London's Proposed New Town Tower - a City Within a City

London... England's Capital City has an ever-increasing population. In fact, it's increasing so fast that estimates calculate a need for housing for almost one hundred thousand people every year, up to the year 2016.

In order to cope with this rapid expansion without swallowing up existing well-known parks, historic areas and open spaces, architects have come up with the rather radical idea of building what will be called, the New Town Tower. The tower which will literally be as high as the clouds, reaching as high as fifteen hundred metres into the blue yonder and housing one hundred thousand people. This tower, will be complete with parks, public squares, town halls, shopping facilities, schools and hospitals, as well as many open-air facilities.

Architects say, "The tower allows for a massive intensification of the city without the need for dramatic alteration of London's existing fabric." The tower will be a city within our Capital City, with six hundred people occupying a single floor. Each village will encompass twenty floors and around six thousand residents, then divided into three, super districts of thirty three thousand people.

The facade would be the load-bearing core for the tower, allowing the formation of large, circular openings which would provide open air facilities for the residents, including a farmer's market, tennis courts, parks, botanical gardens, theatres and ice rinks. By releasing the centre from a structural role, vast internal voids would be created, bringing light and air to the centre of the building, and also allow each apartment to have dual aspect. Every twenty floors, the voids would be broken by a floor that spans right across, providing a public square and civic centre for each village. Also incorporated would be openings that allow a visual and environmental connection throughout the entire tower.

The Environment would benefit, by water and household waste being recycled within the tower, thus reducing the energy required to replace it with fresh water, drawn from the ground. It is estimated that fresh water could be harvested and filtered from clouds, as they enveloped the top of the tower, on overcast days. Also, the tower's position, being close to the existing transport infrastructure would allow goods to be delivered more easily, and this, coupled with living, working and entertainment facilities being housed in one, single location, the use of petrol and the release of toxic matter into the air, would be reduced.

The idea is to build the tower in stages, twenty stories at a time, in order that it may be inhabited in stages whilst further building takes place. The main objective is to reduce movement throughout London by condensing living, working, and entertainment facilities within a single tower, which takes up little of the ground space within the City of London.

Is this a thing of the future? Once the New Town Tower is built, will we see sever towers shooting up in major cities across the United Kingdom. Most certainly, there is much to think about and weigh up here... the mind boggles!