Page 100 - Vertical City

100 The vertical city

higher than the tree tops at around forty meters above
ground. They are carried by bridges of a free span of
only 98,2 m, 146,2 m minus 48 m, (32,6 m, 80,6 m minus
48 m), as compared to a typical span of 70 m for a stan-
dard European highway bridge) guyed between the
towers.

They are economically competitive, compared to
surface roads and underground networks, when main-
tenance and operation costs are taken into account, but
above all they create no environmental pollution and do
not encumber the ground.

They provide for horizontal connections from tower
to tower towards their banks of elevators, by bicycle or
on moving walkways in the city, and protected from the
wind and the rain. In this silent city, transportation of
goods does not require cars or trucks.

For the project in figure 27, in our latitudes with
L/B = 3,8, a ventilated and naturally lit parking garage for
17.160 cars 4 (available for displacements outside the city)
is developed on 10 to 13 levels on a 10-story base of the
hexagon, formed by the 6 towers of the first ring and
the constructions of 48 m in width that connect them.
This construction in the form of a hexagonal prism
surrounds a cylindrical structure of 168 m in diameter,

4 It is probable that the small, collapsible, electric cars will gradually
replace the cars we know today. The Hiriko (developed by MIT
and produced since 2012 in Spain) or the Armadillo-T (Korea, 2013)
folding respectively to 1,5 m and 1,3 m are the first models of this
type. They could thus be ranged in the base of each tower (even in
each dwelling!), and the space thus liberated in the parking garages
put to other uses.