the damn thing to the bottom as living space.
yeah, pretty terrible idea imo. Some downsides were mentioned in the video but im just gonna list em anyways just as they pop into my mind so here we go: - Earthquakes suck a lot above ground when the building is super rigid while wooden buildings or just buildings with movement in mind fare way better. I doubt a rigid Earthscraper would fare to well after a few years of earthquakes weakening the structure. - Flooding or even rainwater will be a major issue. Unlike on ground level you can't just let it flow in some drainage system or let it cover the streets and flow into the next river. Every single drop has to be pumped up or you will turn you nice little earthscraper into a ducking lake. Also insulating the entire thing against groundwater is basically impossible to get 100% tight. - Sunlight is just not there. Forget about having real plants or Vitamin D without supplementing with special lights and pills. Also have fun getting depression from beeing in your home. Just ask people living far north how nice it is not seeing the sun for a few months. - Cost is gonna be crazy out of proportion. If you ever wanted to build a house with a basement you know how crazy expensive earthwork is. Just build regular appartment buildings i beg you. - Air quality will be shit too unless you have huge ventilation systems that cycle the whole place manually. Also, since a lot of fun gasses like carbon monoxide sink to the ground, have fun dying if these systems ever fail or maybe a fire breaks out a few stories above you. - Space efficiency is shit as well. You have to basically build a valley, not just straigth down to at least get some sunlight down in your pit of despair. And still there are no "views" to speak of and your earthscraper will take up a lot more space than conventional buildings with the same capacity. Most courtyards in conventional buildings suck already as you have to have a really big courtyard as not to always be staring into your neighbours bathroom across just a few meters away from your living room. - Emergencys are gonna really suck if you have to evacuate. You know the signs that says not to use the Elevators in case of emergency? Well thats all fine if you have to go down a few floors but imagine you are 75 years old on floor -32 and you have to get out due to a fire or your shitty soon-to-be-lake flooding because mildly above average rain than predicted. Congrats you gonna die 3 floors higher than anyone expected you to but you are still drowing at least 15 floors beneath the surface. Im sure there are many more reasons but that should be enough of a deterrent tbh. So please just get your zoning right and re-densify your cities and maybe move unsightly structures like roads and train lines underground if you got some money to spare.
You know you also named all the problems with traditional sky scrapers. Flooding weakens the structural entigrity for skyscrapers that have massive concrete foundations. A fire couple floors below you welp your fucked. Oh no a beam cant hold up bye bye. Strong storm or winds. Lightening. Glass...glass is not a structurally sound yet its used so people get their vitamin D. And most people still dont get it living underground wont make a difference. The only difference in a sky scraper vs earthscraper is do you want to die via falling or get burried where you die?
You've exaggerated a lot of these issues but yeah it's still a ridiculous idea. (earthquakes are location dependant, flooding can be protected against and is location dependant, emergencies carry a similar risk to a normal skyscraper, sunlight can be mimicked or let in through lightwells albeit badly) Cost and air quality are the big two imo. Just take mines for example. They're dug to a comparable depth and they have to have hundreds of millions of dollars of ore reserves to be economic. It's just not justifiable to dig something like this out to house people.
My first thought for emergency evacuation would be "water-vators". Elevators with cars that rise naturally due to buoyancy in water. In an emergency, you could "cut the cable" and quickly float to the surface (with spare pods for subsequent trips). In theory, they should work even in a complete power outage.
That just sounds like the TV show Silo. I think we'd be much better off just focusing on building walkable cities with more even population density...~4-5 story buildings with retail/commercial on the first floor and apartments above. Fewer sprawling suburbs.
The only thing good about the sky scrappers is their cool factor. It is, in my opinion, a good argument to build a few of those. But for the Earthscrappers, I'm not even sure it is a cool enough concept to justify the cost and inefficiency.
It's a great idea theoretically, but if there were as many earth scrapers as sky scrapers they would pose just as much risk of compromising the geographical integrity of the earth as skyscrapers, if not worse.
This is just the logical extension of the earth sheltered movement of the 1970's & 80's. Malcolm Wells used to design very fanciful earth covered houses. And some of the other architects in the field were Charles G. Woods, Jeremy Jones, and Larry S. Chalmers. Most of their work was in single family homes but Malcolm did do the Cary Arboretum plant science building in New York and he tried to do the Desert Park Visitors Center in Big Bend, TX but I don't know if it was ever built.
People have been living underground since the Stone Age, basically humans lived in root cellars providing protection from wind & cold. When we travel to Moon and Mars humans will move underground again.
Yep. Large lenses that focus sunlight onto bundles of fiber optic strands could "transmit" sunlight fairly large distances underground. There have been a few different skylight type inventions using that general concept already. Someone could easily adapt it to a scale necessary for this type of application.
Converting existing mines & quarries is definitely feasible, but excavating a location for the sake of construction would probably be unaffordable. Which usually means you won't be able to build these where they're needed most but hey - it's free real estate!
Yeah, I was thing about the same issue. The biggest problem by far is the price for excavation and to get rid of the the material. The cheapest way to circumvent this is to use already the dug holes left from carriers, but they are far from city centers, to say the least.
How do subterranean buildings actually behave in a earthquake? Tokyo has massive underground drainage so they should have some data. Also as a side, water is a massive issue. I live near one of the few mins in the UK where water pumping isn't needed. It normally is, active protection always makes me worried.
Definitely with you on the need for active protection. It's the main issue I have with nuclear energy. Make all safety features passive and I'm on board.
Very cool and promising. I think the sweet spot, though, is a blend of both. Skyscrapers, with a very, very deep basement. Live above, put the pumps and other machines below. Also... - We already anchor our skyscrapers with pylons that go down to bedrock, this is just making use of that space. - Grow hydroponics in the underground area, helping to filter the building's air and provide fresh food. Not likely enough to sustain, but it'll help. - Circulate the air. In summer, bringing up the cool air from below will keep the higher levels cool. Likewise in winter, the deep air is slower to cool, and can thus warm the higher layers.
