Archinect - News

Hyperloop companies form international consortium

2023-02-14T19:11:00-05:00

A consortium of seven international hyperloop companies has formed a new entity called the Hyperloop Association, the group recently announced. The organization was begun in December and expects a royal decree to follow shortly announcing it as a legal entity.

The Association says it will be based in Brussels in order to work with European Union commissioners and the EU's Agency for Railways to "advance the progress and facilitate the widespread implementation of the innovative transportation system across Europe and globally."

The news comes after years of collaborations between various participating hyperloop companies and architecture firms on infrastructure and transportation design.

BIG, for example, designed the XP-2 pods as well as passenger portals for Hyperloop One. Zaha Hadid Architects worked with Hyperloop Italia to develop station designs and strategies for urban and rural impleme...

Transportation technology company Swisspod to build hyperloop testing facility in Colorado

2021-09-15T19:35:00-04:00

Swiss-American transportation technology company Swisspod has announced the development and construction of a new hyperloop testing facility in Pueblo, Colorado. This initiative follows Swisspod’s construction of Europe’s first operational test track in July.

Swisspod has partnered with TTCI, a subsidiary of the Association of American Railroads (AAR), to create the company’s second test facility, which will be located at PuebloPlex, a 15,000-acre business and industry complex 15 miles from Pueblo. TTCI will provide engineering insight, operational and test plan support. As stated in TTCI’s press release, “This partnership advances Swisspod’s global expansion strategy, fueling its fast-paced growth in the key U.S. market, while augmenting significant research and testing capabilities.”

In April, TTCI announced its partnership with the Pueblo Economic Development Corporation (PEDCO) to develop a dedicated engineering and laboratory facility that would include research into hyperloop...

Zaha Hadid Architects partners with Hyperloop Italia to develop next-generation transportation system

2021-06-09T16:30:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid Architects has signed an agreement with Hyperloop Italia to co-design the next phase of development for the transformative transportation system.

Hyperloop Italia is a start-up born from an initiative by Bibop Gresta, the founder of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), to disseminate and implement hyperloop technologies and infrastructures in Italy. HTT was founded in 2013 and has a global team of more than 800 engineers, creatives, and technology experts divided into 52 multidisciplinary teams and with 50 partners between companies and universities. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles and has offices in North and South America, the MIddle East, and Europe. According to Hyperloop Italia, it is the first company in the world to have an exclusive license for the commercial implementation of the Hyperloop project in Italy.

Previously on Archinect: HyperloopTT unveils first full-scale capsule with goal of being passenger ready by 2019

The hyperloop train will ...

HyperloopTT unveils first full-scale capsule with goal of being passenger ready by 2019

2018-10-03T15:02:00-04:00

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HyperloopTT) has unveiled the first of its full-scale capsules that it hopes will one day be used to transport passengers at 750 miles per hour, reports Bloomberg. The California-based company is one of several Hyperloop contenders that have sprung up to deliver on Elon Musk’s 2013 transportation vision.

HyperloopTT will now take the capsule, called Quintero One, to the company's European HQs in France, where it has begun constructing a test track. With the goal of being passenger ready by 2019, the technology promises a travel speed of 750 miles per hour, meaning it may someday be able to take travelers from LA to Las Vegas in 20 minutes. The company is planning to have the "airplane without wings" on commercial tracks in China and Abu Dhabi over the next couple of years.

Plans for the first commercial Hyperloop system in the United Arab Emirates

2018-04-24T18:08:00-04:00

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HyperloopTT) recently signed an agreement with Aldar Properties PJSC, a leading real estate developer in Abu Dhabi, to begin construction on the first commercial Hyperloop system in the United Arab Emirates.

Rendering of HyperloopTT station in UAE, in collaboration with AN.ONYMOUS. Image: HyperloopTT.

The first phase of construction will begin with a 6 mile stretch of development between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Design for the Hyperloop pylon is a collaboration with MAD architects, while the station design is in collaboration with AN.ONYMOUS. The agreement also includes building a Hyperloop XO Square Innovation Center and Visitor Center. This section is located close to the Expo 2020 site and Al Maktoum International Airport, with the goal of having it up and running in time for Expo 2020.

Rendering of HyperloopTT station in UAE, in collaboration with AN.ONYMOUS. Image: HyperloopTT.

The Hyperloop system, first presented by Elon Musk, will move pe...

Bjarke Ingels Group + AECOM join forces with Hyperloop

2016-05-11T19:32:00-04:00

Not content to merely redefine skyscrapers, football stadiums, and the agency of the architect, Bjarke Ingels Group is now leaping into the realm of transportation, joining up with Hyperloop to "transform the future of public infrastructure."

