HYDRO-NET
Symbiotic and multi-scalar, SF HYDRO-NET is an occupiable infrastructure that organizes critical flows of the city. HYDRO-NET provides an underground arterial traffic network for hydrogen-fueled hover-cars, while simultaneously collecting, storing and distributing water and power tapped from existing aquifer and geothermal sources beneath San Francisco. A new aquaculture zone with ponds of algae and forests of sinuous housing towers reoccupy Baylands inundated by rising sea levels. Hydrogen fuel is produced by the algae, and is stored and distributed within the nanotube wall structure of HYDRO-NET's robotically-drilled tunnels. At key waterfront and neighborhood locales, HYDRO-NET emerges to form linkages between the terrestrial and subterranean worlds. Here new architectures bloom as opportunistic urban caves and outcroppings, fostering new social spaces and densified urban forms, fed by the resources and connectivity provided by HYDRO-NET. These locally responsive and distributed nodes and tendrils facilitate both the preservation and organic evolution of San Francisco.
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Expert's Corner: Commentary by Richard Meier
"The number of urban dwellers is expected to rise sharply in the future.
Addressing this fact, this vision for the future of San Francisco proposes a new network of infrastructure below the surface of the city that will help the region maximize and distribute its resources. Called 'Hydronet,' the system will not only provide tunnels for a new generation of hover-cars, but also collection and distribution systems for water and power. The proposal identifies places where drinkable water might be harvested from both the sky and the earth, where heat might be extracted or dissipated deep in the strata below the city, and where new hydrogen based energy might be generated from algae fields. The city's signature waterfront is repopulated with a series of eco-towers that animate the skyline and are linked to the network of infrastructure."
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