We have builds like this, but not as big in Taiwan. They almost always have an area downstairs that the food is placed so people can come down and get it.
I imagine they also have the same thing in China.
D’you place the order before or after heading downstairs?
I order first, then wait until the UberEATS or food panda person says they are close and take the elevator down to get it. Usually I take down my trash at the same time since the trash area is close to the main area.
If I lived on the top floor I would place the order from the comfort of my home then immediately start walking down stairs and by the time I got there the order will have probably arrived.
stairs
Everyday is leg day!
Stairs are normal to me. Far be it for me to interfere with anyone else’s feeble worldview.
Hey man I love stairs! But for, say, 20+, that’s pretty significant
E: floor 20+ I mean
Yeah, man. Stairs were the shit. But once I turned 20, I knew it was just too much. Not a sustainable lifestyle anymore…
Lol, exactly what led me to make the edit/addition there
Three days later
Betcha the delivery guy delivers for one or more from many takeout food spots that are probably located inside the building itself.
We need this in North America if we ever want to solve the housing crisis tbh. I’m talking Soviet-style, grey concrete commieblocks. Yes the buildings are ugly, probably lack amenities, cheaply constructed and not well maintained, but we desperately need cheap, dense housing if we’re going to bring down the costs. Building more luxury Manhattan condos and suburban single family abominations does nothing to bring down housing prices.
Yeah but I’d also like to see such huge buildings in the middle of nature. Imagine 10.000 people with their own daycare, school or even medic / doctor surrounded by fields and food forests so they can produce their own food. Generates it’s own power, centralized super efficient heat storage system for winter, cleans up it’s own water etc. And have a fast mass transport to the next hub, like a chain of such buildings a few miles apart linking to the next big city. That’s my solar punk.
It’s basically a whole city in a building. The big advantage for this is that the city is not taking up massive amounts of space.
American Fork, Utah, has 33k inhabitants on 19 square kilometres. The building in the OP has 20-30k inhabitants on 0.04 square kilometres, which would mean that if you house all of American Fork like that, you’d get between 18.92 and 18.96 of untouched nature in return.
I’m from Poland.
I’m talking Soviet-style, grey concrete commieblocks
So the commieblocks are always:
- few minutes walk from school, kindergarten, grocery, doctor’s office, post, dentist and bus stops
- sane distance from another block
- either surrounded by good greenery, or next to a park
- surprisingly good quality
- small elevator
- little parking spaces
Vs “modern” blocks:
- large elevator
- the blocks are so close, if you open your window you could pee in the neighbours coffee cup
- usually surrounded by pavement, cement, or car parking
- better at noise reduction
- you’re more likely to need a car to go to doctor’s office or drop your kids off, or go to the grocer.
To me the ideal is the commie era urban planning with modern techniques, but that’s uncommon.
Commie urban planning with modern blocks, exactly my ideal too
Though for density the blocks being close together is beneficial.
Oh and I’d like to see more ground floors of residential buildings used for services. Have a dentist in your building, small grocery store in the next one and a restaurant in another. Though I do think that’s becoming more common with new builds here in Estonia.
When I was in the Czech Republic a lot of old commie blocks were painted and surrounded by grass with wide passages between them.
It was incredible compared to what I saw in Poland or where my Russian friends lived. (they managed to flee the country)
Depending on the city in Poland they might also be either painted in pastel colors or there might be murals on them.
Example:
And the wide green corridors between them were a constant feature as far as I know (at least I don’t remember NOT seeing wide grass + trees + some flowers corridors between 'em).
I do agree that Czechs picked better colors for it and keeps them fresher.
We don’t even necessarily need those, fucking row townhouses like old Chicago or New York would be a massive improvement in space usage and density alone. Just modify the design to have a garage in the back and make the alleyway larger. Hell you could narrow the front road if you do it right.
Hell you
couldshould narrow the front roadif you do it right.and turn it into a pedestrian plaza with a few shops and restaurants.While I like the enthusiasm we are still talking about the US here, even just for controlled semitruck or emergency service access it would still need to be wide enough for say a firetruck even compensation with utility alleyways and back end garages. But you could set it up to be relatively easily converted to such a thing if the required modifications to infrastructure and emergency services are done, but even then it’d be twenty years off even on a rapid timescale.
To be fair, I didn’t say make it impassible, I said narrow it. It’s easy enough to make a pedestrian plaza that a box truck or a firetruck can fit down. It works in the majority of the cities and towns in Scandinavia. They’re not going to build affordable rowhomes or high density housing in the states anytime soon so this is literally allll wishcasting from top to bottom.
Fair enough, though my point was moreso to do with how absurdly massive American fire engines and semi-trucks there are smaller tanks. A Stuart tank from WW2 or fuck even a M60 Patton are smaller than a standard American fire engine.
Tanks are pretty small, even European fire engines are bigger.
What’s fucked up is that tanks get better frontal visibility than American pick up trucks lol
3-5 story housing with no parking works in France/Europe. No elevators/pools is huge cost savings. Room for cars ridiculously expensive where land is ridiculously expensive. Bikeable/walkable communities FTW. 5th story units would be cheaper, but young people need cheaper.
elevators are required for ada compliance
3 story houses/buildings exist without elevators. There is no proposal to outlaw ADA compliant buildings.