See this sounds good until you realize that they'd only be particularly usable in certain areas, and they are particularly prone to water and ice damage in the shallow parts especially. Last but not least, living underground is stifling.
flood you have nuclear blast doors close in case of severe flooding, as for seepage lining the area with clay should do a good enough job so that sump pumps that handle underwater tunnels can handle it without a sweat.
Let’s see how our true modern society would adopt these architectural wonder, the wealthy would live on the top 1/2 the middle would live in the other half above ground, and the poor and veterans would be required to live in the sub basements were we all know there would be no law and order. I would turn into the dystopian horror show we all know is coming if the ultra wealthy are not reigned in like we did during the “First Gilded Age” because most economists already say we are in the “Second Gilded Age” that puts even the Rockefeller’s and the Carnegie’s to shame when it comes to the total wealth within just 5 to 10 Americans. So no thank you, we see how architects design buildings for art and social movements and it never works out for the average citizen.
Glad to finally talk about the future of human habitation. I would rather live in a bunker underground and experience nature above cheaper,safer and more convinient. Than live above surrounded by bunkers and pay premium for it. As current paradigm becomes unlivable people will get it. Small houses and downsizing only go that far. Contrary underground IS free land. Reverse skyscrapers are not optimal though there is better forms. Helixes and spirals are better options. You still want to be able to have faster access to the surface. Above ground buildings are forced to be built vertically. Underground you unlock a new horizontal dimention in which buildings can grow and be built. Going straight down is suboptimal and put too much strain on the structure.
Only way this is working is if you build it into the side of a mountain. That solves most of your issues with things like drainage since one side is open. Basically you just build all your houses straight backwards into the mountain. So basically an entry, family room, guest bathroom and room, kitchen/dining room, and then a hallway leading towards the residents bathrooms and rooms. So probably five to six rooms heading back into the mountain for a decent sized home with 10+ rooms. AC and heating would be decent since most is underground even if it's not as good as deep underground. Weather would be less of an issue and it's a better bunker during a war than your typical house. It's basically what that quarry resort looks like. Cost is still higher than a typical building though, so it only makes sense if you are already in a hilly city where the land costs are high. And we already do this in some areas where people want large houses, an amazing view, but don't want to spend massive amounts of money on more land.
As the temp goes up to make life impossible on the surface, these underground complexes may be the only hope until human life on the planet is down to .0001 of it's current numbers and the Earth has time to heal itself.
The main feature ia that if we render the earth too hot to survive outdoors, underground structure s like these will be easier to seal and make their air and water systems self sustaining.
This is probably the best example of something that we could be doing with present technology, but are not. As long as it's done right, it's doable. It looks like it's not being done because there's little motivation from would-be buyers, builders, or especially, financiers. Even for a smaller pilot project, it costs more upfront, and from an engineering standpoint, relatively little is known about it. I'd think it'd be the perfect high-risk project for a bold entrepreneur, with lots of publicity if it succeeds, and tax losses if it fails. I'm not sure that I'd count the partially underground luxury development as relevant to this model. The most attractive thing about underground living done right is the steady temperatures, no worries about hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, flooding, freezing pipes, etc. Fault zones are a non-starter, would rip buildings apart. Unsure about areas with seismically active but unfractured, stable rock. Liquifaction is not a problem in solid rock, but must be dealt with between the bedrock and the surface. Earthquakes are still a problem, even if a building is 100% stable, things fall off shelves, etc. Best to build in areas as seismically inactive as possible. For various reasons, somewhere between 15 to 50 stories deep would be best, depending on the climate there. Generally, deeper works better in colder climates. Some tapering in descending levels is a good idea, allows more rock to support the levels above, especially if there are adjacent buildings. Larger dwelling areas would be built wider, not deeper. Forget trying to get sunlight down there, people will go topside for parks, sunlight, open space. Disabled people can live on the top levels and use ramps to get to the surface in the rare event that the elevators fail. Build underground cities under higher ground with no possibility of flooding. Use thorium nuclear power plant nearby but not in the building for reliability. Because you don't want to just pump in hot or cold air, use heat exchangers. Because of their vital importance, both power plants and ventilation must have several units, able to operate independently and back each other up.
Technology? Yes. Better protected from natural disasters? No. Earthquakes can destroy an underground building just as easily as one above ground. Also, it can be flooded more easily even with pumps. Also some people who are claustrophobic would not be able to handle being far underground even with artificial sunlight and windows. And a fire could spread quickly and be more difficult to fight without very good design and planning. Plus possibly toxic smoke would be widely distributed by ventilation systems.
It will require a lot of energy - aboveground constructions only require surfaces to be built. Underground will require not only that, but replacing all the stone with air. And pumps for water/air. Also, earthquakes, the construction has maximal cohesion with crust.
I believe concepts like this of an enclosed city is called an arcology project. I understand that it's meant to be more efficient but honestly this just sounds dystopian. early models like this sounds good but it will expand and become larger until you do have the problem of people never leaving the project, it's inevitable that we would do so if we allowed our upper class to start stuff like this.
You could build this in a desert or inside of a mountain but if you build it anywhere near a river, this effectively becomes a deathtrap. Even just heavy rain would be a danger to a structure like this.
Heating and cooling could be done via a series of pipes, heat rises , cool air sinks, So if you have both above ground and below ground floors, you could transfer air from the lowest levels to higher levels as it should be naturally cooled by its depth and in return pull hot air from upper floors to lower levels. If done deep enough you could have turbines along the air shafts so that both hot and cold air lines could produce some power. While we are at it, you might as well build it like a vessel, setting up each floor into sub blocks with bulk head doors that could be closed to lock specific areas if the need called for it, no need to flood all 50 levels when you could easily lock away section 4 sublevel 12. All this is nice and fancy, with one major draw back, No one wants to look out their window and see nothing but the darkness of the hole they reside in. People want penthouse views, with separation from those who they consider / feel are beneath them.
