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Khanty Mansiysk Siberia Tower Of Glass
A new mixed-use tower of glass will rise above Khanty Mansiysk, Siberia. This unusual structure will make use of an environmental strategy that should set a new standard for Siberia, which suffered greatly at the hands of the leaders of the former Soviet Union. The building has been designed by Foster + Partners.
(Tower of Glass, Khanty Mansiysk, Siberia)
The setting for the building is a densely wooded area; two podium buildings each facetted like a cut diamond set off and help illuminate the interior of the main tower. The building design is intended to take advantage of sustainable energy strategies; the atria of the building and its surrounding structures should facilitate solar gain and bring daylight into the building.
(Tower of Glass, Khanty Mansiysk, Siberia)
This proposed building reminds me of the structure from Robert Silverberg's 1970 novel Tower of Glass; a wealthy eccentric builds a vaulting glass tower up from the permafrost of the Arctic Circle.
Simeon Krug's tower now rises 100 meters above the gray-brown tundra of the Canadian Arctic, west of Hudson Bay. At present the tower is merely a glassy stump...Krug has his androids working three shifts round the clock; when it gets dark, the construction site is lit by millions of reflector plates strung across the sky at a height of one kilometer and powered by the little million-kilowatt fusion generator at the north end of the site. "How high will it be when it's finished?" Quenelle asks.
"1500 meters," Krug replies. "A tremendous tower of glass full of machinery that nobody can understand. And then we'll turn it on. And then we'll talk to the stars.
The construction of the Khanty Mansiysk structure would certainly go faster with teams of androids...
Here are a couple of views of Silverberg's structure, from some of the book cover art:
(Robert Silverberg's Tower of Glass cover art)
This Silverberg novel is also notable for the first use of the term "jack in", referring to a means of direct perception of a computer-generated world.
Via Electro Plankton; see also the Foster + Partners website.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/25/2007)
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