The problem is that, for the property owning class, the unaffordability of homes is broadly a feature and not a bug.
For the property investor class. I assure you, the average homeowner isn’t happy about the idea of increased property tax, nor having to spend more if the want to upgrade to a bigger home.
Of course if you’ve got a mortgage and property prices go up, you can leverage that into and easier upgrade because you can use the increased equity in your property as collateral. I know someone who got a huge boost during COVID that way. Tiny studio to 3 bedroom. But mortgage payment went up 2 or 3 times too, so that doesn’t work if property becomes unaffordable altogether.
That’s how you create undesirable neighborhoods which eventually turn into ghettos. Many cities in Europe tried that and many of those neighborhoods quickly became unsafe and derelict. Like many of the banlieus in Paris or the Bijlmer in Amsterdam. Because people who eventually have the means to move out will leave asap. Nobody wants to settle in such a neighborhood. So only the poor and desperate stay. Which in turn means local business will leave as well.
Look at how Vienna works. Contrary to other places, they did government housing blocks really well there.
- The blocks are spread throughout the whole city. That means, there’s no really bad place where all the undesirables are concentrated. This mixes the population. For example, I went to a school in one of the inner districts. In my class we had fresh immigrants that could hardly speak German. We had kids from poor families. We had middle class kids. We had kids who’s parents were immigrants but who were born there. We had a kid who’s parents played in the Vienna Philharmonic. We had two really rich kids descending from former nobility. We had a kid who was the son of a well-known lawyer.
- The blocks do have an income limit when you get the flat, but that limit is very high (it easily covers everyone in the middle class) and it only applies when you move in. If your income increases afterwards you can still stay in that flat and still pay the same as anyone else. That means that you got a decent mix of people living in these blocks. There’s not only poor people there.
- Most of the blocks are actually really nice. There’s parks between the blocks with nice, old trees. Many of the blocks even have swimming pools or other special extras.
Check out for example this one here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alterlaa
It can be done well. It doesn’t have to be crap.
Yeah, there aren’t really any Estonians moving to Lasnamäe. Some live there because it’s cheap, but you’re going to have to speak Russian to talk to your neighbours. Of course if you do, you can get drugs fairly easily, which is a plus.
It’s not actually unsafe or super criminal though, it’s just very undesirable and tends to attract the lower strata.
I agree with the general mission of FuckCars, but it always seems full of people who don’t care about anything of what goes into a prosperous city that isn’t the amount of cars on the road.
We need mass housing, but also a focus on aesthetics.
I noticed my area has done a nice job after visiting Chicago. Chicago was concrete, roads and parking lots, and barren. Fly back to metro Vancouver and even worst neighborhood has beautitul construction, parks, trees and flower beds everywhere.I mean I agree that Vancouver is maybe one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but it’s also one of the most expensive!
Yeah I meant an hour out of Vancouver, Metro Vancouver… But still pricey
What’s even the point of living if we have to live like packages sitting in a warehouse? Living for the sake of being alive sounds like torture.
I’d much rather a cleaner healthier city scape to live in than a slightly bigger personal home space. I’m a garden person though so i prefer to be outdoors.
Cheap construction and poor maintainability is more expensive in the long run, I think it’s possible to create affordable housing while still having longevity and a reasonable access to amenities in mind.
I honestly think commieblocks don’t look that bad.
We need mass housing, but also a focus on aesthetics.
I noticed my area has done a nice job after visiting Chicago. Chicago was concrete, roads and parking lots, and barren. Fly back to metro Vancouver and even worst neighborhood has beautitul construction, parks, trees and flower beds everywhere.Do you live in an apartment, a condo, a townhome, a home or…?
I live in a wildly overpriced studio apartment. I would jump at the chance to move into a concrete block apartment with no AC and limited hot water if it took $500 off my monthly rent.
How much do you currently pay and how much do you think these commie block apartments would cost? Because where I’m from, a 1br commie block apartment is as much as if not more than a modern studio apartment.
The lack of AC and poor ventilation really show in the summer too.
Apartment blocks are nice, but I don’t want to live in the commie ones, they suck in many ways.
if it took $500 off my monthly rent.
You think it would take $500 off your rent? Lol, they’re not going to make things cheaper, just life more miserable.
Wouldnt that just be supply and demand? Why would less comfortable housing not be less expensive?
Ok this is a soft rebuttal because I agree we need to fix affordability asap, but is intensification really the right path?
Like something else needs to be fixed or these super condos will just enable politicians to import even more people to maintain the unaffordability.
So it’s Peachtree towers in MegaCity 1.
Judge Dredd approves.
High density housing bad and dystopian. Homelessness good. Now build more single family homes with lawns pls. /s
Low-rise to mid-rise high-density housing, sure, but high-rises are bad, yes. They cost more to maintain, they either prevent adequate sunlight at lower levels or need to be spaced apart wide enough to defeat the point, and they tend to be worse for social isolation and anti-social behaviour.