The lack of sunlight would be a big problem. There are lamps for reptiles that produce the necessary uv b light but they would have to be run on timers to avoid skin problems
This is a nice video, and I totally agree. But buildings and roads actually just account for 1% of usable land use, while agriculture account for 50%. So It is much more important to find ways to eat food that require less land to produce. (spoiler: the solution is more beans, and less cow)
As long as it was done to spread people out more rather than to concentrate more people into a smaller area, I think it would be good. Every person needs at least an acre of land to live on. These places that are creating increasingly smaller apartments with no land to make use of are creating more problems than they solve.
Here I am just imagining there's no need to worry about farming because all the human wastes from the topmost floors will be sent down periodically to the lowest floor as fertilisers. Let the lowest floors be directly connected to the earth with access to groundwater and plenty of UV lighting facilities.
The concept of "Earthscrapers" make me remind the Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland Hotel in Suburban Shanghai, China, which was built on a big hole from a abandoned quarry.
In regards to the flooding, rain water over the course of a day probably wouldn’t flood an 20 story earthscraper. If it’s bad, it might flood the lowest 2 floors depending on the area between “buildings”. (I’m thinking a version with empty space in the middle like the “hole-scraper” mentioned.) So one thing you would do is deliberately have a little lake area at the bottom (say 2 story’s tall) to collect any rain, condensation or leakages. This little lake could then be regularly pumped up to the surface to a nearby water treatment plant and redistributed as drinking water. But the main idea of the lake is to create a buffer so if there was a sudden flood, it wouldn’t be disastrous. Also, this concept would only work in environments that don’t have flooding on the surface and somewhere near like a cliff (to make waste drainage easier) I would guess 🤷♂️
It's more efficient to build tunnels into separate rooms like an ant colony than to excavate that much earth. Removing that much earth before filling in with our own might also increase seismic activity because of the sudden lack of pressure to push back.
I don’t mind the idea of this. But I’m not confident it’d actually be safer from an earthquake. Even more concerning to me is drainage. I’d probably have nightmares about the earthscraper I live in flooding.
Sunlight is not essential to human mental health, but natural Lighting is. Underground settlements are a great idea, and if well done, I'd love to live in them. The key is to have large, well lit spaces that simulate the outdoors, they must have natural light. We have certain "Happy Lamps" that produce natural light today. Most of our artificial lights only emit certain frequencies of light, such as red, green, and blue. The light source here would need to emit everything from the Visible light spectrum. This is key to keeping up human mental health, and the light would also be usable to grow plants. In addition, having standardized "fake windows" in rooms would be something that should be a staple in these Settlements. The fake window would basically be a tv screen emitting the natural light, and can take on the image of various scenery, anything real or fantasy. With all that, I think people could have happy lives in these places.
Which would be an absolutely moronic idea given that most of downtown Mexico City is built on top of what used to be a fricking lake and wetlands, meaning the ground in the area is soft. Add to that the fact that Mexico City is prone to earthquakes.
@@oscarmanzanoserna3115 In spite of never having gone further into Mexico than Tijuana, BMN, I did wonder about both of those things. Even so, it would be swell to do in some more practical location, maybe Times Square in Manhattan -- no, wait, it used to be a pond....
Funny, I was just thinking this the other day. All grocery stores, storage units, dmv, financial institutions and of the sort by law need to be below ground level. Ground level is more for public easements, greenspaces, cafe's, ice cream shops, shops/shopping, etc.
80% of the problems of earthscrapers are already things that modern skycrapers have to deal with anyways, so frankly speaking. Not to mention that you could just build in both directions as well. Modern skyscrapers have to drill down to the earth's bedrock for a proper foundation anyways, so if you hollow it out, it'll be extra space to build. Sure, no 60 floors below and 100 floors above, but 30+30? Once you solve the 100% reliable air circulation issue, there's really not much left after safety studies to determine where they can be safely built with current technologies. As terrifying as it is to be buried alive in one, imagine how much worse it would be if your 50 floor skyscraper suddenly fell over for the exact same fault? Frankly, the threat of being burried isn't really much worse than falling to your death from the 50th floor or being crushed by the second floor falling on you in a two story building like what happened recently in Turkey.
I'm not educated on this subject enough to form a solid conclusion about this, I have no shame in admitting that. I will say however that whenever I hear about Earthscrapers, all that comes to my mind is Dwarf Holes commonly found in fantasy stories; and given the fact that the past several years have been absolute Hell for every single person on planet Earth, why not have that little spark of fun to help boost our happiness, right? Besides, we do already have the technology to build these things; missile siloes, bunkers & underground subway stations comes to mind; we just need to add "residential" to that list.
The worst idea in the world. Wait for a disaster, a collapse, a fire or whatever. It's a death trap. A high-rise building is ventilated and in the worst case, you can go down the stairs, they can take you out by helicopter. Try to escape from a hole by climbing 50 or 100 floors by stairs.
These structure on the surface would need to have a hardened ring like structure around the enter/exit points to protect from surface water. They would have to be defensive in nature. There would need to be more than one exit. Take control of the entrance/exit and everyone below is your hostage.
in an old 50's science mag (cant remember which one) I saw a very similar design using an open pit mine they were proposing in Russia with a dome over the top walls lined in office buildings 1st 3 levels being gardens and farmland cool idea hope some one does it
i personally am extremely fascinated with the idea of living underground, although, it never seems to workout in dystopian stories we know.. fallout, the 100, etc.. there is something romantic about it. i think they key is people need to stop being controlling like a govt. when you live down there, also just let people leave the building, and explore outside air, a few times a day i they like. our connections in life, rely on our connections to eachother, not jusst interpersonally, face to face, but also networkingly, on the internet.
