Page 92 - Vertical City

92 The vertical city

“possible small city of 30.000 inhabitants” I imagined
when Marcel Crochet and Raymond Lemaire entrusted
me 1 with the study for the west development of Lou-
vain-la-Neuve.

This city of 30.000 inhabitants requires approxima-
tely the construction of two to three million m2 of gross
floor surface.

While the constructions of this potential small city
occupy over a third of its territory and that ɣ (the
influence of its networks) is more than 1,5, the buil-
dings of the small vertical city occupy only 13,5% of the
ground in our latitudes and, with ɣ = 0,5, the impact of
its networks is reduced three times.

Imagine building 43 cylindrical towers of 34 m (and a
base of 48 m) average diameter 2 on a plan of equilateral
triangles of 146,2 m per side (or 80,6 m in the tropics),
which we have studied for the L/B rule (figures 27 and
28 for L/B = 3,8; figures 29 and 30 for L/B = 1,87).

A central tower is surrounded by 3 neighborhoods
of equilateral triangles 584,8 m (322,4 m) per side (ins-
cribed in a circle of 1.169,6 (644,8 m) of diameter) at 120°
one from the other comprising 14 towers each. Around
it, for each of the 3 zones, 3 × 2 towers form a hexago-
nal first ring; 3 × 3 towers in a second hexagonal ring;
3 × 4 towers in a third hexagonal ring; and finally 3 × 5
towers in a fourth hexagonal ring.

1 With the accord of the board of directors of the Catholic Univer-
sity of Louvain.

2 The drawings that follow are theoretical graphics. Obviously, all the
towers of the city are of different forms and elements.