There are parts of Shenzhen that look like that.[1] But with better structural soundness. Here's a ground level view.[2] (That's a full sphere video; you can change the view direction, including looking straight up.)
This meets most of the criteria you see the "strong towns" people plugging for. Walkable streets. Convenient retail. Few cars. Very low speeds. Excellent land utilization. No space wasted on parking. Affordable.
Of course, the people who write those articles wouldn't live in a place like that themselves.
> This meets most of the criteria you see the "strong towns" people plugging for. Walkable streets. Convenient retail. Few cars. Very low speeds. Excellent land utilization. No space wasted on parking. Affordable.
> Of course, the people who write those articles wouldn't live in a place like that themselves.
This is like suggesting that people who value having their own backyard are being inconsistent by not moving into the remote countryside. There's nothing inconsistent in promoting a certain set of values within desiring those values taken to the extreme.
From the geometry. Those things have the diameter of a city block. That's the problem with those old giant arcology designs. Too much volume for the amount of outside wall. They look great in drawings.
Yes, you can have a hollow center with interior balconies. It's been tried. It fails for residential.
> Yes, you can have a hollow center with interior balconies. It's been tried. It fails for residential.
Most buildings in Budapest are set up this way and I don't see how it fails. Technically they are hallways, not balconies, but they function the same way.
I think a lot of it has to do with the size of the court yard and the height of the building. Four stories with a court yard that's as long and wide as the buildings are high? That can work. 50 stories with a yard that's 50m across? The lower levels will live in perpetual twilight.
Brainstorming here: what about light tunnels every ±5 floors that use mirrors to funnel light from outside the building into the courtyard? In theory, this would work...I think.
I Spain it is fairly common to see appartement building with a hollow center and interior balconies (but they usually have exterior balcony too).
I honestly hated this design because the hollow center was almost never getting any light, but it was getting the moist and the rain, making it look dirty almost all the time. It also act has a good way for sound to propagate. You can hear your neighbours at all time ...
When the hollow center has the size of a court, it is okay, but when it is just a few meters wide, it is truly awful.
the worst part of this is that at the time Pruitt-Igoe already was riddled with social issues, vandalism, crime, everyone who could afford leave doing so, etc.