Most skyscrapers in big cities are built on sturdy bedrock, which is the exact opposite of what you want if digging a big hole. Instead, dig multiple deep access points and build sideways to unlimited measures. Sunlight is for farms, not buildings. Remote non-urban locations would be ideal - mountains, deserts, frozen wastes, Mars. It worked for the Lumarians!
in the past 10 years I spent around 14 hours a day inside in the same room the only time I leave is to work go the grocery store or to do some long distance cycling use to do other outdoor things but laws have changed and people have gone crazy
I don't think an inverted ivory tower would solve many problems. The difficulties with urban environments have nothing to do with what is good about an earthscraper. Would it be a socially integrated habitat, the ultimate gated community, or a literal dystopian hell hole?
Finally we are building the Dungeons that adventurers will explore after the apocalypse
as long as I can have my isekai waifu harem count me in
In case of catastrophe, you dont have to worry about burial arrangements.
A tsunami would suck even more than now.
In case of catastrophe like a strong earthquake, you still have more chances to be saved in the earthscraper than a skyscraper.
Well, if you were in a building that collapsed, you don't have to worry about anything again to be fair. And you're pre-buried either way.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@JuvoII Who would but ann earthscraper at the beach lol. Use your brain
Its pretty much every umbrella corporation bunker 😂
Welcome to Racoon City!
Seems hardly anyone thinks Um rella⛱️
Vaultec propaganda
more like Institute propaganda
That sounds like something a communist would say!! Liberty Prime is on it's way to your location.
That's what the brotherhood of steel would say.
Another settlement needs our help
@Curlywhrly The nearby raiders are closing in anytime now, geeze our farm will be decimated and our caps stolen.
A Better Life: Underground.
Thank You for using Vault-Tec.
One word: Floods.
I think this is a great idea overall, but only as long as you make sure the entire thing NEVER turns into a water level.
Yea there would need to be like a HUGE drainage system
Plus what if they use a protective shield/glass plane to protect the earthscraper
@@Ermac0Quico Massive pump systems for sure.
I think you could only build these buildings where floods never happen, or are not extreme. Wouuld be cool tho if the lowest buildings were waterproof, and when they got flooded you could see out the window in to the water while it was raising in a flood, or lowering when drained.
@@mangomariel Could do something like real-world flood-parks where during the drier parts there's large parks and entertainment out in the open core part, with float-switch controlled automatic doors that lock down the level just above the waterline. Like maybe the exterior lighting on the actually submerged levels goes blue to illuminate the water (and make it look a little cleaner), and red on the level water is approaching to inform people that the doors are closing. And then the doors automatically close at a pace slow enough for people to get out of the way.
Add some ramps for accessibility reasons, both inside the building and out in the open core, and then the lowest open level is only accessibly from outside. And then the pumps can be taking the water from the lowest point in the lowest flood-park and pushing it through the processing and filtration center and into the structure's integrated cistern.
And maybe have the 'walls' go up 4 floors between parks, with cantilevered and suspended parks and entertainment centers into the open middle.Possibly as a way to make more real-estate in the structure, put a spire in the center with bridges going out to the cantilevered edge parks.
This would be ideal for a moon base or on Mars. Protection from radiation, keeping in air and no earthquakes
no earthquakes but moonquakes that last hours.
@@alexblack8634I sware I was gonna say the same thing. And lol what if the moon is hollow lol???
Mars has quakes too oddly enough.
@@freedomtowanderthe moon is not hollow
@@viciousyeen6644 omg! Really? lol I was joking, if you could have seen my face as I typed you would have gotten my humor.
This is how you get Blade Runner, Coruscant, and Midgar
Forgot Trantor, Solaria and the Caves of Steel from Asimov's novels.
I didn't know the city in Blade Runner was called Blade Runner.
Tokyo-3
Uff need to read more azimov
Also Resident Evil. No way Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg wouldn't try to create the T-Virus in a giant facility under Racoon City if they had the choice.
That's great because the one thing everyone hates about skyscrapers is the view.
That's when you are not the owner...
I love the view
Ah yes, have people pay to live in the basement of a basement.
Or forced to, this was the nightmare envisioned by H.G. Wells in the time machine. The riff raff were kept out of sight underground, while the elite enjoyed having the surface all to themselves.
@@SteveLomas-k6ki mean who think otherwise. Also i dont get comments promoting this with cringe arguments. R they just bots or paid actors or just stupid woke lo, sers.
@@SteveLomas-k6kalso half of the points this vid make are straight up missingormation
I suspect that living underground and not having a clear view of the sky will harm our mental health.
It could, but I question how often the average person even looks out the window unless checking on kids in the yard, or who pulled into the driveway. Neither of which is likely to be a concern here😄
@@tracy419 most people still have to leave the house to work.
Eat vitamins
@@darkshadowsx5949 based on the number of accidents I tow, a good portion of them are staring at their phones😉😄
@@mega6076synthetic vitamins are a far cry from an actually healthy lifestyle and diet.
The idea sounds fun, until you're the engineer whose job is to design the plumbing to take away all the waste water out back to the surface (also accounting for excess rain water & flooding)
That's not counting cleaning up debris and stuff falling into the depth. if you want to grow tree, expect a lot of dead leaves and stuff falling in.
You could do sewerage aquifers below the thing and treat it with everything else, then pump the rough treated liquid back up to ground level to transport them away, you don't need to fill the damn thing to the bottom as living space.
bioreactor on the bottom sub-floors?
doesnt need to be pumped back to the surface at all. feces can be fertilizer, urine can be filtered
yeah, pretty terrible idea imo.
