Fans of Bjarke Ingels are in for a treat following an announcement on social media earlier today of a massive new project that would build a city completely from scratch somewhere in the western United States thanks to seed funding from billionaire Jet.com founder Marc Lore.
Bloomberg is reporting that the Danish architect has been tapped by the entrepreneur for the master plan of the Telosa city project that will transform 150,000 acres of unoccupied community-owned land into a Shenzhen-like planned metropolis which will eventually play host to over 5 million people by the year 2060.
The plan calls for an initial investment in land which will then be transferred into an endowment owned and operated by the nearly 50,000 people who will inhabit the starter city by the end of this decade.
The project’s goal is to transform the undeveloped swath of land into a model that “sets a global standard for urban living, expands human potential, and becomes a blueprint for future generations,” according to the Twitter announcement.
Proffered as a solution to some of the inequalities caused by traditional systems of property development, Telosa promises to stand as an alternative to the market-driven model based around a principal that Lore calls “equitism”, which would redistribute the city’s wealth directly into the pockets of its denizens.
"Land could essentially go from a barren piece of desert to a modern-day city worth billions, or even trillions," the former Walmart executive explained on the project’s website.
The renderings released by BIG showcase a sustainable, landscaped master plan that is dominated by a central viewing tower surrounded by a smattering of small apartment towers with a lightrail system to connect users to the city’s program of pocket parks and residential blocks.
The Telosa project comes on the heels of Ingels’ recently announced Nabr initiative that aims to reimagine traditional models of homeownership in America. The company is still in the process of scouting locations for the new development. A full overview of the project can be found here.
18 Comments
This idea comes along at least once a generation. Most of the past attempts are scattered about the deserts of the American southwest if you're interested in how it usually goes. Beautiful little ruins, mostly.
fun fact. Shenzhen is not in the desert, so this isn't like Shenzhen at all.
I like the idea of constructing grand spiral scaffolding to hoist some trees a few hundred feet in the air though. very sustainable.
The 'visionary' aspect of this is in theory the concept of a community-run city. Further reading discloses that a 'private foundation' would be responsible for public management.
If "equitism" is the goal there are much more direct ways to achieve it. What I see is a billionaire developer (founder of daipers.com) looking for funding.
Just another white man's wet dream city that is going to suck the desert dry, and enhance inequality. Why isn't this being dreamed of in Detroit or another decimated city where infrastructure is in place?
you know what this means, we're going to war with Liberland.
Ach du lieber(land).
A sustainable city in the desert?
Where is the water going to come from?
Haven't you seen star trek....Atmospheric condensers could extract water from the air
They call those air conditioners round this century...
Yes, but that would take a lithium crystal array the size of a football field. If you used red Mercury there wouldn't be enough left for half of the teleporters on the planet. The only practical future exotic technology would be to adapt the terraformer from aliens. I am sure everyone working on this project has already thought of this. I mean it would be ridiculous to propose a city without a reliable water source.
Not if you're only doing it for money.
Oh, alright then.
What's not to like?
Speaking of China, I saw somewhere it has—or had—some 50 ghost cities. An update on a few of them here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
They need massive government money, a government committed to them and that can think for the future. And it's still not clear they'll work anytime soon, or work at all.
I wish we had a government comitted to us that could think about the future.
BIG, with Foster and a Turkish firm is designing for a new city in the earthquake-destroyed Hatay and vicinity in Turkey. So far, they will most likely build it. Images are due in a few months. I would think they are not going to be that much different than what we have seen from their other proposals like this one in the second and third picture limited to low rise buildings.
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