Postcards from Our Awesome Future. [via] An art exhibition stemming from the minds of Packard Jennings (whose illustrations have appeared in Adbusters) and Steve Lambert (of Anti-Advertising Agency fame); using San Francisco's infrastructure as a model for improvement, the duo answered the siren call of Objectivism through an arcology devoid of “...budgets, beauracracy [sic], politics, or physics”. [more inside]
posted by Smart Dalek on Jan 8, 2008 - 11 comments

The X-Seed 4000 is currently the Earth's tallest proposed structure. The project is currently on hold, due to a funding shortage^, but adventures in Arcology will probably continue.
posted by Burhanistan on Aug 25, 2007 - 49 comments

Little Citadels. "Dine, shop, live, work, and be entertained in a unique and alluring environment," says the Time Warner Center website - all without ever stepping outside your gleaming Manhattan skyscraper. San Jose's Santana Row, which at first glance seemed no more than a Beverly Center you can live in, is now being compared favorably to urban European living. And MGM-Mirage's new, mysterious and costly ($7 billion!) Project CityCenter brings the trend to Las Vegas - with gambling, of course. They're not Arcosantis - and they don't, as yet, require an Oath of Fealty - but by all accounts they're thriving. What do they have in common? Wealthy tenants, megacorporate sponsors, and a shared desire to integrate efficient, conspicuous consumption into every aspect of civic life. Paolo Soleri may have been right after all - maybe he just forgot to account for the effects of capitalism.
posted by ikkyu2 on Aug 28, 2006 - 24 comments

Transform New Orleans into the World's First Arcology? The good Doctress Neutopia has a new mission: New Orleans is to be rebuilt as Arcosanti writ large. Perhaps one of the remaining Monster Truck Neutopians will lend a backhoe? Get the FAQs and the counterFAQs on the inventor (back around 1994) of the world's first online religion, and join the lovolution! (and I can't believe DN has never appeared on MeFi before, but thus sayeth the Search)
posted by Creosote on Oct 24, 2005 - 32 comments

When Skyscrapers and Cities Become One. Tsui has designed the Ultima Tower (a two-mile high, one-mile wide building), and Takenaka the Sky City 1000, in the name of conservation and ecology. William Pedersen, designer of the World Financial Center in Shanghai, believes that "cities within a single building . . . are definitely going to come to pass within the next 25 or 30 years." These sky cities will have "vast open-air wooded parks, giant waterfalls, and automoble-free neighborhoods."
posted by jacknose on Feb 25, 2002 - 58 comments

"Utopian Architecture" is where it's at. Unfortunately, despite how many people seem to be interested in it, there's very little documentation concerning the subject. The only books I can think of are Yesterday's Tomorrow (1984, MIT Press), Metropolis of Tomorrow by Hugo Ferriss and Impossible Worlds by Stephen Coates, and I don't know of any website on the subject.
posted by Kevs on Nov 19, 2000 - 20 comments