Bjarke explained it thusly: "Traditionally, the work of an architect is to design buildings for the same known program - a residence or a workplace - and try to squeeze in a marginal improvement here or an elegant design solution there. With Hyperloop we are not only designing a futuristic station or a very fast train - we are dealing with an entirely novel technology with the potential to completely transform how our existing cities will grow and evolve - and how new cities will be conceived and constructed."

For its part, AECOM will focus on improving the freight end of the transportation system, focusing its highly trained teams on the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. "AECOMs partnership with Hyperloop One has the potential to transform ...

Hyperloop hopefuls turn to 'passive' maglev technology

2016-05-10T13:47:00-04:00

"Utilizing a passive levitation system will eliminate the need for power stations along the Hyperloop track, which makes this system the most suitable for the application and will keep construction costs low," [...] "From a safety aspect, the system has huge advantages, levitation occurs purely through movement, therefore if any type of power failure occurs, Hyperloop pods would continue to levitate and only after reaching minimal speeds touch the ground."

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (not to be confused with Hyperloop Technologies Inc., a peer company also hoping to realize Elon Musk's hyperloop vision) published a statement yesterday announcing the company had licensed "passive magnetic levitation" technology to power their Hyperloop prototype.

Billed as "a cheaper, safer alternative" to maglev technology, the passive magnetic levitation doesn't require as much infrastructural build-out, as it doesn't need to be powered by sources along the track. The system is "passive" insofar as instead of using superconducting magnets or powered electromagnets, it uses "permanent room-temperature magnets, similar to the familiar bar magnet". You can read all about the technology here.

More Hyperloop on Archinect:

Hyperloop announces plans for first European routes

2016-03-11T13:23:00-05:00

In a joint statement yesterday the Playa Vista, California-based Hyperloop Transport Technologies (HTT) and the Slovak Republic’s economy minister held out the future vision of the Hyperloop whisking passengers at 760 mph between Vienna in Austria, Budapest in Hungary and the Slovakian capital of Bratislava. A Bratislava-to-Vienna route would take just 8 minutes at full speed, while a Bratislava-to-Budapest route would take 10 minutes.

Hyperloop previously in the Archinect news:

Hyperloop, brought to you by Aecom

2016-01-27T13:19:00-05:00

SpaceX has selected Aecom ... to build its Hyperloop test track later this year [...] The nearly one-mile-long test track will be built adjacent to SpaceX's Hawthorne, California, headquarters [...] The test track's six-foot diameter steel tube will include a non-magnetic sub-track ... Cradled in place above ground, it will serve as a vacuum-sealed, high-speed proving ground for transport pod prototypes being developed as part of a SpaceX design competition.

Aecom is also reportedly not committing to any one Hyperloop company by partnering with SpaceX for the test track – they're also linked to Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, one of the two hyperloop-happy startups based in L.A. (the other, Hyperloop Tech, is sponsoring the competition).

And here's Aecom's flashy teaser:

Keep up with the Hyperloop happenings:

Reality checking the Hyperloop hyperbole

2016-01-19T13:25:00-05:00

[Hyperloop] has the swagger of Elon Musk rather than the stigma of a public bureaucracy. Second, it’s going to be, like, a billion times faster than HSR. [...] And yet, this combination of enthusiasm and magnetism doesn’t buy farmland. It doesn’t ease eminent domain takings. It doesn’t blast through bedrock or relocate utilities. It doesn’t design station area plans. [...] The very same mountains, cities, canals, farmers, and habitats that complicate HSR also complicate Hyperloop.

For past reporting on Hyperloop in all its emerging forms:

The town that Hyperloop built

2015-03-03T19:17:00-05:00

For [Hyperloop Transportation Technologies], the Quay Valley test track is a way to test its idea of smaller hyperloop rings that could eventually connect to a bigger loop that runs along I-5. For Quay Valley and Hays, the test track is a wildly futuristic attraction [...] It follows a narrative pulled from the world of consumer technology, rather than conventional urban planning. Quay Valley isn't really a place with people yet ... it's a collection of technologies that residents will use.

Transit oriented developments, or TODs, are mixed-use urban nodes designed with public transit as their core. The typology emerged from the idea that well-integrated and easy access to transit supports businesses and an active urban life, and that strategic transportation planning can help make thriving cities. But what if that transit, and the town, are both brand new?

Cut to Quay Valley, a proposed development out in the middle of California's Central Valley that would bear the testing ground for a bunny-slope version of the Hyperloop, Elon Musk's pneumatic wonder-transit. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), an organization intent on making the Hyperloop a reality but independent from Musk (and working with UCLA to get there), wants the new city to be the test environment for a Hyperloop mockup halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles – the end-lines in Musk's original proposal.

The Hyperloop would be the de facto public transit of Quay Valley's 7,500-acre plot, gettin...