Page 51 - Vertical City

NETWORKS OF THE CITIES 51

While for “the countryside” the self-sufficient
model can still be envisaged, although it is disap-
pearing, for small cities this physical communication
requires networks, whose nature and importance
must be defined.

The small city first of all needs a network of
sewers and drains leading to a treatment facility, then
a network to deliver water from a pure source. It
follows on the distribution of food and various goods
from a central market (when these cannot be ensured
by agricultural land and artisanal activities close to the
dwellings), energy distribution in all its forms known
today (wood, coal, gas, electricity, etc.), and finally dis-
tribution of information.

It is thus reasonable to model the networks
between the constructions of a community by consi-
dering the flow leaving and arriving at the physical
center of the surface that they occupy.

The theoretical model

All networks, whether distribution, information, fluids,
energies, goods, waste disposal or even human trans-
portation, can be modeled by conduits where the sec-
tions are proportional to the surfaces they supply.