Los Angeles, january 19th, 2151

Yesterday one of the most violent earthquake has run over Los Angeles. Thanks to the new anti-seismic technology in construction in our city we are all safe and today I’m here, inside the revolutionary Quake-Scraper to demonstrate that through architecture, it is possible to overturn the relationship between man and natural events.

Thanks to this building, today  we are able to transform the energy released during earthquakes – in the past only cause of destruction and death – into electrical energy used on a large territory and for many different activities. It works everyday, ‘cause everyday in this site we register a seismic activity, even weak, but during extraordinary shake like yesterday the quantity of energy produced by this building cover the energy need of the whole city and its surrounding: it is a real energy machine!

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It is composed by a sequence of tubes with different functions crossing the big crack down Hollywood hill, spaced out by piston valves and capstans: their main use is the production of geothermal energy. Even if it’s difficult to exactly estimate the quantity of thermal energy released during an earthquake, it is supposed to use the thermal gradient generated in the soil at different depths along the crack to improve (EGS) Enhanced Geothermal Systems and store this kind of renewable energy. Moreover, along the soil fault, due to the thermal differences of ground layers, it is generated a difference in air pressure and, consequently, a strong wind that could be transformed in energy by wind generators put in different depths and all connected to central power plants.

Also the choice of piezoelectric materials for construction or covering, able to generate a potential difference when exposed to mechanical stresses and volumetric deformations, contributes to improve the quantity of generated energy.

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But what we are most interested in is the creation of a new landscape, where nature and artificiality stand together in a balance, a safe place to live in, that allows people to stay here living or just spending their free time,  without fear and taking advantage of the renewable energy naturally released from the ground. Inside the upper tubes, many functions are possible: private or public, interior domestic environments  are mixed to collective spaces and experimental gardens for botanical research. The final objective is the creation of a vertical mixed community.

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Many activities, original points of view to Los Angeles city and new relationship established with the natural environment: so, trust me, it’s funny to stay here and you’ll be so captivated by this place to forget the deep empty space below you!