Some downsides were mentioned in the video but im just gonna list em anyways just as they pop into my mind so here we go:
- Earthquakes suck a lot above ground when the building is super rigid while wooden buildings or just buildings with movement in mind fare way better. I doubt a rigid Earthscraper would fare to well after a few years of earthquakes weakening the structure.
- Flooding or even rainwater will be a major issue. Unlike on ground level you can't just let it flow in some drainage system or let it cover the streets and flow into the next river. Every single drop has to be pumped up or you will turn you nice little earthscraper into a ducking lake. Also insulating the entire thing against groundwater is basically impossible to get 100% tight.
- Sunlight is just not there. Forget about having real plants or Vitamin D without supplementing with special lights and pills. Also have fun getting depression from beeing in your home. Just ask people living far north how nice it is not seeing the sun for a few months.
- Cost is gonna be crazy out of proportion. If you ever wanted to build a house with a basement you know how crazy expensive earthwork is. Just build regular appartment buildings i beg you.
- Air quality will be shit too unless you have huge ventilation systems that cycle the whole place manually. Also, since a lot of fun gasses like carbon monoxide sink to the ground, have fun dying if these systems ever fail or maybe a fire breaks out a few stories above you.
- Space efficiency is shit as well. You have to basically build a valley, not just straigth down to at least get some sunlight down in your pit of despair. And still there are no "views" to speak of and your earthscraper will take up a lot more space than conventional buildings with the same capacity. Most courtyards in conventional buildings suck already as you have to have a really big courtyard as not to always be staring into your neighbours bathroom across just a few meters away from your living room.
- Emergencys are gonna really suck if you have to evacuate. You know the signs that says not to use the Elevators in case of emergency? Well thats all fine if you have to go down a few floors but imagine you are 75 years old on floor -32 and you have to get out due to a fire or your shitty soon-to-be-lake flooding because mildly above average rain than predicted. Congrats you gonna die 3 floors higher than anyone expected you to but you are still drowing at least 15 floors beneath the surface.
Im sure there are many more reasons but that should be enough of a deterrent tbh.
So please just get your zoning right and re-densify your cities and maybe move unsightly structures like roads and train lines underground if you got some money to spare.
Most of them in the vid aren't even true lmao. I dont even think they genuinely doesnt know.
That is certainly a list of 'downsides'
You know you also named all the problems with traditional sky scrapers. Flooding weakens the structural entigrity for skyscrapers that have massive concrete foundations. A fire couple floors below you welp your fucked. Oh no a beam cant hold up bye bye. Strong storm or winds. Lightening. Glass...glass is not a structurally sound yet its used so people get their vitamin D. And most people still dont get it living underground wont make a difference. The only difference in a sky scraper vs earthscraper is do you want to die via falling or get burried where you die?
You've exaggerated a lot of these issues but yeah it's still a ridiculous idea.
(earthquakes are location dependant, flooding can be protected against and is location dependant, emergencies carry a similar risk to a normal skyscraper, sunlight can be mimicked or let in through lightwells albeit badly)
Cost and air quality are the big two imo. Just take mines for example. They're dug to a comparable depth and they have to have hundreds of millions of dollars of ore reserves to be economic. It's just not justifiable to dig something like this out to house people.
@@henrymccoy2306 in terms of mechanical stress, earthquakes are 🤓 far less problematic for underground structures
My first thought for emergency evacuation would be "water-vators". Elevators with cars that rise naturally due to buoyancy in water. In an emergency, you could "cut the cable" and quickly float to the surface (with spare pods for subsequent trips). In theory, they should work even in a complete power outage.
Oh yay, the domes, the silos and all the post apocalyptic sci-fi living. Let’s go
I am going to start a sump pump factory if this plan takes off.
0:35 i love how he put a image of a minecraft earthscraper
These could be developmental experiments for interstellar planetary options.
Or settling some of the rocky regions of Antartica or the Artic
one upside of it ,is that you most never heat your home ,never cold , never to hot . looks cool :p
Actually depend on the depth, it can get very hot, 175-200 Degree F. Cooling and fresh air are going to be a major concerns.
@@DwynNWynns Yeah, the deeper you go the hotter it will get.
That just sounds like the TV show Silo. I think we'd be much better off just focusing on building walkable cities with more even population density...~4-5 story buildings with retail/commercial on the first floor and apartments above. Fewer sprawling suburbs.
The only thing good about the sky scrappers is their cool factor. It is, in my opinion, a good argument to build a few of those. But for the Earthscrappers, I'm not even sure it is a cool enough concept to justify the cost and inefficiency.
♪♫I AM A DWARF AND I'M DIGGING A HOLE! DIGGY DIGGY HOLE DIG DIGGY HOLE!♪♫
Hey stop singing and get back to work we don’t want that human to whip us or kill us
It's a great idea theoretically, but if there were as many earth scrapers as sky scrapers they would pose just as much risk of compromising the geographical integrity of the earth as skyscrapers, if not worse.
This is just the logical extension of the earth sheltered movement of the 1970's & 80's. Malcolm Wells used to design very fanciful earth covered houses. And some of the other architects in the field were Charles G. Woods, Jeremy Jones, and Larry S. Chalmers. Most of their work was in single family homes but Malcolm did do the Cary Arboretum plant science building in New York and he tried to do the Desert Park Visitors Center in Big Bend, TX but I don't know if it was ever built.
Those cgi pics were cool and all, but they needed to be more yellow seeing as they're in Mexico. People will be confused.
as long as i have clean, filtered air, i would not mind living in one
People have been living underground since the Stone Age, basically humans lived in root cellars providing protection from wind & cold. When we travel to Moon and Mars humans will move underground again.
humanity doesnt deserve colonizing the stars at all.
