(I'm Kento Bento)
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London. October, 1992.
A Japanese man entered a government building near Chancery Lane, and made his way up to an office on the first floor
- this was the London branch of the UK's Patent Office.
You see, this man was there on behalf of Japan's renowned Shimizu Corporation
- a leading architectural and engineering firm that was and is among the top in the world
- and he was there to apply for a patent.
(Note, to secure their ideas globally it was necessary to apply not just in Japan.)
Now this particular patent, was for no ordinary idea; it was for something grand - something spectacular;
the idea was to build giant pyramids in the middle of some of the largest and busiest urban centers in the world;
starting with Tokyo.
These infrastructures would be so large, they could house entire cities.
But why? What was this for?
And who exactly is the Shimizu Corporation?
To understand this, we need to go back in time, back over 200 years ago to the company's inception.
Edo, 1804.
A carpenter, Kisuke Shimizu, founded a company in the nation's capital
(of course today the capital's Tokyo, but back then it was Edo)
Now this small company would go on to build the western section of the famed Edo Castle (part of the Imperial Palace)
Japan's first Western-style hotel, Japan's first bank, and later on Japan's first nuclear reactor.
The company lived through many important moments in Japan's history,
including the arrival of US Commodore Matthew C. Perry who forced Japan to open up its borders,
the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the rise of Westernization
the earthquakes, wars, bombings, the rapid economic development, the still-ongoing population decline;
the Shimizu Corporation saw all that in their time.
Now that last point however, is of particular interest, because Japan's population has been declining since 2010,
and is expected to drop by two thirds within the next hundred years.
And this has been causing all sorts of problems for the country;
problems that have been shared by almost all Japanese cities...
except for one - Tokyo.
In fact, Tokyo (now the world's largest city) ironically has the opposite problem
- it suffers from extreme overcrowding and overpopulation.
At 37 million residents, the Greater Tokyo Area is virtually the only place in Japan to see sustained population growth
(this is mainly due to internal migration from other parts of the country).
The Shimizu Corporation, having been headquartered in Tokyo since the Edo period, had witnessed this growth first hand;
and overpopulation had resulted in some increasingly worrying issues like overcapacity, overpricing, and just a general lack of space.
Various solutions had been proposed over the years like moving the elderly, or creating jobs outside of Tokyo,
but The Shimizu Corporation had something else in mind.
By this point, they had built up their company to be one of the elite architectural, engineering and general contracting firms in the world,
with successful, large-scale construction projects under their belt.
(Note, recently, they've been known for their futuristic megaproject proposals like floating cities, underwater cities, desert canals and space hotels).
So, with this level of ambition and innovation in mind, it wasn't surprising to hear what happened one evening in 1982.
After a hard day's work, a Shimizu engineer decided to head out to watch a movie.
This movie was Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, set in a dystopian future where synthetic humans are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation -
this, a cult classic.
Now during the opening scene, two huge futuristic pyramidal megastructures were shown representing the headquarters of the Tyrell Corporation.
The Shimizu engineer was completely transfixed by this architectural marvel, and he was unable to get it out of his mind.
The next day he shared this with his engineering colleagues at the Shimizu Corporation;
and it thus became one of the main inspirations for their solution to Tokyo's overpopulation problem -
a giant pyramid that could hold an entire city's population in one self-sufficient building.
Ten years later, they found themselves patenting this idea globally.
Of course, this was a crazy idea, but it wasn't the first time something like this had been done.
Egypt. Around 2500 BC.
A huge pyramid was constructed on the edge of the Sahara desert during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu.
This was the Great Pyramid of Giza; and it was an architectural masterpiece.
Having likely served as a burial chamber for Khufu, it has withstood the test of time,
being the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World that has remained intact to this very day.
Sure, other pyramids had been built throughout history, but the one at Giza is the tallest of them all,
and was even the tallest of all man-made structures in the world for over 3800 years.
Of course, The Great Pyramid of Giza is dwarfed by many of the current metropolitan high-rises,
but, if the Shimizu Corporation is able to get its way, the Pyramids may rise again.
The Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid, designed to combat Tokyo's overcrowding and overpopulation,
would be so large it'd be over 14 times the height of Giza,
and 2.5 times that of the Burj Khalifa, currently the world's tallest building
(though soon to be overtaken by the Jeddah Tower).
