I saw this in Discovery, a few years ago. It sounds really cool, well, the whole idea of mega-structures. If any country should do it, I think that country should be Japan. :-)

uh was on the discovery channel almost a year ago and it was on discovery science this weekend. I'm posting this in safari on xp. not much fast so far

Holy old news, Batman!

Yeah, I seem to recall this from a billion years agop, whne they MADEI T IN EGYPT YOU STPIDBLOGSDT!

err . . . sorry. My internal 11 year old took the controls there for a second.

"...people would travel inside it via the tubes that are also supporting the enormous structure."

Attack pyramid's weak point for MASSIVE DAMAGE!

If Japan builds a giant pyramid, the terrorists win.

Arcology anyone?

http://www.arcology.com/

Should we do this? Probably not. Could we do this? Possibly. Would the first natural disaster ruin it? Hope not...

Do they have a real problem to address, absolutely but let's send em back to the drawing board.

That's a big FU to those buildings on the Bay.

Godzilla is gonna be pissed...

yep, extreme engineering is the show that covered. been on for quite some time now.

Japan already has a huge amount of public debt. The banks are just now opening the purse strings for more private construction.

This simply isn't going to happen.

lol yes he is, yes he is

oan
I love extreme engineering

It's all fun and games until those 'suspended skyscrapers' start treating eachother like piniatas when the next big earthquake hits.

Oh god. This is funny. I can't believe some moron actually proposed this crap!

"...and people speeding between them through a vast matrix of hollow supports..."
HOW THE HELL DO YOU SEE THE SUPPORTS, THEN?!

I was half expecting George Jetson or the Planet Express Ship to crash into something.

I'd take bets on what they'd call the restaurant at the top.

The pyramid is a series of tubes just like the internet? SWEET!

/can't believe I made the first mention

Now all we need are Replicants and some rain and we should be all set for the distopian future.

I genuinely believe I saw this video at least TEN years ago. For some reason I believed construction of this pyramid would have started by now. I'm gullible.

yeah the clip leaves out that this is proposed for about 100 years into the future when we have robots to spin the tubes from nanotubes.

I'll take two.

this building will probably never happen however one of my favorite episodes of exreme engineering featured something that might already be in the works called sky city 1000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_City_1000 they say that Roppongi Hills in tokyo is sort of a prototype because its a self contained community complete with hospitals and the like

Do it.

i´ve seen it a long time ago in discovery channel brasil.. on a show call megaconstructions (translated, but i would say big ass buildings) seemed alright =D

Clearly this will never actually be built, but it's not the only time a utopian structure has been proposed for Tokyo Bay.

This summer at the Barbicon Art Gallery in London (housed within the Barbicon, a utopian enclosed-society structure, itself), there was an exhibit entitled "Future Structures," focused entirely on utopian architecture.

One of the many architecture groups featured was a Japanese avante-garde group called the Metabolists, who sought to create structures which could expand infinitely with megastructures made of capsules of "minimum dwelling units." Fun, right?

In particular, though, was an architect named Kenzo Tange, whose concept for rebuilding Tokyo after World War II was to extend the city's infrastructure into the very center of Tokyo Bay as a "civic axis." His plan, according to the exhibit, is "now considered an archetype of megastructure-style urban planning." Of course, then, it was never built!

This sort of thing never flies, because it requires an immense initial-cost buy-in that no government outside of a communist/totalitarian regime would be willing to front. One of the only countries seriously considering a "planned city" (i.e. a city planned from the ground up, rather than incrementally by individuals) is China, who's looking into building a suburb of Shanghai like that. There was an article in an issue of Wired recently that detailed its viability, but it might just happen.

But, can they get it to Mars when necessary?

Yep, Arcology was the first thing that came to my mind too, strider.

I also thought that would be the best place for Dunkelzahn (Shadowrun anyone?) to set up shop!

Problem is, that this would take so long to complete that it would get redesigned about 5 times before it was done. I can see it now, the Leaning Pyramid of Japan.

A scale down version like this would best build inside the zoo for monkey.

Tokyo has way to many earthquakes. The building itself looks good, but building it in Tokyo would be a bad idea.

garrr...i hate "it would contain anything anyone could ever need to live a complete life, from cradle to the grave."
Like hell it does. stupid fucking gardens placed on top of skyscrapers are NOT a substitute for the REAL world, with things called animals and nature.

if anyone's going to make really cool stuff like arcologies, ultra-thin cellphones, or robotic french maids, it'll be japan. no question.

olllld saw that a few years ago; would be cool if they were to really do it

they should build it in seoul.

My knowledge of engineering is weak at best, but doesn't the fact that it's completely hollow and open help PROTECT is more? Just like a hollow tube is a stronger support than a solid one, isn't the open structure of this more likely to let the massive force of a tsunami dissipate instead of slamming into and destroying a solid wall?