HOUSE FOR MANKIND, SPECULATIVE SPACE SHARING STRATEGIES, OF PUBLIC INTEREST (OPI) LAB, LÖVHOLMEN, SWEDEN, THE WORLD
2022
House for Mankind
House for Mankind, illustrative section through planet earth, with the earth-scraper in green
Lövholmen?
Or a question about life itself?
An ever-increasing proportion of the world's population is moving to cities. Today, 55% of the world's population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% before the year 2050. By 2030, the world is estimated to have 43 megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants.
Which puts enormous pressure on urban planning, development, technology and political leadership to ensure a good quality of life for all – the demands on our public spaces will only grow. What was once considered a bad thing - overcrowding - is once again a reality.
In our work with NYA LÖVHOLMEN we used the area as a starting point to initiate a discussion about place use, place sharing and the public's responsibility in the development of our urban environments. We asked: what would the city look like if housing were built underground?
In response to Stockholm City's goal of building 140,000 apartments before 2030, we developed an extreme proposal, House for Mankind, which also solves the entire world's housing problem right here on Lövholmen - a 2.2 million-floor underground 'high-rise' that leaves the rest of the earth's surface free of other things.
Public rooms?
Nature?
Leisure activities?
It is about 6371 km to the center of the earth. A high-rise building for the earth's 8 billion inhabitants would be approximately 2.2 million floors high with roughly 3,600 people living per floor. A small village, roughly.
Average household in the world = 4.9 people/home3,636 people / 4.9 ≈ 740 households (apartments) per floor8 apartments around 1 lift/shaft provide:740 / 8 ≈ 92 apartment groups.
Who will decide how the future will be built?
And how do we - you - me - the collective public, affect the decision-making process of the city -where we will all live?