From Sim to City: Self-contained 'arcology' environments come closer to reality

The arcologies of "Sim City 2000" may not be as far off from appearing in our city skylines as we think.

A skyscraper design containing various natural landscapes within it, including a desert, a forest, a jungle and a glacier won first place in architecture magazine eVolo's design competition for 2015, presenting a vision of the future that's very similar to the futuristic buildings that players could build in the PC classic “Sim City 2000.” But for the designers of Essence – the name of the winning project – it was a case of two nearly identical ideas being generated entirely independently of one another.

“Sim City did not play any role in the design process. In fact, until today, we had no idea about the arcologies, which had appeared there. Definitely we'll need to extend our fields of interest in order to improve our flexibility, when it comes to architectural design,” says Jakub Pudo, a member of BOMP, the four-person Polish urban architecture collective behind the design.

Instead their design came from their imagination as what they thought was best way to satisfy the perimeters of the competition.

“Instead of looking for an inspiration by scanning popular websites or magazines on architecture, we try to engage our imagination, experience and memories filtered through our individual points of view,” says Pudo.

“Before going any further we try to name our starting point, objectives, and define the scope adequately to the questions set up by the competition rules.”

The Essence of a Skyscraper

Established in 2006, eVolo's annual skyscraper design competition is one of the most prestigious in high-rise architecture. It aims to examine the relationship between the skyscraper, the natural world, the community and the city in an effort to find solutions foreconomic, social, and cultural problems of the contemporary city, such as the scarcity of natural resources and infrastructure and the exponential increase of inhabitants, pollution, economic division, and unplanned urban sprawl.

Participants are encouraged to use new technology and innovative concepts in sustainability, architecture and building materials to answer questions like “What is a skyscraper in the 21st century?” and “What are the historical, contextual, social, urban, and environmental responsibilities of these mega-structures?”

For BOMP, those questions were best answered by seeing the skyscraper as an urban casing for the world's natural environments.

“We wanted to present [an] almost utopian, futuristic vision of – let's say traditional secret garden. The Essence was supposed to be a semi natural environment open to the public and captured in a form of a skyscraper,” says Prudo.

It consisted of 11 varying natural landscapes on a spiral slope that goes from the bottom of the building to the top and ostensibly represents each level of the building itself. The landscapes consist of variable natural habitats, including typical plants, minerals and environmental conditions supported by technical facilities. The building would be open to the public. The vision is that everyone would be free to enter the building and stay for a few days, similar to a hotel, except this time, you get to explore the archipelago. The building is 630 metres tall and the typical floor plan measures 100 by 300 metres.

“Overlapping landscapes will stimulate a diverse and complex range of visual, acoustic, thermal, olfactory, and kinesthetic experiences,” says the project description on the eVolo site. “The skyscraper would serve as a place to briefly escape urban life and stimulate diverse and complex experiences.”

As the winners, the four members of BOMP (Ewa Odyjas, Agnieszka Morga, Konrad Basan, Jakub Pudo) received $5,000 between them and free distribution of the press kit for the project. Essence was selected among 480 entrants for its “conceptual approach, aesthetics, and feasibility,” according to Carlo Aiello, editor of eVolo magazine.

“Essence proposes a much needed escape from the concrete jungle and everyday routine of dwellers in large cities. It is an opportunity to explore nature and reconsider our current state of urbanism. Its solution is elegant and discreet yet powerful and beautiful,” Aiello continues.

Not that BOMP ever thought Essence had a chance of winning.

“None of us thought of winning the competition. We thought of all the fun we'd have by taking part in it,” says Prudo. “We truly believed it was our lucky day.”

From Conception to Reality

Though some people first learned about arcologies when they placed them on their maps in “Sim City 2000,” the term arcology was actually popularized and coined by Italian architect Paolo Soleri who began building one of his own in 1970.

Located in Yavapai County in central Arizona, the Acrosanti community is building towards a city of 5,000 people, but is being completed by a rotating volunteer staff and 65 permanent residents who believe in Soleri's vision of urban and ecological coexistence.

One of those people is Colleen Reckow. The Brethren, Mich. native, 31, has been working, living and raising a family in Acrosanti for over seven years. Her Bachelor of Architecture, her service in the Americorps and her experience building homes for Habitat for Humanity left her wanting to “do something with purpose.” That's when she found Acrosanti.

“It's totally different than living anywhere else. With living and working in the same place, you don't have to drive anywhere, except maybe to get groceries. But you have so much extra time because you're not commuting to work and you don't have to drive your kids all over the place,” says Reckow.

“Things really slow down here. In modern society we're bombarded with advertising everywhere and people trying to get your attention, but here we don't have that. We don't have any advertising. What we do have is a lot more social interaction than you would in the city where you kind of blend in. Here, everybody knows everybody and you can connect with somebody everywhere you go.”

What they also have are multi-use concrete buildings featuring commercial, residential and office space, so nothing is wasted. A good portion of Acrosanti's food is grown from their gardens. Outside of Reckow's own home are olive trees, a greenhouse and a grape vine that's the source of her own homemade wine. Meanwhile, she works part-time as a payroll adjudicator for those who continue to build the community, while her husband molds the concrete in the nearby foundry and she thinks about home-schooling her five-year-old son. For them, it's an idyllic life.

“There are many programs in place to support families and give them an extra boost living here. The parent company, The Cosanti Foundation, gives us a little stipend on our paycheques for living here. There's also a community-based program, which helps pay for childcare,” says Reckow.

“There are a lot of people here who love to play with kids and my son trusts the people around him. He's able to have conversations with people from all over the world. His babysitter is from Italy and is currently teaching him Italian.”

Acrosanti residences come with all the comforts of home. Reckow's place has three bedrooms, the attached greenhouse and balconies on the first floor and the second floor where the family often watches meteor showers.

“A lot of people may have the impression that Acrosanti could be a commune-like space, but it's not like people here have the same viewpoints at all. It's more like a melting pot of many different cultures and exposures to many different ideas,” says Reckow.

Unfortunately, unlike Acrosanti, Essence and the other eVolo Skyscraper Competition entries are ideas that are purely conceptual with no concrete plans to bring them into reality.

“This is an ideas competition and projects are not 100 per cent resolved. They are an opportunity to explore new grounds that might not be realized in the next 20-50 years – similar to the projects by Antonio Sant’Elia of the 1900s,” says Aiello.

For their part, the members of BOMP are just as curious to see what it would take for an idea like Essence to be built.

“Usually people ask whether there is a need to implement these types of solutions solutions into our reality. Perhaps it’s more pertinent to ask, 'What kind of reality needs this type of solutions?'” says Prudo.

If you ask the Reckow family, this one does.