Architecture is moving up, according to Ostap Rudakevych. The partner and co-founder of NYC-based Cloud Architecture has designed a building that will orbit the earth … while hanging from an asteroid. The firm specializes in artistic installations and speculative design.
We’ve already experienced life in space with Skylab and the International Space Station. Cloud’s new Analemma Tower will now allow residential and commercial architecture to leave the ground and move into orbit.
How high can we go?
The 28.5 km high building (about 17.1 miles) will dwarf the world’s tallest skyscrapers. It will stretch through the atmosphere at about 34 times the height of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world). That’s 11.8 times the height of the proposed Dubai City Tower, part of the Jumeirah Gardens Project. With the top suspended at an elevation of 32 km and the bottom level at 3.5 km, the top level gets 40 more minutes of daily sunlight than the bottom.
Analemma Tower will be an encapsulated city unto itself. There are levels for sleeping, working, and worship; garden areas will be included as well. Office and business activity will be located on lower levels. Sleeping levels are about two-thirds of the way up. The coldest, darkest parts at the top serve as worship, reliquary, and funerary spaces. And, by the way, it is cold outside the building. Even the air outside the lowest level is predicted to average a temperature of -4 degrees Celsius (25 Fahrenheit).
Hitched to a giant asteroid with mega-strength cables
The building will be suspended with strong cables from an asteroid. Where do you get an asteroid, you ask? The plan is to capture it and place it in orbit around the Earth. Now while that may sound impossible, we may be close to making it reality. NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission proposes to capture an asteroid and put it into orbit. The mission, if approved and funded, is scheduled to begin as early as 2021.
Space-based solar panels located outside Earth’s atmosphere will harness the sun’s rays 24-7 to provide electricity. Water will be gathered from clouds, and rain and will be continuously filtered and recycled throughout the system. Ion thrusters will power movement to major cities across the globe using the same the technology that flew the Deep Space 1 mission (1998) by asteroid 9969 Braille and comet Borelly.
Construction will ideally take place in Dubai, home to the four tallest skyscrapers in the world.
A continuous orbit
The mega-tower repeats a figure-8 orbit on a 24 hour cycle, that is where the name Analemma originates. If you wake up in Toronto one morning, you’ll also wake up in Toronto the next. Residents could conceivably lunch over a panoramic view of the Caribbean and relax with evening cocktails while gazing at the Andes.
Docking stations at the tops of tall buildings secure ports for onboarding and offboarding passengers and goods. Or if you’re feeling even more adventurous, you can hop off the fast way with your own parachute.
Living with thousands of people in space – while moving all over the world and never packing? Just think of it as the ultimate cruise ship.