Abu Dhabi Aims to Build First Carbon-Neutral City

Build it into a tower and you'd have an archology.

Was an interesting story I heard on the radio the other day, no direct bearing on ShadowRun, but I figure an archology would have to be pretty damn close in order to be as self-sustaining as they claim to be.

Plus the transit system is bad ass.

Awesome I might steal some of that for my games.,

The problem is that it may be Carbon-Neutral and try to recycle water resources, but an arcology, by definition, is a completely enclosed and self-contained biosystem. It would have to be COMPLETELY independent of exterior sources of energy (Carbon-Neutral specifically allows for putting daytime surplusses of power from Solar and Wind back into the grid to effectively "zero" the consumption from the grid at night, thus "neutral"), water, food and not emit any efluents or garbage - even the air should be scrubbed and recycled if you're being picky. Now, I am not slighting what these people have accomplished and what they are reaching for in any way, but they are as far from an arcology as a P-51 Mustang is from a F/A-22 Raptor (the Wright flyer would be a normal city).

The reason I picked those aircraft is by what the represent: The wright flyer (and the related evolutions) were when you were beginning to learn the rudiments of powered flight; The P-51 was arguably the pinacle of piston-engine fighter design, where the designers finally got the fundamental elements all in place; The F/A-22 is the final evolution (for now) of the manned fighter airplane. The average city is now (out of self preservation, rather than environmentalism) beginning to take steps to reduce energy demand, waste output, and ease congestion. The city in Abu Dhabi has demonstrated that a city can be built from the ground up as an integrated whole reducing the net impact on the environment and stress on resources. An arcology is the final evolution of a zero-IMPACT "city".

I didn't realize being "self contained bio-system" was part of the arcology definition. I thought arcologies just amounted to "a city in a building." Enclosed biosystems would be a bonus, not a defining feature.

Same here. No way arcologies have their own cattle herds, flocks of chickens (for both eggs and meat), pigs, sheep (wool anyone?), or fish.

You can grow plants on any surface exposed to the sun (needs not be horizontal!), or in any sufficiently open space as an "inside garden" which could either have shade plants or use sun-lamps.

According to wikipedia:

Arcology, a portmanteau of the words "architecture" and "ecology,"[1] is a set of architectural design principles aimed toward the design of enormous habitats (hyperstructures) of extremely high human population density. These largely hypothetical structures, called "arcologies," would contain a variety of residential and commercial facilities and minimize individual human environmental impact. They are often portrayed as self-contained or economically self-sufficient.

So entirely self sustained is an extreme example. They merely just need to have a near 0 footprint on the environment.

(IC and where the world is pushing us)
Who needs all of that when we have Soy(not really soy) and Synthetics.

(OOC)
Fish can be done in big metal tanks. There is a professor in Brooklyn raising schools in basements.


Arcology or not, until it has a shutdown, its not cool.


BlueMax

For food, considering how much of the 6^th World diet is alge, krill and soy (all of which can be grown virtually anywhere) it's not that limiting a factor, especially as they are all very DENSE when developed indoors with complete environmental control and with the use of 3D (read: vertical) aquaculture.

I'd be cautious of anything on Wiki (not saying it's wrong in this case), but by that definition, nearly every major corporate skyscraper in the 6^th World would qualify. I remember when the Renraku Arcology was the big thing. And by the same definition, the city in Abu Dhabi isn't an arcology either, as it's not technically enclosed.

By modern standards, most of the 6^th World corp skyscrapers are probably "arcologies" but by the standards that set the Renraky Pyramid apart, they're just very self-sufficient buildings. It's kind of like how "battleship" was redefined by the launch of HMS Dreadnought. It was THE Arcology whenever somebody spoke about it. IIRC that included a nuclear reactor for power, and total self sufficiency (the execs of course got to have their fresh sashimi flown in, but the wage slaves got krill and soy) for food and water. If it weren't, the "lockdown" wouldn't have been possible. Of course, it had huge delivery bays for bringing in raw materials (It had production centers IIRC) and removing finished goods, as well as the consumer items for the shops in the mall.

A skyscraper wouldn't generally count as an arcology because it's only for limited purpose. Usually it's just for commercial space, not residential, and the commercial area isn't as intricately linked to the residents. If you had a skyscraper with a grocery store, a residential area, a commercial area and employment, with the majority of the residents working and shopping in the skyscraper, it would approach an arcology (although the population would still be too low to count, since it's still far below city size).

Dictionary.com defines arcology as:

a concept in which the ideal city is a massive vertical structure, which preserves more of the natural environment, a concept combining architecture and ecology as envisioned by Paolo Soleri

If the city listed here isn't really vertical, with sufficient population density, it isn't an arcology. A skyscraper fails on several counts. The SCIRE has a high enough population to be its own city, and is economically self-sufficient. As has been said, while it's clear the idea of an arcology is to reduce ecological impact, the idea of 100% ecological or economic independence I've never heard before, and you'll have to provide a source before I'll accept it.)

A lot of people consider Co-op City a pseudo arcology.