This two kilometer-high structure would consist of eight levels, each 250 meters high;
and would house one million people.
Wait, but where exactly in Tokyo would you place this monstrosity?
Tokyo's already overcrowded so it's not like there's room (the area covered would be the equivalent of 18 Vatican Cities).
Fortunately, Shimizu had designed the pyramid to be built over suspect terrain like parkland, forests, rivers, and even large bodies of water
making it perfect for Tokyo Bay; really the only vacant real estate in the area.
36 piers made of special concrete would form the pyramid's foundations; which would make this the first offshore city ever built.
Now if you zoom up, you can see the structure isn't actually just one dense block of concrete,
but rather an exposed network of megatrusses, suspended skyscrapers, accelerated walkways, inclined elevators,
and rapid transit systems moving through hollow supports.
The bottom four levels would house commercial and residential spaces, while the top four would have facilities for research and leisure;
which means you can pack your stuff, leave your home, travel afar, then check into your hotel at your holiday destination…
all within the same building.
Ok, maybe this sounds awesome, but what about the pyramid's effect on the environment?
Well, the Mega-City will be powered by renewable energy - solar, wind, and algae;
yes algae, otherwise known as pond scum, making use of the surrounding waters.
Since algae is able to break up water into hydrogen (with the help of sunlight), hydrogen fuel cells can be used to convert the chemical energy into electricity;
which means the most technologically advanced city in humanity's history will, in part, be powered by pond scum.
But what about waves? Ocean swells generated by high winds also contain an enormous amount of energy,
which could perhaps be reigned in using specially-designed power generators;
but for this reliability is an issue, because waves get big, really big, especially in Japan.
Generators can get wiped out, but even more concerning is what happens when a giant pyramid decides to get in the way of a giant tsunami.
And what about earthquakes? Japan sits on top of the seismically-active Pacific Ring of Fire,
which means Tokyo isn't exactly the best place to set up an experimental architectural megaproject housing the lives of one million inhabitants.
But on the other hand if there's one place that knows how to make buildings earthquake- and tsunami-proof, it's Japan;
and the Shimizu Corporation is indeed well aware of the structural dangers, in fact, that's why the Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid is a pyramid.
The pyramid shape is the most stable design in structural engineering which makes it particularly suitable for cities like Tokyo.
And with the building not being enclosed - fully open to the elements - any impact from wind or water would be dramatically reduced.
For typhoons in particular, it would be safer to just let the winds blow right through.
Now despite all that, the greatest danger to the pyramid is actually the pyramid itself; more specifically its own weight.
If one truss fails, well, there goes potentially the lives of one million people just like that.
In fact, the structure is so massive, so heavy, that it wouldn't even be wise for Shimizu to attempt its construction.
Yes, the design had been flawed from the start; because in order for the pyramid to even hold itself up, a special material was required -
one vastly lighter, and a thousand times stronger than steel.
And currently, that technology isn't available.
But it will be available in the future; because advancements are already being made in the field, and it's just a matter of time.
Of course there are also other issues to contend with such as the proposed price tag,
and whether the easing of Tokyo's overcrowding would even be significant enough,
but the Shimizu Corporation has made clear that in considering all these potential issues,
the proposed completion date of the project would be around the year 2110 - a city for the future.
Indeed quite a while away; yet unlike, say, the X-Seed 4000 (another Tokyo megaproject by the rivaling Taisei Corporation),
it appears to not just be a ploy to gain mainstream attention.
Now if for whatever reason the pyramid fails to become a reality in Tokyo,
there are still other cities in the world with massive overcrowding problems that would benefit from this concept.
The Shimizu Corporation, after all, had always intended for this technology to be exported.
Imagine a Mega-City Pyramid in Singapore, Hong Kong, Mumbai or Dhaka.
Life in the largest man-made structure in history would be like a world within a world, a condensed, exciting, more sophisticated version of the real world.
This confinement would, to an extent, lead inevitably to a certain level of autonomy within.
Yet, unlike Hong Kong's notoriously depraved Kowloon Walled City (another example of an extremely high-density enclave of a wider population),
it would, from the start, be a place that's well-governed and ahead of its time,
filled with forward-thinking people from different backgrounds with different skills, joined together by technology and a sense of community.
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