Archinect - MegalopolisNow

Tower 42, London

2013-06-14T05:56:40-04:00

www.megalopolisnow.com

Tower 42 is the second tallest skyscraper in the City of London, at 25 Old Broad Street. It was originally built for the National Westminster Bank, hence its older name, the NatWest Tower. The tower, designed by Richard Seifert, was built between 1971 and 1979, and opened in 1980, costing a total of £72 million. It is 183m high, which made it the tallest building in the UK until the construction of 1 Canada Square in the Docklands in 1991.
The tower is made with dark colored glass and steel, reflecting the changeable light of London and emerging from the skyline with its particular shape. The building is constructed around a huge concrete core from which the floors are cantilevered, giving it great strength but significantly limiting the amount of office space available. In June 2012, a Capix LED multi media lighting system was installed around levels 39 to 45. The lighting system is formed of thousands of pixels mounted on a chain netting that is aff...

São Paulo megacity

2012-08-06T14:24:26-04:00

www.megalopolisnow.com

São Paolo is probably the largest city in the southern hemisphere and it’s among the largest metropolitan areas of all the planet. In fact is considered an Alpha – World City and the international gate of Brazil, even though this assignment can be criticized considering its problems of social exclusion , spacial segregation and of an informal economy. In 1.872 São Paolo had 31.385 inhabitants, while in 1890, after slavery had been abolished and the coffee economy began to yield its fruit, its inhabitants grew to 64.934. In 1900 the city already counted 239.820 inhabitants.Today the city counts 11.244.369 residents and is the capital of a metropolitan region with about 20 million inhabitants.

A global city, focusing on services of the tertiary sector.This deep transformation has been caused by many factors, as the production of coffee for exportation, the end of slavery and monarchy, the launching of national industrialization and an extraordinary immi...

Tokyo a glittering excess

2012-08-04T10:20:38-04:00

http://megalopolisnow.com/2012/08/04/tokyo-glittering-excess/

Tokyo, about 12.5 million inhabitants, is the core of the japanese region of Kanto , that, with over than 35 million inhabitants, is the most great and integrated area of all the world. It’s the most populous metropolis. A global city like London and New York, Tokyo has been described as one of the three “command centers” for the world economy and in fact it is considered an alpha world city. Majority of the city is constituted of small apartments with small rooms built one over the other while the big companies are in tall buildings and skyscrapers along Shibuya, Ginza and Omotesando. It’s a polycentric high density city featured by a scattered structure and by a population rich and homogeneous. Over the 80 per cent of the employees go to work by public transports, one of the most high percentage in the world. After the 90′ years financial crisis the city tried to react and now, after Fukushima and because of t...

Los Angeles noir

2012-07-31T06:58:43-04:00

L.A. is known as a city of contrasts: glamour and luxury in the hills, Bel Air or Beverly Hills, the American dream of the San Fernando Valley suburbs, and the gang ridden violence of South Los Angeles. Sunshine and Noir. Sparkling utopias and dark spots. Koreans, Mexicans, Salvadorians crowd into the crown that spreads around a downtown area that fails to become the city center.

Los Angeles , El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora de los Angeles de Porciuncula, was officially founded on September 4, 1781 under the rule of the Kingdom of Spain. The first physical features of the pueblo followed the strict city-planning laws established by King Philip II, which followed the Vitruvio's writings.

During the years of the World Wars Los Angeles grew and became an industry heavy city, as well as the center of the giant entertainment industry in America. Population in the city was highly divided between ethnicities, with the original Los Angeles Plaza and neighborhood continuing to be home...