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I cannot imagine scyscrapers are the way of the future. At the moment there is argumenting about ground space being an issue in inner city areals, but truth is - it's a question of prestige in the end. Such high buildings are not built because they are needed, but because they can be done and they are symbols of progress.
In reality they are very complicated structures with many, many problems resulting from the level-up design. Concerning the volume, a lot is waisted - those supporting structures are no paper thin walls, you know? Also transportation is an issue, you need a lot of space for sufficient elevator capacity. Plus, elevation technologies means complicated, thus expensive technologies compared with almost every horizontal transportation solution. Then there is the climatisation issue. It is very expensive and energy-extensive to have healthy and comfortable room climate in a skyscraper.
All in all I am sure we will be told skyscrapers are the future for quite a while by politicians and architects looking for prestige, but in the end economy will dictate more solid solutions. Maybe building more UNDERGROUND in inner city areals will be a solution, but for sure not hundreds of storeys deep.

But a true hive (or arcology, as we old school shadowrunners like to think of them) is much more than a skyscraper. Nearly every aspect of civilisation is integrated into the hives. Well, combining living facilities with infrastructure like schools, kindergardens, hairdressers, supermarkets in one skyscraper sounds logical, but having industrial production sites integrated into the same structure? Really? Have you ever been on a modern ship, passenger cruiser or freighter? Remember the constant vibrations and the all-penetrating dull noise? And that was only one (although very large) diesel engine! Can you imagine how it might be to have a steel works in the lower departments? Oh the structural damage by the vibes, oh the health issues of the poor residents, oh the space wasted by futile dampening experiments. Besides, heat and poisonous fumes are another issue. No, I firmly believe that this one idea of science fiction will not take firm roots into reality. there are cheaper and easier ways of constructing.
And forget about the idea of humanity needing to isolate from the probably wasted outer environment, that simply doesn't work. Spacecraft loose up to one third of their atmosphere in the course of one year, mostly on a molecular level (the gasoid matter just diffusing through the walls). It is simple: if we ruin our environment to a toxic level, we die out. No hives will prevent that.

The one thing about it "House both high and low income people" is the crime could conceivably spike with a tower like that, or would the rich get private elevators or live closer to the ground??

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
The one thing about it "House both high and low income people" is the crime could conceivably spike with a tower like that, or would the rich get private elevators or live closer to the ground??

It means they are lying.

Or they could separate them with police like the rest of society is....

The Hives in 40k have been built on over time. Probably none at all are planned. They probably don't think about foundations.

 filbert wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:


As I said, its a good rule of thumb, but it isn't an absolute, seeing as the width of the structure (among other things) also factors in.

A good rule of thumb it may well be but it doesn't look like it's a rule of thumb that any building on earth follows.

I suspect it isn't a linear correlation between height and foundation depth, so while a 2 storey house may fit the 'foundations twice as deep as height' graph, by the time you scale up to a skyscraper, the proportion is completely stretched.



Then again, I'm not an architect so I don't really know (or particularly care to be honest)

We use things called "Piles" for this .

Someone mentioned The Shard in London .

Due to London being built on clay , piling is standard for most , if not all multi level buildings .

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
...would the rich get private elevators or live closer to the ground??

They were going to do that anyway. That's how express elevators work - you've got blocks of floors each with their own lobby and their own elevators, and then you've got the express elevators that take you between lobbies. After all, you don't want to be on the second floor waiting for an elevator that just got called to the 200th.

That building is an eyesore. I am really not in favor of what looks like it will be another form of disgusting tenement for people to live in. The only thing I think that might be positive about this is the ability to centralize, and thus more easily manage, that many people's environmental impact. Of course in Texas, space is not something we are worried about

 Glorioski wrote:
The Hives in 40k have been built on over time. Probably none at all are planned. They probably don't think about foundations.

Then 40k Hive cities are made by adjointing many existing skyscrapers and build a series of larger and larger ones over time. how can the hive buildings support its weights on a very poor foundations? or if the original buildings aren't supposed to expand upwards due to the weights of the expansion will exceed ones that was originally designed. (and some hive is said that Baneblade can run on the topdecks without damaging the structural integrity) how did the weight distribution systems of those hives work?

Because it's Grimdark!!!

Well, looks like the "Darco" Arcology from Sim City 2000 is being built right on schedule...

 purplefood wrote:
Because it's Grimdark!!!

This doesn't provide answers to the questions why Hive cities don't collapse by its very own weight and remain so for THOUSANDS OF YEARS. mew!

They give a good description of Hives being constructed in Fallen Angels, basically they're built similarly to this tower, in that everything in it is modular, the difference is that it is strengthened as it expands. Think a gigantic pyramid of Giza except the steps are more pronounced.

On Necromunda at least, old structural domes do collapse quite frequently - that's what a hive quake is.

The Necromundan hives at least seem to be made of these modular domes, and there's a lot of them, hence a fairly high level of redundancy and potential paths for load to redistribute.

As for how it's strong enough at all - space magic, called Plasteel etc. They have The Ultimate Building Material, because they just do.

 Lone Cat wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
Because it's Grimdark!!!

This doesn't provide answers to the questions why Hive cities don't collapse by its very own weight and remain so for THOUSANDS OF YEARS. mew!

Of course it does....