Happy Birthday, Paolo Soleri!

The Italian architect, who came up with the concept of the arcology by making a portmanteau of architecture and ecology, has just hit his 92nd birthday, so we thought a suitable celebration would be to compile a list of five real-world arcologies currently under construction.

For those unfamiliar with the term, an arcology is a huge structure housing a self-sustaining community isolated from the rest of the world. It includes residential, commercial and agricultural facilities, allowing its residents a comfortable life without connections to traditional urban infrastructure like sewage or food production.


So far, so utopian. But despite decades of work on the concept, arcologies seem to be remarkably difficult to build in the real world. So far, mankind doesn't yet seem to have the technology or the willpower to bring a functioning arcology into existence -- but that hasn't stopped people from trying. Here are five real-world arcologies, and how they're faring.

Arcosanti

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Where better to start than Soleri's very own project? Arcosanti is a planned community for 5,000 people in the Arizona desert, 70 miles north of state capital Phoenix. Since 1970, Soleri has been working on the project with the help of more than 6,000 people who've visited over the years, though the population hovers between 50 and 150 at any one time, depending on the number of students and volunteers living there.

The pace of construction has varied over the years, and there are currently 13 major structures on the site, including a visitor's centre, amphitheatre and bell foundry -- the latter of which produces bronze and ceramic bells, which help fund further construction. However, the last building was completed in 1989, and since then, there's been rather slower progress, with the focus placed less on construction and more on education and tourism.


Since 2001, the latest master plan for Arcosanti envisages a huge complex called Arcosanti 5000, which would dwarf the existing buildings on the site.

Masdar City

In Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates is a planned city, designed by Foster +

Partners. It's called Masdar City, and will rely solely on solar and other renewable energy sources, with a principle of zero-carbon, zero-waste.

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Six square kilometres have been set aside for the development, which will provide homes to 45,000 to 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses, including the International Renewable Energy Agency and the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. Cars will be banned, with transport instead provided by mass transit and personal rapid transit systems.


Power will be provided by a solar plant, wind farms, and geothermal energy, and the community also will house what's planned to be the world's largest power plant. A solar-powered desalination plant will provide water, and 80 percent of the water used will be recycled, with wastewater reused "as many times as possible" for the purposes of crop irrigation. Biological waste will be turned into fertiliser and used as a power source, and industrial waste will be recycled or repurposed.

The project began in 2006 and the first phase (including residential areas) was due to be completed in 2009, however the impact of the global recession has delayed that significantly -- pushing it back to 2015, with the final completion now due by 2020-25.

Crystal Island

In Moscow, Russia, Norman Foster has also designed another arcology -- the Crystal Island. If the plans come to fruition, then it'll have 2.5 million square metres of floor space and a heigh of 450 metres, making it the six tallest building in the world, and the largest structure in terms of floor space.

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The construction will be covered by a breathable skin, which can be sealed in the winter to provide insulation against the biting cold of the region. In the summer, the same skin can be opened up to allow for ventilation, but to keep the sun's rays off the interior. It'll be powered by external solar panels and wind turbines.

Inside Crystal Island, there are planned to be a exhibition and performance space, cinema, hotel and apartment complexes, along with office and retail space, and a school for 500 international students. However construction has not yet begun, and has been postponed due to the economic crisis -- whether it'll start up again remains to be seen.

Las Vegas Strip

There's nothing in the definition of an arcology that says that the superstructures have to be planned in advance, and the congolmeration of hotels, resorts and casinos along the famous Las Vegas Strip satisfies most of the other requirements. It's possible to walk almost three miles up the road without using streets, and in many cases without going outdoors at all -- thanks to a network of underground tunnels and mass transit systems.

The individual casinos themselves have many arcological features too, including careful climate control, isolation from the traditional day/night cycle, and careful management of scarce resources. It differs from many of the other projects in this list, however, by its lack of any real commitment to sustainability or environmental factors. In fact, in many ways it stands as the antithesis of those principles.

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Halley Research Station

Finally, if you're looking for an almost entirely self-sustaining community, you'll find several of them on very bottom of the Earth, in Antarctica. The various research stations run by different countries around the world almost all exist as self-contained units with very little contact possible with the outside world.

Halley Research Station, run by the British Antarctic Survey, is one of several examples we could take. It's existed in five different incarnations since it was founded in 1956, from wooden huts to steel tunnels. Almost all have been buried below the snow and crushed by its weight until they became uninhabitable. Halley V escapes that fate by being built on legs that can jack it up above the surface from time to time.


Its successor, Halley VI, is currently under construction, and expected to be completed by the end of 2011. Like Halley V, it's built on legs that allow it to be jacked up, but the bottom of those legs house skis so that it can relocated to different areas periodically, as needed.

Halley is occupied all year around, with a peak of staff of around 70 during the summer when average daytime temperatures tend to be around -10C. In the winter, when temperatures drop as low as -55C and 105 days pass without sunlight, it's manned by a skeleton crew of just 16, comprising few scientists but including a chef, doctor, mechanic, electrician, several electronics engineers, and a heating and ventilation engineer. One of those winterers each year is sworn in as a magistrate and designated as the Base Commander, making them ultimately responsible for anything that happens in the insular structure.

Don't miss our gallery of the places above by clicking below...