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Urban Characteristics of Underground Cities and Extraterrestrial Colonies: Challenges and Opportunities
Abstract
The World Bank has reported that urban areas currently accommodate over 50% of the global population, with this figure set to increase significantly over the coming decades. To cater to this influx of inhabitants, underground infrastructures must be developed within cities, creating additional space for individuals to thrive within urban environments. Concurrently, there is a growing interest in the colonization of extraterrestrial lands, made possible through advancements in space technology and exploration. In both cases, the habitable regions are confined within inhospitable environments, resulting in similarities in typical habitation structures. However, underground cities have the advantage of egress being possible within a few minutes, while the challenges of space colonization include radiation exposure, extreme temperatures, a hard vacuum environment, and a return trip to Earth of approximately a week. This paper seeks to examine the urban components, city image elements, and challenges of underground city spaces, intending to develop a framework for the urban characteristics of extraterrestrial colonies. The goal is to gain an understanding of the urban characteristics of underground cities and space architecture to develop guidelines for city development in challenging environments.
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This open access textbook is a comprehensive introduction to space syntax method and theory for graduate students and researchers. It provides a step-by-step approach for its application in urban planning and design. This textbook aims to increase the accessibility of the space syntax method for the first time to all graduate students and researchers who are dealing with the built environment, such as those in the field of architecture, urban design and planning, urban sociology, urban geography, archaeology, road engineering, and environmental psychology. The textbook gradually eases the reader into the fundamental concepts and leads them towards complex theories and applications. In summary, the general competencies gain after reading this book are:
– to understand, explain, and discuss space syntax as a method and theory;
– be capable of undertaking various space syntax analyses such as axial analysis, segment analysis, point depth analysis, or visibility analysis;
– be able to apply space syntax for urban research and design practice;
– be able to interpret and evaluate space syntax analysis results and embed these in a wider context;
– be capable of producing new original work using space syntax.
This holistic textbook functions as compulsory literature for spatial analysis courses where space syntax is part of the methods taught. Likewise, this space syntax book is useful for graduate students and researchers who want to do self-study. Furthermore, the book provides readers with the fundamental knowledge to understand and critically reflect on existing literature using space syntax.
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Over half of the global population lives in urban areas, making the issue of space a pressing environmental factor. The development of large-scale underground complexes in (mega-)cities is a solution to healthy urban growth and many governments have already adopted the development of underground (office) workspaces (UWS). Engineering can develop such high quality spaces; yet, there is limited understanding of how the public perceives UWS. UWS are not the same as other workspaces, and thus special assessment tools are needed. Here, we present the Underground Workspaces Questionnaire (UWSQ), which measures pre-occupant attitudes towards UWS. Analysis (N = 1080) identified three factors with positive aspects associated with feeling protected, whereas confinement was independent of affective responses. Predictably, responses to the three factors correlated with claustrophobia but were independent constructs. UWSQ can help policymakers and architects understand how populations holistically respond to the idea of working in an underground office.
The concept of a multinational MoonVillage, as proposed by Jan Wörner of ESA, is analyzed with respect to diverse factors affecting its implementation feasibility: potential activities and scale as a function of location, technology, and purpose; potential participants and their roles; business models for growth and sustainability as compared to the ISS; and implications for the field of space architecture. Environmental and operations constraints that govern all types of MoonVillage are detailed. Findings include: 1) while technically feasible, a MoonVillage would be more distributed and complex a project than the ISS; 2) significant and distinctive opportunities exist for willing participants, at all evolutionary scales and degrees of commercialization; 3) the mixed-use space business park model is essential for growth and permanence; 4) growth depends on exporting lunar material products, and the rate and extent of growth depends on export customers including terrestrial industries; 5) industrial-scale operations are a precondition for lunar urbanism, which goal in turn dramatically drives technology requirements; but 6) industrial viability cannot be discerned until significant in situ operations occur; and therefore 7) government investment in lunar surface operations is a strictly enabling step. Because of the resources it could apply, the U.S. government holds the greatest leverage on growth, no matter who founds a MoonVillage. The interplanetary business to be built may because for engagement.
Space is a rare commodity in the built environment. This drives urban developers to seriously explore the underground as an option for urban expansion, at least for some specific facilities. For many centuries underground and cave cities have been constructed at scattered locations around the globe, particularly in harsh climatic zones. Underground urban expansion was strong in Canada (Montreal and Toronto) in the 1960s–1990s, and today such development is booming in China. This goes in parallel with rapid improvement of tunnelling techniques which have become cheaper, safer, and faster. Together with economic growth and vision, these improvements have supported significant expansion of underground facilities particularly in Japan, Italy, and Norway and in China which is now the world’s leading nation in tunnelling. One of the boundary conditions for safe underground development is proper knowledge of the geoscientific conditions of the subsurface. Since subsurface information can now be rapidly digitised, stored in databases and coupled with GIS in many countries and cities, geological and geotechnical information has become more accessible, and more detailed interpretation of subsurface characteristics has become possible. With regards to the future, this chapter describes four global developments and trends (population, urbanisation, quality of life/economic growth and environmental awareness) which, in combination, will probably contribute to increased urban land prices. A fifth trend (progress in science and technology) will make the underground more accessible as a feasible option for urban expansion and reduce uncertainties in geoscientific modelling. However, psychological barriers and legislative restrictions may frustrate or delay further underground expansion. With time, these will be overcome in places where the need for such development and the benefits for society are greatest.
An organizational schema is developed and presented to facilitate efficiency and effectiveness of the global community interested in professionalizing the field of space architecture. The schema is based on fundamental principles of volunteer organizations, standard aerospace management practice, and unique considerations of space architecture. A structure is provided that can help identify and coordinate work, ensure coverage of critical growth needs, and align volunteer skills with task requirements.
The book presents a new theory of space: how and why it is a vital component of how societies work. The theory is developed on the basis of a new way of describing and analysing the kinds of spatial patterns produced by buildings and towns. The methods are explained so that anyone interested in how towns or buildings are structured and how they work can make use of them. The book also presents a new theory of societies and spatial systems, and what it is about different types of society that leads them to adopt fundamentally different spatial forms. From this general theory, the outline of a 'pathology of modern urbanism' in today's social context is developed.
Singapore is creating a subterranean master plan
- G Scruggs
Can humanity’s new giant leap into space succeed? BBC news
- P Ghosh