High rises give way to urban density and walkable neighborhoods. Any costs in maintenance is easily offset by freeing hundreds of people from the costs of car ownership, medical costs due to sedentary lifestyles in unwalkable suburbs, provide more affordable and accessible community funded childcare, better access to healthy foods than in food deserts enforced by zoning, and reduction in homelessness related crimes.
Nothing is more socially isolating than car-centric suburban hell where anyone too young or too old to drive are deemed ineligible to leave their house independently and participate in society. Nothing creates anti-social behavior like forcing homelessness and desperation onto people who cannot afford to live in cities that are lacking in affordable public housing.
Speaking as someone who has lived in both urban highrise public housing and suburban hells in different parts of the world, the most socially isolating experience by far has been living in car-depedent suburbs with piss poor public transit, especially as someone who cannot drive often. Every will eventually become disabled and cannot drive. It’s just a matter of when. When that time comes, you better hope you can afford a retirement home or to have someone drive you, because if you can’t, you’re stuck right where you are. And that times sooner the less walking you find the time to do in a day.
Walkable neighbourhoods with excellent public transport and perfectly (and I would bet more cost-effectively) with low and mid rises as you can with high rises. Good examples are Barcelona and Paris.
America’s weird zoning laws are a problem unto themselves. Here in the Old World it’s perfectly normal to have a row of shops and cafes and whatnot in the middle of the suburbs or on the bottom floors of a block of flats. That is the biggest factor in creating walkable neighbourhoods.
low rise and mid rise are ugly as hell compared to densely packed high rise buildings or single family homes
Have to agree to disagree. Most of the prettiest areas of London consist of Edwardian mansion blocks and Georgian terraces.
Just do what my delivery drivers do. Leave it at the main entrance and mark it delivered.
Mailroom aside, if a delivery guy is fine crossing a city with 20/30k people horizontally in traffic, I don’t really see why this is such a bad thing when you break it down.
I count 35 floors, so you can cut it down to ~850 people on each floor after an elevator ride, and a building like this will probably have at least 4 elevator areas sectioning the building almost equally.
So you’re down to about ~210 people after entering the right side of the building, that’s like a big street / small neighborhood (and how far you have to walk should scale closely to that). And with this much people in one area you can really easily batch deliveries. And a delivery place will probably settle quite closely to such a hub of people anyways.
at least 4 elevator areas sectioning the building almost equally.
each elevator lobby also has its own address. It’s less confusing than you’d imagine, and also any delivery drivers will have been there before.
Also: big buildings usually have cargo elevators. It would be insanity to “door-dash” every last package on the passenger cars, limited by what could be carried or lugged on a hand-truck. Instead, they would load up the whole car from the truck on a loading dock, then deliver one floor at a time, start/stopping the car where needed.
China: Bulldozes Kowloon Walled City
Also China:
Luckily each unit has a number that indicates the floor and each floor probably has a floormap near the elevator, so you won’t have to go knocking on random doors until you find the person.
Same thing for making deliveries in cities of several million. If there’s an effective addressing system, it’s usually trivial to find the destination, or at least to get very close to it and switch to “ok wtf is going on here with the last bit of this address?” mode.
They probably have a number of diverse food kitchens in there, and would most likely “buy local”, anyway. That building being basically a slum, I doubt that there is much delivery from the outside.
In reality buildings like this have a mailroom where packages are dropped.
Correct, and the drop-off and pick-up is done through QR codes over WeChat, here is a (German) documentary about this very building showing the process:
Problem is that mailrooms are useless for food delivery drivers.
mailrooms are useless for food delivery
You’ve clearly never had snailmail stew
Seems like an easy problem to fix. Have a designated meeting/drop location
Imagine the parking required if this were in the states
I long for mixed used housing without an automobile parking requirement in an area with ubiquitous mass transit.
Certain areas of NYC is what you want. Expensive though. I lived a block from a 15 minute train ride to work at one point. Every type of food you could want within 15 minute walk. Bus up the block took you to Costco.
Maybe you could make part of the rent A. First floor car rental place. Mass transit for everyday stuff and maybe a thousand cars for immediate rental for people that need to do strange things. Include box trucks pickups, yada, yada.
The building would probably extend like eight football fields underground
eight football fields
How much is that in recumbent giraffes?
probably half of Texas
Sorry mate, elevator is out of service because someone pulled the fire alarm
Something weird and amazing about China is the changes in verticality. You can walk into a building off a plaza, take the elevator DOWN ten levels…and walk out onto a street.
There’s something incredibly cyberpunk about that. Give it a few hundred years and people won’t know where the bottom is where sunlight never reaches.
some cities are built on mountains.
I remember watching some stuff about cities where it feels like you went out on street level but really you’re still XX floors up.
Odds are it was a video about Chongqing. It’s an engineering miracle that a city of that scale can even exist on such challenging terrain.
You can do exactly the same in Wellington, New Zealand. There’s a bunch of buildings with street frontage on the Terrace and Lambton Quay, with something like ten floors of difference.
