Hang skyscraper from orbiting asteroid: NY architects behind Mars ice station (PHOTOS)
Get your parachute ready: radical design plans have been unveiled for a skyscraper (Earthscraper? Ed) that hovers over the Earth.
The futuristic ‘Analema Tower’ revealed by New York-based architects Clouds AO, proposes building from the sky down as opposed to from the ground up.
According to the agency it is possible to strap or hang a building to an ASTEROID orbiting the Earth with such precision that the building floats just above the surface.
The design deploys a ‘Universal Orbital Support System’ (UOSS) in which high-strength cables are attached to an asteroid lowered over Earth. Seriously,
The tower is suspended from this cable, effectively floating over our planet as the asteroid orbits above.
The high rise would travel in a 24-hour figure-eight cycle over major cities across northern and southern hemispheres, returning to exactly the same position in the sky each day, Clouds AO Architects explain.
Leaving the building, as it were, going for a walk, requires a parachute.
The building would be divided into sections dedicated to different activities, with businesses occupying the lower end of the tower and residents living two-thirds of the way up. The higher level floors are to be reserved for ‘devotional activities’.
The size and shape of the windows would change throughout the building depending on pressure and temperature changes between floors. Upper windows, which will have more sunlight hours due to the curvature of the Earth, would have rounded elevations to cope with the increased pressure.
Solar panels would generate power and water would be collected from cloud condensation and rain.
Supertall skyscraper hangs from orbiting asteroid in Clouds Architecture Office concept: https://t.co/mBhDhNQWnqpic.twitter.com/ha3imdeeIh
— Dezeen (@Dezeen) March 23, 2017
The designers believe that the whopping cost of construction would be recovered by charging high rents. “If the recent boom in residential towers proves that sales price per square foot rises with floor elevation, then Analemma Tower will command record prices, justifying its high cost of construction,” the company said.
The company has assured those who think the plan sounds more fiction than fact that the proposal is not beyond the realms of reality - pointing to the European Space Agency’s plan for asteroid mining and NASA’s scheduled asteroid retrieval mission of 2021.
Clouds AO is itself no stranger to space exploration projects, previously winning NASA’s 3D Printed Habitat Challenge for Mars with its concept the Mars Ice Home.
