Architecture and Pandemics: Covid-19

Architecture and Epidemics, New York City dome, Covid-19 Effect on global design

Architecture and Pandemics

post updated March 26, 2024

Location: New York City, NY, USA

Buckminster Fuller’s Dome Over Manhattan:
Buckminster Fuller’s Dome Over Manhattan

March 24, 2020

Dome Over Manhattan

One of Buckminster Fuller’s most daring ideas, the Dome Over Manhattan, taken in the context of today’s global pandemic would make perfect sense. Perhaps Fuller’s idea was crazy for his time, now our times are crazier than his ideas and an encapsulated city would be a safe one.

Future skyscraper design – helipad / dronepad crown:
Architecture and Pandemics: skyscraper drone

The consequences of an epidemic such as the Covid-19’s will shift our priorities towards creating new advanced city models where every aspect can be controlled and managed easily. A new world where technology no longer walks side by side with globalization and architecture and urban design return to “form follows function”.

Vertical density vs Urban sprawl:
Vertical density vs Urban sprawl

Our cities and endless suburban areas, connecting roads and infrastructures are not fit for purpose.

verticalism2.0 urban design skyscraper:
verticalism2.0 urban design skyscraper

However, not long from now personal passenger drones will make airspace the main transport domain. They are autonomous, electric, intelligent and capable of learning and adapting to flight conditions in seconds.

Passenger drones and high-level access in and out of a building will allow us to create a city within a building (or connected buildings) that can be accessed at many points. This will free us from the vertical “cul-de-sac” model of the supertower of today, where everybody goes up from the bottom but comes down from the bottom too. Without this limitation, we can grow vertical and this time “not for the show”.

Passenger drone transportation:
Passenger drone transportation

The first advantage of creating a new model is that city life and unspoiled nature can be side by side. This will also mean that we don’t need to recreate the life and the things that naturally belong to the ground in absurd artificial environments at high level. It will be abnormal and simply not necessary.

VERTICALISM 2.0 from Martin Cruz on Vimeo.

The objective of going vertical will be to create dense and highly controlled city environments without losing our relationship with the ground. New cities would shift population from existing ones and those, in turn, will start a de-clogging process.

future skyscraper design:
Architecture and Pandemics: Covid-19 skyscraper

These new encapsulated worlds might be hermetically sealed however its socioeconomic makeup not confined in the city or countryside domains but completely interchangeable.

new economies vs future drone travel landscape:
new economies drone travel landscape future

Equally, safety measures, energy creation and a sustainable framework would become part of the architecture of understanding of these cities. It becomes an obvious and integral part of peoples lives where everyone can see and connect in anticipation of how these systems work for us all. An education which will result in a new generation of individuals fully in sync with their cities. Perhaps the key for future survival?

Architecture pandemic skyscraper design

VERTICALISM 2.0
In 1931, Aldous Huxley made the first reference to the passenger drone. In his novel, Brave new world, the everyday transportation is the private helicopter. “The machine shot vertically into the air. Henry accelerated; the humming of the propeller shrilled from hornet to wasp, from wasp to mosquito; the the speedometer showed that they were …
vimeo.com

Architecture and Pandemics: Covid-19 Hermetic Verticalism

Marcos De Andres
Co-Founder & Director
Architect

AMBS Architects
London/Madrid/Marrakesh
+44 (0) 7904408442
+34 680 760 430
+212(0)6 077 14 777
www.ambsarchitects.com

3D visualization by Rafael Gomez Galan

Architecture and Epidemics, New York City Dome, Covid-19 Effect on Global Design2020 images / information received 240320

Address: New York City, NY, United States

New York Building Designs

Recent Major Buildings in New York City

550 Madison
Architects: Snøhetta
550 Madison NYC
photo © Snøhetta and MOARE
550 Madison in New York City

Poster House, 119 W 23rd Street
Design: LTL Architects
Poster House Flatiron District NYC
photo : Michael Moran / OTTO
Poster House in the Flatiron District, New York City

New York City Architecture

Key Buildings in Manhattan

NYC Architecture Designs – chronological list

New York Building News

New York Walking Tours

Rural Mobility, 1071 5th Ave, New York, NY 10128
Curators: AMO in partnership with Volkswagen
Rural Mobility Exhibition Guggenheim Manhattan
photo © Philipp Gladsome
Rural Mobility Exhibition at the Guggenheim, New York City

New York Architecture

New York Architect

Apple Store, Upper East Side

Comments / photos for the Architecture and Epidemics 2020, New York City Dome, Covid-19 Effect on Global Design page welcome