A Place to Stand

Arcology, from the words "ecology" and "architecture,"[1] is a set of architectural design principles aimed toward the design of enormous habitats (hyperstructures) of extremely high human population density'

Basically a town in one enclosed building. The cost is obviously very high & any such project would, as a single investment, have a higher risk than several separate projects. Dubai is talking about building one able to hold 1 million people but then they are addicted to massive structures & not seriously constrained by cost.

Previously I mentioned how Richard Rogers had said the actual cost of building the Dome cost £46 million to actually build. Thus we have a possible structure 365m in diameter, 50m high in the centre & just over 100,000 square meters.
Under a structure like that, probably with a transparent awning one could theoretically house 50,000 people but there is no need for anything remotely like that. I am thinking of something rather closer to the 6,000 Prince Charles's Poundbury is aimed to house. Despite my doubts about his architectural designs he does seem to have produced an attractive community atmosphere at that size.

I can forsee developers being allowed to put a structure of that volume of land with full rights, without further planning permission, to put what they want inside. I suspect with this limited amount of control they would be very commercially viable & the environmental impact would be geographically very limited & much less than a windfarm. In particular if the Scottish Tunnels Project is implemented there are very many Highlands & Islands sites which are currently inaccessible but would become about an hour's drive from Glasgow & which would become desirable as primary or holiday homes, situated, probably as a gated community, in some of the most beautiful parts of Scotland but out of the weather.