Yeah this technology wiill be great for the Moon and Mars. I was thinking about somehting like this the other day.
I would live there, i think a lot of women would live in places like this honestly.
I think it's a great concept, we already have ways of getting real sunlight in buildings.
And the constant temperature, plus security.
Yep. Large lenses that focus sunlight onto bundles of fiber optic strands could "transmit" sunlight fairly large distances underground.
There have been a few different skylight type inventions using that general concept already. Someone could easily adapt it to a scale necessary for this type of application.
I guess this will be great for the Moon and Mars colonies; perhaps we should make one once here before try do it out there.
Converting existing mines & quarries is definitely feasible, but excavating a location for the sake of construction would probably be unaffordable. Which usually means you won't be able to build these where they're needed most but hey - it's free real estate!
Yeah, I was thing about the same issue. The biggest problem by far is the price for excavation and to get rid of the the material. The cheapest way to circumvent this is to use already the dug holes left from carriers, but they are far from city centers, to say the least.
How do subterranean buildings actually behave in a earthquake? Tokyo has massive underground drainage so they should have some data.
Also as a side, water is a massive issue. I live near one of the few mins in the UK where water pumping isn't needed. It normally is, active protection always makes me worried.
Definitely with you on the need for active protection.
It's the main issue I have with nuclear energy.
Make all safety features passive and I'm on board.
water drainage and earthquakes have nothing to do with each other
@@nomercyinc6783 you robot?
Very cool and promising.
I think the sweet spot, though, is a blend of both. Skyscrapers, with a very, very deep basement. Live above, put the pumps and other machines below. Also...
- We already anchor our skyscrapers with pylons that go down to bedrock, this is just making use of that space.
- Grow hydroponics in the underground area, helping to filter the building's air and provide fresh food. Not likely enough to sustain, but it'll help.
- Circulate the air. In summer, bringing up the cool air from below will keep the higher levels cool. Likewise in winter, the deep air is slower to cool, and can thus warm the higher layers.
*One silly flood later...*
ありがとうございます！
What about the water collected from precipitation? Do the lowest levels just drown? Cool idea, but it needs a roof.
Ideally you would collect it and use it in the city itself. Having a place to collect rainwater could be very useful.
"Caves of Steel" Let's go!
Asimov's best novel IMO.
See this sounds good until you realize that they'd only be particularly usable in certain areas, and they are particularly prone to water and ice damage in the shallow parts especially. Last but not least, living underground is stifling.
Thanks!
Thank you!
Not a bunker… but a great solution to avoid everything that’s going south above ground 😂
All underground properties are basically a hybrid between a coffin and prison. No way in hell would I live underground.
1:30 "Hop on an elevator to take them down..." 🤣
I like this idea. Although I'm curious how builders would handle flood risk and seepage in places with high water tables and significant rainfall.
flood you have nuclear blast doors close in case of severe flooding, as for seepage lining the area with clay should do a good enough job so that sump pumps that handle underwater tunnels can handle it without a sweat.
Let’s see how our true modern society would adopt these architectural wonder, the wealthy would live on the top 1/2 the middle would live in the other half above ground, and the poor and veterans would be required to live in the sub basements were we all know there would be no law and order. I would turn into the dystopian horror show we all know is coming if the ultra wealthy are not reigned in like we did during the “First Gilded Age” because most economists already say we are in the “Second Gilded Age” that puts even the Rockefeller’s and the Carnegie’s to shame when it comes to the total wealth within just 5 to 10 Americans. So no thank you, we see how architects design buildings for art and social movements and it never works out for the average citizen.
Earth Scrapers make a lot of sense for mars. This is the kind of base we can live in, and protect us from 2 month storms.
it takes more energy to get fresh air down than to simply have a skyscraper
If you ever wondered how they can get you to pay for air, this is the idea of a lifetime here.
Glad to finally talk about the future of human habitation.
I would rather live in a bunker underground and experience nature above cheaper,safer and more convinient.
Than live above surrounded by bunkers and pay premium for it.
As current paradigm becomes unlivable people will get it.
Small houses and downsizing only go that far.
Contrary underground IS free land.
Reverse skyscrapers are not optimal though there is better forms. Helixes and spirals are better options. You still want to be able to have faster access to the surface.
Above ground buildings are forced to be built vertically.
Underground you unlock a new horizontal dimention in which buildings can grow and be built.
Going straight down is suboptimal and put too much strain on the structure.
Once we have proof that this works and can be done, we need entire cities built like this!!!
Yeah because never being able to see the sun again is the life we want...
Vaults.
Horizontal elevators would become more popular and you'd need a few hospitals down there for emergency.
OPS! The FACT that population is actually in reverse kind of kill this whole concept....ops!
Yeah most people are still going of dystopian concepts from the 70's and don't look at the actual current stats.
Only way this is working is if you build it into the side of a mountain. That solves most of your issues with things like drainage since one side is open. Basically you just build all your houses straight backwards into the mountain. So basically an entry, family room, guest bathroom and room, kitchen/dining room, and then a hallway leading towards the residents bathrooms and rooms. So probably five to six rooms heading back into the mountain for a decent sized home with 10+ rooms. AC and heating would be decent since most is underground even if it's not as good as deep underground. Weather would be less of an issue and it's a better bunker during a war than your typical house. It's basically what that quarry resort looks like. Cost is still higher than a typical building though, so it only makes sense if you are already in a hilly city where the land costs are high. And we already do this in some areas where people want large houses, an amazing view, but don't want to spend massive amounts of money on more land.
As the temp goes up to make life impossible on the surface, these underground complexes may be the only hope until human life on the planet is down to .0001 of it's current numbers and the Earth has time to heal itself.
The main feature ia that if we render the earth too hot to survive outdoors, underground structure s like these will be easier to seal and make their air and water systems self sustaining.
