Sky City 1000 is a hypothetical architectural project envisioned in the Tokyo metropolitan area. It was announced in 1989 during the height of the Japanese asset price bubble.
The plan consists of a building 1,000 metres (3,281 ft) tall and 400 m (1,312 ft) wide at the base, and a total floor area of 8 km2 (3.1 sq mi). The design, proposed in 1989 by Takenaka Corporation, would house between 35,000 and 36,000 full-time residents, as well as 100,000 workers. It comprises 14 concave dish-shaped “Space Plateaus” stacked one upon the other. The interior of the plateaus would contain greenspace, and on the edges, on the sides of the building, would be the apartments. Also included in the building would be offices, commercial facilities, schools, theatres, and other modern amenities.
Sky City 1000 was projected to be the next evolution in cities as it was to become a super skyscraper beyond anything we have even today. This means that it would have supported over 160,000 people within its massive structure, including malls, food courts, parks, and recreation centers.
I know, this looks ridiculous and probably designed by a mad-man but I assure you that this project was taken quite seriously for some time. However there were 4 problems with this project.
- How much resources it would need to be developed. Due to the sheer size of the monolith, it would require state-of-the-art materials to keep it up-straight and to produce enough materials, it would have to push smelting corporations to their limits for many decades to come, some argue that it could take up to 80-years to produce.
- Where to put the skyscraper?. The proposed location in Tokyo is necessary for the size of the building. This isn’t like building in central U.S., no, it’s building on the edge of an Island. I’m sure you could imagine how difficult it would be to solidify the land underneath it (deep underneath) and to have it earthquake-ready, especially during construction. It wouldn’t be too pleasant if a 3000ft+ “flying” city came crashing down. Not to mention the soil in Japan isn’t made to build buildings too high up.
- Getting people to move… For like a hundred years. You don’t build ROME in a day, but sometimes it’s more important to not build Rome due to the consequences that it entails. Consider having to tell tens of thousands of home owners that they need to move, businesses would have to shut down, and basically any access to the highway in that location would be blocked. Sure, eventually the outcome would be great but it’s a long process, it’s super expensive, especially since you have to buy all the houses, land and compensation for moving because you can’t just kick people out of their homes easily.
- Whether or not Japan is ready to invest into something so big. I’ve mentioned earlier that the cost is pretty high up but I didn’t mention how stupendous it is. The projected cost is in the billions, but that varies entirely on new technologies and the politics behind it. In this economy, while Japan may still be doing fairly well, it’s not ideal.
However, this project is remained Vision (which means not built).