Doctress Neutopia in her paper The Love Project: The Two-As-One-World Philosophy gives a nice summary of the Hyper Building project.
In l996 Architect Paolo Soleri was commissioned by seventy-five Japanese corporations to design a Hyper Building--a self-contained, three-dimensional city for 100,000 people --one kilometer square by one kilometer high. The Hyper Building is a new kind of city, an arcology (the fusion of ecology and architecture) designed for a 1,000-year durability. In a Japanese/English publication published by The Hyper Building Research Committee lists Soleri’s concepts as:
A long-term, durable architecture and city
A city that coexists harmoniously with nature
A city system with efficient resources and energy use
An autonomous and self-developing city space that can adapt itself to social and economic changes
Then just as it seemed that Japan might be the first location where an Arcology is actually built, Japan went into an economic recession and the research on hyperbuilding design came to a halt.
Solerian Postmodern Mythology
According to Doctress Neutopia, the Hyper Building symbolizes a lot of things in Arcology Theory. During Paradox III at Arcosanti in 2001, Marylyn Fergeson put forward the idea that in order to shift paradigms you need to create a new mythology. Thus along these lines Arcology theory can be seen as an effort by Paolo Soleri to begin to tell an alternative story of how a more accurate interpretation of creation, evolution and the essential elements of what drive everyday reality can be used to designed a more sustainable urban architecture and in that process a more sustainable and prosperous human society. The Doctress notes the sexual symbolism of Hyperbuilding in that the design is seen as a union of the sexes. She notes that "Posted on one of the walls of the Arcosanti Café is a description of the Hyper Building, an example of Paolo Soleri’s vision," which reads:
The design finds analogy in eros. Throughout history, this constant drive in our species has been described and inscribed through art and the design of human habitat. Here the tower is the lingam, the male, while two concentrie exedrae, semi-circular edifices, are the female womb. Their interpenetration generates the fecundity of the city, its power to germinate a richness of invention and complexity. Tower and exedrae are inseparable.
The use of the word Hyper can be interpreted as meaning that the world has basically gone mad. In a sense it can be seen as Soleri's first significant advance into postmodernism where he explores the rapid ascent of commercial culture and its impact on the collective modern consciousness. The idea of Hyper is that hyper-reality has distorted our sense of reality to the point that the technology we use and the status we get from it impacts our ability to see what is going on in the world. In that sense the critique arises that modern logic is no longer prevailing in the rise, development and management of technology in relation to our lives as well as built environment and production systems that make up and define our world.
The Symbology of the Hyper Building Site Selection
In the Site Selection section of the Hyper Building project webpage, Soleri shows how he has a unique way making statements with his projects which his express his core frustration with American life. Soleri seeks to put forward the Hyper Building as a way to consider to the two excesses of modernity Hyper-Materialism and Hyper-Hedonism which are represented in the twin cities representing excess and avarice: Las Vegas and Los Angeles. As a way to metaphorically challenge their reign, he suggests locating one of these massive Hyper Buildings in the most desolate part of the Mojave Desert right between the two cities that are so influential on the formation of the American Dream.
This from his perspective and what he has developed as Arcology Theory is the ideal place to formulate a Lean Alternative. One idea that Soleri has put forward is that you build on the most desolate spaces (such as the mesa at Arcosanti) and leave the most pristine land for natural corridors and also agricultural production.
The Denser the Better?
Rising to about a Kilometer in height the Hyper Building was envisioned by Soleri to be a model city within a building, providing all the services and infrastructure that one would expect in a city of 100,000 plus people. In the population section of the Hyper Building presentation on the Cosanti Foundation website the construction of a "trio in Arcology Major" pumps up the total population to around 700,000 people within an area of around 10 sq km. So the question emerges how much density is enough and how much is too much? Is it possible to be too dense and if so how do we quantify the limits to density.
Arcology Hyper-building as a Negentrophic and Integrated Approach to Development
Francis Frick has been one of the people who have claimed that Arcologies like the Hyper Building through its efficient Negentrophic design, will demonstrate how even in the most desolate parts of the SW US, a thriving city can be built, by using space age technologies to enable:
Recycling of waste using closed and highly integrated systems
Intensive production of food in surrounding Terraced Greenhouses
What Soleri sees as the appropriate and necessary Densification of Urban Life (in accordance with natural principles of evolution)
Effective use of the sun to heat and power the building using Conventional Photovoltaics, Solar Hot Water Collective, Passive Solar Heating and Solar Thermal as part of an integrated approach to heating cooling and electrical production (Combined Heating, Cooling & Power or Tri-Generation)
The posters in the Arcosanti Cafe demonstrate how the above systems could be managed within a Arcology built at the Hyper Building scale.
Conclusion
The Hyper Building is compelling as a model because of its sleek, sexy design and also because of how it seeks to put all the aspects of a city into one compact building. While it remains to be seen as to whether it could function as advertised, more and more architectural and design movements around the world are considering how to encapsulate more self-reliant urban habitats within a large building/megastructure.