This is probably the best example of something that we could be doing with present technology, but are not. As long as it's done right, it's doable. It looks like it's not being done because there's little motivation from would-be buyers, builders, or especially, financiers. Even for a smaller pilot project, it costs more upfront, and from an engineering standpoint, relatively little is known about it. I'd think it'd be the perfect high-risk project for a bold entrepreneur, with lots of publicity if it succeeds, and tax losses if it fails. I'm not sure that I'd count the partially underground luxury development as relevant to this model.
The most attractive thing about underground living done right is the steady temperatures, no worries about hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, flooding, freezing pipes, etc.
Fault zones are a non-starter, would rip buildings apart. Unsure about areas with seismically active but unfractured, stable rock. Liquifaction is not a problem in solid rock, but must be dealt with between the bedrock and the surface. Earthquakes are still a problem, even if a building is 100% stable, things fall off shelves, etc. Best to build in areas as seismically inactive as possible.
For various reasons, somewhere between 15 to 50 stories deep would be best, depending on the climate there. Generally, deeper works better in colder climates. Some tapering in descending levels is a good idea, allows more rock to support the levels above, especially if there are adjacent buildings. Larger dwelling areas would be built wider, not deeper.
Forget trying to get sunlight down there, people will go topside for parks, sunlight, open space. Disabled people can live on the top levels and use ramps to get to the surface in the rare event that the elevators fail.
Build underground cities under higher ground with no possibility of flooding. Use thorium nuclear power plant nearby but not in the building for reliability. Because you don't want to just pump in hot or cold air, use heat exchangers. Because of their vital importance, both power plants and ventilation must have several units, able to operate independently and back each other up.
Technology? Yes. Better protected from natural disasters? No. Earthquakes can destroy an underground building just as easily as one above ground. Also, it can be flooded more easily even with pumps. Also some people who are claustrophobic would not be able to handle being far underground even with artificial sunlight and windows. And a fire could spread quickly and be more difficult to fight without very good design and planning. Plus possibly toxic smoke would be widely distributed by ventilation systems.
You glass is half empty
Bad idea, we'll be looking for trouble if we do this....humanity's place is on the surface.
It will require a lot of energy - aboveground constructions only require surfaces to be built. Underground will require not only that, but replacing all the stone with air. And pumps for water/air. Also, earthquakes, the construction has maximal cohesion with crust.
I believe concepts like this of an enclosed city is called an arcology project. I understand that it's meant to be more efficient but honestly this just sounds dystopian. early models like this sounds good but it will expand and become larger until you do have the problem of people never leaving the project, it's inevitable that we would do so if we allowed our upper class to start stuff like this.
Considering most of the population of planet earth couldn't stay indoors for 2 weeks, no, we couldn't ALL live underground.
You could build this in a desert or inside of a mountain but if you build it anywhere near a river, this effectively becomes a deathtrap. Even just heavy rain would be a danger to a structure like this.
Heating and cooling could be done via a series of pipes, heat rises , cool air sinks, So if you have both above ground and below ground floors, you could transfer air from the lowest levels to higher levels as it should be naturally cooled by its depth and in return pull hot air from upper floors to lower levels.
If done deep enough you could have turbines along the air shafts so that both hot and cold air lines could produce some power.
While we are at it, you might as well build it like a vessel, setting up each floor into sub blocks with bulk head doors that could be closed to lock specific areas if the need called for it, no need to flood all 50 levels when you could easily lock away section 4 sublevel 12.
All this is nice and fancy, with one major draw back, No one wants to look out their window and see nothing but the darkness of the hole they reside in. People want penthouse views, with separation from those who they consider / feel are beneath them.
The lack of sunlight would be a big problem. There are lamps for reptiles that produce the necessary uv b light but they would have to be run on timers to avoid skin problems
What about underground farming under every city and a network of underground buildings with parks, entertainment, transportation etc
This is a nice video, and I totally agree. But buildings and roads actually just account for 1% of usable land use, while agriculture account for 50%. So It is much more important to find ways to eat food that require less land to produce. (spoiler: the solution is more beans, and less cow)
As long as it was done to spread people out more rather than to concentrate more people into a smaller area, I think it would be good. Every person needs at least an acre of land to live on. These places that are creating increasingly smaller apartments with no land to make use of are creating more problems than they solve.
Here I am just imagining there's no need to worry about farming because all the human wastes from the topmost floors will be sent down periodically to the lowest floor as fertilisers. Let the lowest floors be directly connected to the earth with access to groundwater and plenty of UV lighting facilities.
I think I would rather live in this than a skyescraper, but what would i know.... i can only imagine
The concept of "Earthscrapers" make me remind the Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland Hotel in Suburban Shanghai, China, which was built on a big hole from a abandoned quarry.
In regards to the flooding, rain water over the course of a day probably wouldn’t flood an 20 story earthscraper. If it’s bad, it might flood the lowest 2 floors depending on the area between “buildings”. (I’m thinking a version with empty space in the middle like the “hole-scraper” mentioned.)
So one thing you would do is deliberately have a little lake area at the bottom (say 2 story’s tall) to collect any rain, condensation or leakages.
This little lake could then be regularly pumped up to the surface to a nearby water treatment plant and redistributed as drinking water.
But the main idea of the lake is to create a buffer so if there was a sudden flood, it wouldn’t be disastrous.
Also, this concept would only work in environments that don’t have flooding on the surface and somewhere near like a cliff (to make waste drainage easier) I would guess 🤷♂️
It's more efficient to build tunnels into separate rooms like an ant colony than to excavate that much earth. Removing that much earth before filling in with our own might also increase seismic activity because of the sudden lack of pressure to push back.
