How high (in) can a skyscraper be built? According to the Architecture Studio of New York Clouds Architecture Office (Clouds AO) 32,000 meters: this is the height that the Tower analem would reach, a skyscraper suspended in the space supported by an asteroid in geosynchronic orbit. The name derives from the particular geometric curve in the shape of eight, the analem, which would follow the path traced daily by the skyscraper above a big city like New York or Dubai. An ambitious project, not to mention utopianthat his creators describe in detail: let’s see what it is and how feasible it is.
Suspended. The first peculiarity is that this metatorre would have no contact with the earthbut it would be supported with ultra -resistant cables by an asteroid artificially positioned above the terrestrial atmosphere (a children’s game, in short). At the base of the building there would be offices and shops, in the central part houses and recreational areas, and in the highest one (which would reach 32,000 meters high) panoramic areas.
Self -sufficient. The skyscraper would be self -sufficient in terms of electricity, powered by solar panels arranged in the upper part and perpetually exposed to the sun, and water, thanks to a Water system based on atmospheric condensation and internal recycling. To move between the hundreds of plans, an electromagnetic lift without cables would be used.
Reachable in drone. Not being supported at any point on earth, the tower analem would be reachable only through high -speed drones or capsules. According to its developers, the ideal would be to build it Above Dubaiboth for the experience of the city with very high buildings (think of the Burj Khalifa, the highest skyscraper in the world) and for the decidedly more reduced construction costs than other places (a fifth in comparison with those of New York, for example).
The technical challenges. Despite the enthusiasm of those who have designed it, the Tower Analemma will remain, at least for now, only a project worthy of a science fiction movies: The technical and constructive challenges are numerous – from capturing and maintaining an asteroid in the terrestrial orbit (on their site the architects of Clouds AO refer to the mission of the NASA Asteroid Retrieval and Usevation scheduled for 2021, but then canceled) to the use of materials still in the experimental phase such as graphene and carbon nanotubes. Even living at 32,000 meters high would be complex -we would enjoy 45 minutes more than light a day, it is true, but we could not go out on the terrace to take a breath of air without wearing a protective suit, given the -40 ° C of external temperature.
“The astronauts inhabited the space station for decades, so perhaps it is not so bad,” the architects of Clouds AO say optimism. Crazy or visionaries? To posterity the arduous sentence.