It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a Webstar! Actually, none of those are far from the truth. It's a Superstar. A floating, self-powered, self-regulated, self-contained metropolis.
Think that sounds nuts? Even when Beijing-based MAD designs something grounded in reality, it still look far-fetched and crazy: take the Sinosteel International Plaza in Tianjin, for instance. Now, MAD thought that the modern perception of Chinatown was becoming a little stale. How do they revamp it? By dreaming up the crystalline entity Superstar: A Mobile Chinatown, part of the "Uneternal City" exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale. From MAD:
It can land at every corner of the world... It's self-sustaining: it grows its own food, requires no resources from the host city, and recycles all of its waste; it's a living place, with authentic Chinese nature, health resorts, sports facilities and drinking water lakes; and it's a travelling Olympic party, that can journey to the host city every four years. There's even a digital cemetery, to remember the dead. The Superstar is a dream that's home to 15,000 people: there is no hierarchy, no hyponymy, but a fusion of technology and nature, future and humanity.
I just learned the word "hyponymy." Check out the gallery below for more, or click Continue to see a video of the Superstar.
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editor@dvice.com
By Anonymous at 10:27 AM ON 09/12/08
It is impossible to build with current technology, would look great in a scifi movie though
By Anonymous at 12:02 PM ON 09/12/08
It's the Racnoss!!!
By Wildember at 12:27 PM ON 09/12/08
How would this city land itself INTO 5th Ave? The concept is really Larry Nivien a-la Ringworld but at the same time I would be terrified that the "Olympic Party" is going to come crashing down on me any minute...
By POWERUSER at 2:02 PM ON 09/12/08
They seem to have glossed over the fact that this thing can Fly. How are they going to move it, this thing is huge! At first I thought some kind of lighter than air mechanism, but then I saw the scale of this thing in the video. It is beyond massive.
By PeterD at 2:49 PM ON 09/12/08
This is just stupid. It's pure science fiction at this point, and Sci-fi authors have been doing it better for decades. If this thing were feasible in some way that would be one thing, but we don't currently even have materials that could support that shape on that scale, let alone make it mobile and self-sustaining. Did the design firm get paid for this thing, or was someone just messing around?
By Kevin Hall at 3:39 PM ON 09/12/08
@PeterD
I added some more information for you. It's part of the Venice Architecture Biennale. Check it out: http://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/
Thanks for reading!
By hmind at 6:13 PM ON 09/12/08
Even if we could build this with today's technology, it seems like a large waste of money... How do they even imagine it would levitate itself?
By Traveler at 7:50 PM ON 09/12/08
Wasn't this a CGI ship from Dr. Who or Torchwood?????
By netdeco at 2:33 AM ON 09/13/08
Yeah Traveler, it looks somewhat like the "Christmas Star" ship from "The Runaway Bride" episode or a very large version of the ship that Superman came to Earth in!
By Astartes at 12:19 AM ON 09/14/08
Well, it could be possible with the advent in new nanotechnology breakthroughs such as carbon strands which are less than a cm thick and 1000 times stronger than steel anchoring cables. Yet I agree we are still a ways from being able to create this kind of thing. It would take the cooperation, technology, and funding from all of the leading countries to create this. So possible...yes with many many buts.
By Brass_Orchid at 3:47 AM ON 09/14/08
Eventually, we will understand that planets are dirty, dangerous and unstable, after we get over our prejudice that they are beautiful, alive and fragile. Larger objects than this will replace planetary habitats entirely. They may be composed of modules similar to this concept. Powering them will require an understanding of gravity and the other three fources of the standard model in a unified force model. We will require control of gravity to live in space.
By Madcap Ren at 10:40 AM ON 09/14/08
Given the state of the "quality" products hat have been coming out of China over tha past few years, that thing would crash as soon as it got airborne. Which of course would be blamed on the USA. Why not? We get blamed for everything else anyway?
By Redd at 12:30 PM ON 09/14/08
This is total bs right.
By 3DCMark at 10:53 AM ON 09/18/08
Cool idea, it looks a bit like a B.S.G. Cylon ship to me at first glance rather than Dr. Who or anything like that. Even though the idea maybe too far fetched at this point, this is the way we need to start thinking.
A city like "Stargate Atlantis" would be the way to go.. same idea self sustaining flyable, floatable, submergeable city.
Even if it is impossible to build currently or to fly/maintain/power - at least we are trying to plan ahead.
It's forward thinking like this that helps us reach beyond what we're aiming for. Like they say, "aim for the stars and may just reach the clouds"
Hey wait a minute... we aimed for the stars and got there.... so stuff like this is possible... it came to someone in a dream... in another dream someone else will figure out how to power it.
M
By plasmafire at 11:11 AM ON 09/18/08
Looks like a Cylon base ship from the new Battlestar Galactica.
By Reuben at 3:58 PM ON 09/20/08
I agree 3DCMARK!!!
When I saw this I thought to post the same thing... ... my... it was already there!
Cheers,
Reuben
By Usagi-chan at 11:54 AM ON 10/22/08
This is like Rubeus' spacecraft in Sailor Moon R anime series.