Talk:Arcology
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I first heard of arcologies when I read Oath of Fealty. Many years later, when it was another horrible snowy Boston winter and I didn't have the time or money to go to the Caribbean, I thought, gee, somebody should build a big structure with a big indoor lake, a lot of south-facing glass, and hotels and restaurants and shops along the north wall.
Recently I saw a TV show about something called the Mall of America outside Minneapolis, an enormous shopping mall with 5000 retail stores, a bowling alley, a grove of trees, an amusement park with a roller coaster and other rides, and a university. Except for a little heating at the entrances, the whole thing is heated by body heat of the crowds and sunlight coming in the ceiling glass. Even in the ridiculously cold Minnesota winters, the only active temperature control they need is for cooling.
It occurred to me that these guys have solved 90 percent of the technical problems of building an arcology. One thing I wasn't able to figure out from the TV show was why they don't have residential space in the building. That would be the only thing preventing it from being a real arcology.
- Ask at Mall of America --Error 01:54, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I am from Minnesota, and have visited the Mall of America (MoA)from time to time. I like the 3 levels of rings around the amusement park, Knott's Camp Snoopy. Recently an Ikia furniture superstore has opened near the mall, giving mall shoppers a chance to visit another large arco-like complex. I do not know about the building techniques that went into the Ikia store, but a tentative plan has existed for some years to develop the area with large facilities such as MoA or the Ikia store, and to connect this area to the developing light rail (LRT) transport. Iflipti 05:22, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Would this count as an Arcology?
-Yes. It seems to use similar principles. Posting it on the topic page. -Iflipti 06:44, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
-It seems to me the Mall to Arcology comparison is quite overblown. The principle of an Arcology is to support human life on an ecological scale. While the heating system is admirable, the rest of the goal of the mall is not in line with arcological principles. The goal of maximizing the inflow and outflow of material and people, thereby accumulating money for the Mall's owners, is against the sustainable concept in Soleri's original idea. The point of a true arcology is to minimize the impact of urbanization on the earth. The profit maximization and associated large ecological footprint of a mall does not correspond with these values.
- -I agree somewhat with anonymous's point regarding the un-ecological nature of the business of the mall, but I'll counter with a criticism of Soleri to make a point. Soleri's vision of Arcosanti stands at a fraction of one percent completed after 30-some years. A project like an arco is going to go nowhere without a massive investment from an interested party, and that means businesses, who will of course want a return on their investment. Anonymous's complaint goes towards the wasteful nature of the business/consumer model, because consumer activity creates a lot of garbage. I don't see a problem with maximizing the inflow of people, because ideally you want people to use the space. For arcological principles to be increasingly applied within the business model, the ecological incentives must also be a cost-cutting incentives, including but not limited to solar & wind power, natural airflow systems, green corridors for passive cooling & natural beauty, or internal recycling centers. So granted, it's a weak comparision as the MoA is at best, a kind of proto-arcology without a progressive ecological policy. It's not ideal, but we must use the existing resources & infrastructure in place now to build towards the future. Iflipti 09:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Quote from the article: Some experts speculate that arcologies will become common in the information age
According to the definition in the information age article, "Information Age is a term applied to the period where movement of information became faster than physical movement, more narrowly applying to the 1980s or 1990s onward." ... I think the sentence should be deleted/rephrased because we clearly are already in the information age.
- Then go ahead and do it! This is Wikipedia! —Keenan Pepper 15:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Would the city of Diaspar in Arthur C. Clarke's "The City and the Stars" count as an arcology?