Well, since I don't even want to live in skyscraper, an earthscraper is out for me
This does beg the question why so many European mega cities with little space have massive supermarkets above ground with not a single window in them
prone to flooding
I don’t mind the idea of this. But I’m not confident it’d actually be safer from an earthquake. Even more concerning to me is drainage. I’d probably have nightmares about the earthscraper I live in flooding.
Sunlight is not essential to human mental health, but natural Lighting is.
Underground settlements are a great idea, and if well done, I'd love to live in them.
The key is to have large, well lit spaces that simulate the outdoors, they must have natural light. We have certain "Happy Lamps" that produce natural light today. Most of our artificial lights only emit certain frequencies of light, such as red, green, and blue. The light source here would need to emit everything from the Visible light spectrum. This is key to keeping up human mental health, and the light would also be usable to grow plants.
In addition, having standardized "fake windows" in rooms would be something that should be a staple in these Settlements. The fake window would basically be a tv screen emitting the natural light, and can take on the image of various scenery, anything real or fantasy.
With all that, I think people could have happy lives in these places.
This looks very promising. I recall a proposal like this for the Zócalo in Mexico City.
Which would be an absolutely moronic idea given that most of downtown Mexico City is built on top of what used to be a fricking lake and wetlands, meaning the ground in the area is soft. Add to that the fact that Mexico City is prone to earthquakes.
@@oscarmanzanoserna3115 In spite of never having gone further into Mexico than Tijuana, BMN, I did wonder about both of those things. Even so, it would be swell to do in some more practical location, maybe Times Square in Manhattan -- no, wait, it used to be a pond....
This is a critical technology that needs to be developed if we are to have any significant presence and infrastructure on Luna and Mars.
"Innovative" and "forward thinking" architects trying not to make a building fit for a dystopia challenge (impossible)
It may have limited viability in certain geographic zones for specialty usage. Broadly, it seems like a dystopian nightmare.
These would be perfect in the midwest, preserve farmland while also building a LARGE city...
2 inches of rain would be a mess to drain. Assuming entire site is watertight
yes, ants and termites already use this to compensate with their enormous population.
just build a submersible building, no more need to worry about earthquakes, hurricanes, rising sea levels, etc...
I think that fighting wind pressure is more manageable than isostatic pressure
Funny, I was just thinking this the other day. All grocery stores, storage units, dmv, financial institutions and of the sort by law need to be below ground level. Ground level is more for public easements, greenspaces, cafe's, ice cream shops, shops/shopping, etc.
80% of the problems of earthscrapers are already things that modern skycrapers have to deal with anyways, so frankly speaking. Not to mention that you could just build in both directions as well. Modern skyscrapers have to drill down to the earth's bedrock for a proper foundation anyways, so if you hollow it out, it'll be extra space to build. Sure, no 60 floors below and 100 floors above, but 30+30? Once you solve the 100% reliable air circulation issue, there's really not much left after safety studies to determine where they can be safely built with current technologies.
As terrifying as it is to be buried alive in one, imagine how much worse it would be if your 50 floor skyscraper suddenly fell over for the exact same fault? Frankly, the threat of being burried isn't really much worse than falling to your death from the 50th floor or being crushed by the second floor falling on you in a two story building like what happened recently in Turkey.
I'm not educated on this subject enough to form a solid conclusion about this, I have no shame in admitting that.
I will say however that whenever I hear about Earthscrapers, all that comes to my mind is Dwarf Holes commonly found in fantasy stories; and given the fact that the past several years have been absolute Hell for every single person on planet Earth, why not have that little spark of fun to help boost our happiness, right?
Besides, we do already have the technology to build these things; missile siloes, bunkers & underground subway stations comes to mind; we just need to add "residential" to that list.
The worst idea in the world. Wait for a disaster, a collapse, a fire or whatever. It's a death trap. A high-rise building is ventilated and in the worst case, you can go down the stairs, they can take you out by helicopter. Try to escape from a hole by climbing 50 or 100 floors by stairs.
These structure on the surface would need to have a hardened ring like structure around the enter/exit points to protect from surface water. They would have to be defensive in nature. There would need to be more than one exit. Take control of the entrance/exit and everyone below is your hostage.
in an old 50's science mag (cant remember which one) I saw a very similar design using an open pit mine they were proposing in Russia with a dome over the top walls lined in office buildings 1st 3 levels being gardens and farmland cool idea hope some one does it
i personally am extremely fascinated with the idea of living underground, although, it never seems to workout in dystopian stories we know.. fallout, the 100, etc.. there is something romantic about it. i think they key is people need to stop being controlling like a govt. when you live down there, also just let people leave the building, and explore outside air, a few times a day i they like. our connections in life, rely on our connections to eachother, not jusst interpersonally, face to face, but also networkingly, on the internet.
This makes alot of sense to me. Its the easiest way to break the 1:mile tall sky scraper from 1st floor. Not ground floor lol
Most skyscrapers in big cities are built on sturdy bedrock, which is the exact opposite of what you want if digging a big hole. Instead, dig multiple deep access points and build sideways to unlimited measures. Sunlight is for farms, not buildings. Remote non-urban locations would be ideal - mountains, deserts, frozen wastes, Mars. It worked for the Lumarians!
I’ve actually lived in climates where an underground city would be preferable. Tucson Arizona, specifically.
Cities are not a problem.. we can put all of humanity in a city of a mid size island.
living underground makes the internal clock go crazy.
in the past 10 years I spent around 14 hours a day inside in the same room the only time I leave is to work go the grocery store or to do some long distance cycling use to do other outdoor things but laws have changed and people have gone crazy
that can easily be corrected
I don't think an inverted ivory tower would solve many problems. The difficulties with urban environments have nothing to do with what is good about an earthscraper. Would it be a socially integrated habitat, the ultimate gated community, or a literal dystopian hell hole?
And If IT doesnt work, it will make the perfect Setting for a Desaster Movie. Like Towering Inferno, just deeper.