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"Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes."
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Vinge tantalizes us with a glimpse at a future construction technique.
The implication is that a building of this kind is really like a self-balancing robot. Although most tall buildings today are built to flex with stresses like wind and mild earth tremors, as far as I know this is just an idea.
One technique that appears to be in current use is called the "isolated base" technology. This uses a flexible support placed between the foundation and the structure itself; it counteracts the motion of seismic waves. As the earthquake moves the foundation one way, the support moves the other way, and the building stays almost stationary.
I can't find anything on this kind of technique in actual use, but maybe a student of architecture or engineering could chime in. Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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