Vanamond
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[edit] "Sustainable urban planning"
I've re-inserted this category link. Sustainable urban planning was one of the prime motivations behind Soleri's development of the arcology idea, and is the primary interest of manya majority of the people who go to Arcosanti to study arcology. It does need more emphasis in this article (which I shall attempt to give it, if I can ever get away from the perpetual warfare over at Personal rapid transit), but in the meantime, the category link is still appropriate. Skybum 15:41, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
- I agree entirely that it's relevant. I should have explained in the edit summary, I moved it to Category:Urban studies and planning and Category:Environmental design as part of rationalising the subcategories of Category:Urban studies and planning. Category:Environmental design includes articles like this one - mostly it's related to urban design so far. When the category gets bigger we can have a fresh look at splitting it. On that note, I'll remove Category:Sustainable urban planning again (but if you disagree or have questions, please shoot and/or revert - I'm not intending to enforce my view). --Singkong2005 (t - c - WPID) 16:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
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- Hmm.. I took a look at the category, and my initial thoughts are: 1.) Sustainable Urban Planning is a vast and distinct concept, and thus deserving of a category unto itself, and 2.) Right now the category isn't actually very useful. New urbanism should be a major subset of sustainable urban plannning, while arcology theory is a relatively quite minor one, so it wouldn't make much sense to have those two subjects portrayed as being on par with one another. And there are many, many other branches of sustainable urban planning that aren't represented at all there. So, at first blush, it looks like you're correct that Arcology shouldn't be in this category, unless a great deal of other topics are, as well. I don't think I have enough background to understand or evaluate the category rationalization that you're currently undertaking; has there been any discussion of this anywhere, so that I can get a better understanding of it? In the meantime, I'll leave your edits alone. Skybum 17:32, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Bionic Tower
I am confused, the See Also link to Bionic tower reads Bionic Tower, Shanghai, but the link is to a location in Hong Kong. Does anyone know if there is a similar structure in Shanghai, or is there some confusion with the Dongtan proposal. Yendor1958 08:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Coruscant is NOT Arcology
Coruscant is most definitely not an Arcology, as can be seen in the wiki article on it, as well as any Star Wars sources. It is a city-planet (a sci-fi concept). It even contains arcologies, but it cannot be considered an "arcology" itself. [User:Dises|Dises]] 2 February 12, 2007
[edit] All-capitals complaint by anonymous user
Someone identified only by an IP address wrote the following and put it right into the article:
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- PLEASE NOTE: IT APPEARS THAT THIS ENTIRE WAS BASED ON FICTIONAL MISUSES OF THE TERM AND NEEDED TO BE REVISED. ITS LACK OF SOURCES HAD ALREADY BEEN NOTED. I AM AT THIS MOMENT LOOKING AT THE TEXTBOOK "Contemporary Urban Planning" by John Levy (3rd Ed. page 156) AND IT IS VERY CLEAR THAT PAOLO SOLERI'S TERM ARCOLOGY REFERS TO THE *PRINCIPLES* OF DESIGN, *NOT TO A STRUCTURE ITSELF*. ARCOLOGY REFERS TO THE SET OF DESIGN PRINCIPLES HE ENVISIONED, AND *"HYPERSTRUCTURE"* IS THE WORD THAT REFERS TO AN ACTUAL STRUCTURE FOLLOWING THOSE PRINCIPLES. THE PROBLEM WITH THIS ARTICLE SEEMS TO BE THAT PEOPLE WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE SIM CITY GAMES (WHICH MISUNDERSTOOD AND MISUSED THE TERM ARCOLOGY) HAVE DUPLICATED THIS ERROR OF THE GAME DESIGNERS. THINK ABOUT THE WORD ARCOLOGY; A WORD ENDING IN -OGY IS NOT A PHYSICAL OBJECT, BUT A FIELD OF STUDY OR RESEARCH - A GROUP OF MENTAL CONSTRUCTS. ARCOLOGY REFERS TO THE PRINCIPLES SOLERI ENVISIONED IN HIS BOOK, "The City in the Image of Man." *HYPERSTRUCTURE* IS THE WORD THAT DESCRIBES THE LARGE BUILDINGS/CITY SPACES.
- THIS ENTIRE ARTICLE NEEDED TO BE REVISED TO CORRECT THIS PROBLEM!!!!** BEFORE ANYONE IS TEMPTED TO REVISE IT, PLEASE BE SURE OF YOUR (REAL RATHER THAN FICTIONAL) SOURCES...
Whoever wrote that seems to think that the inventor of a term has total control over all subsequent uses of the term, that the meaning of a word never changes or evolves. Moreover, the technical sense used by experts is the only valid measure of meaning, even if a word has entered the non-technical human lexicon with a clear and widely understood meaning.
In other words, I completely reject this "note", and I propose that the article be reverted back to something more like it was before this was posted. (Though perhaps some discussion of the original or technical meaning of the word is warranted.) Kestenbaum 18:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm looking through this article for the sake of a paper on aquaculture, and I see multiple references to the idea that "arcology" means only a set of design principles and not "megastructures" like the ones I fondly remember from SimCity 2000. I grew up learning that "arcology" could refer to giant self-contained housing structures, and apparently a lot of other people did too, so that's what the word now means! Sure, let's mention the term's origin, but I second the switch to a wording that uses "arcology" the way it's actually used today. --Kris Schnee 10:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
- No, that's not the way it's used today. Not to pull rank, but I am an architect, former Arcosanti resident, and longtime acquaintance of Paolo Soleri, so I know what I'm talking about here. When referring to a general set of design principles -- as you are talking about -- the term "arcological" is frequently used. However "arcology" itself is a noun, and always has been. It is used that way not only by Sim City (and virtually every cyberpunk book ever written), but by its creator and by the architects and urban planners who have studied the concept. I have seen the term abused occasionally (one "Doctress Neutopia" comes to mind), but this should not be enshrined in a Wikipedia entry.
- I will grant you that "arcological" principles are much more relevant to the real world, since such can actually be found in the real world, whereas nothing calling itself an arcology actually exists, beyond the confines of Arcosanti, which is incomplete. But in both fiction and in theory, "arcology" is still used as a noun. Let's not confuse the issue. Skybum 18:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
