人類計劃建設的10座超級建築(下)

i Arabia's Monster Hotels At Mecca

5.沙特阿拉伯麥加的最大酒店

For the past few years, Saudi Arabia has been busy turning the ancient city of Mecca into the Las Vegas of the Middle East. The pinnacle of this transformation may well be the upcoming Abraj Kudai. Technically a luxury, five-star hotel that will loom over the holy city, the Abraj Kudai is so big that it more resembles a vertical city-state, where every citizen will be a guaranteed millionaire.

過去的幾年中，沙特阿拉伯一直致力於將聖城麥加這座古老的城市轉型爲中東的拉斯維加斯。轉型過程中最引人注目的恐怕就是即將建成的Abraj Kudai酒店了。從技術上來講一座豪華的五星級酒店將巍然聳立於城中，Abraj Kudai酒店規模如此之大，堪稱一座垂直型城邦國，而且城中的每個居民保證都是百萬富翁。

It will stand 45 stories tall, and everything about the hotel screams obscene wealth. The top floor will house one of the largest Islamic domes in the world, surrounded by four helipads for the ultra-rich to land on. At least five floors will be reserved for the exclusive use of the Al-Saud royal family. The rest of the building, meanwhile, will contain around 10,000 bedrooms and over 70 high-class restaurants. Far below, on the ground floors, a vast shopping mall will vie for space with a conference center and a lavish ballroom. Supposedly designed to resemble a "traditional desert fortress," this monster of a building will cost at least £2.3 billion. Although the Abraj Kudai will be the biggest hotel in the world when it opens in 2017, it pales in comparison to other Mecca projects. A collection of gigantic hotels in the west of the city known as the Jabal Omar development is intended to house 100,000 pilgrims, while the Grand Mosque is to be upgraded to house seven million people at any one time. Ironically, this would stretch so far back that many worshipers wouldn't even be able to see the Kaaba they'd come all this way to worship.

酒店樓高45層，所有與酒店相關的東西都極盡奢華。最頂層將建成世界上最大的穹頂，四周圍繞着4個直升機停機坪，以供那些超級富豪降落。還有至少5個專供沙特皇室享用的樓層。除此之外還包含1萬間客房，70家高級餐廳。遠非這些，一間大型購物中心正在與會議中心和高級宴會廳競爭酒店底層的位置。酒店的設計意在以現代理念詮釋"傳統沙漠堡壘"，耗資至少高達23億英鎊。儘管Abraj Kudai酒店2017年開業後將是世界上最大的酒店，但是與麥加其他項目相比就小巫見大巫了。在城市的西部地區，名爲Jabal Omar的酒店正在開發當中，預計可容納10萬朝聖者，麥加大清真寺也將擴建至可以容納700萬朝拜者。然而諷刺的是，擴建部分遠至朝聖者根本無法看到他們遠道而來朝覲的卡巴天房。

a's Vertical Mega City

4.中國的大型垂直城市

Now let's set our sights beyond that one large hotel. Imagine standing at the base of a building so massive, so self-contained, and so teeming with life that it truly qualified as a city. Right now, preparations are underway for constructing such a sci-fi marvel in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, a booming metropolis on the Pearl River Delta.

現在將我們的目光投向一座大酒店之上。想象一下：站在一座如此龐大、完備、充滿生命力的建築物面前，你會覺得它有資格稱爲一座"城市"。目前，籌備工作正在中國深圳進行：在珠三角蓬勃發展的大都市構建這樣一個科幻奇蹟。

Known as Cloud Citizen, the finished building would comprise three interlocking towers, the tallest only a few hundred feet shorter than Dubai's monstrous Burj Khalifa. At around 2 square kilometers (1 mi2), its surface area would be only slightly smaller than all of Monaco. But it's what's inside that would really shake urban design up. Rather than just being a supermassive office block, Cloud Citizen is designed to operate as a self-contained city-within-a-city. Alongside homes and offices, the superstructure would contain farms, parkland, food production centers, and the means to harvest rainwater. It would also power itself using a combination of wind, solar, and algae, effectively allowing it to exist separately from Shenzhen proper. Impressively for such an urban building, the focus would be on green spaces and parkland, with commuters encouraged to walk to work through high-altitude sky ough there are no concrete plans to start construction yet, Cloud Citizen is being taken seriously by the local government. It recently won a city-sponsored design competition, and officials are taking an interest in seeing the project realized.

該設計取名爲"雲中漫步"，建成後將由3座摩天塔樓構成空中之城，最高的一棟僅比迪拜第一高樓哈利法塔矮几百英尺。總的表面積大約兩平方公里，僅次於摩納哥的國土面積。但是其內裏的設計震撼了整個城市設計界。"雲中漫步"被設計成一個完備的城中城，而不是隻作爲一座巨大的辦公樓。除了住宅和辦公樓之外，這座大型建築物還將包括農場、綠地、食品生產中心及收集雨水的設施。而且它還利用風能、太陽能及藻類來提供所需能量——這些使其脫離於深圳成爲一個獨立的存在。令人印象深刻的是這座城市建築物的設計亮點在於綠地及公園——旨在鼓勵上班族穿過空中花園步行去上班。儘管目前還沒有具體的開建計劃，"雲中漫步"項目仍受到當地政府的重視。該項目最近還贏得了城市舉辦的設計大賽，評委們也對實現這個項目有着濃厚的興趣。

a's Gigantic Smart Cities

3.印度的百座智能城市

It sounds like a Silicon Valley dream: a city where everything is connected to the Internet and a central command center digitally links every citizen. Yet this idle daydream may soon be a reality and not in California. Known as Dholera, it's one of the Indian government's enormous new infrastructure projects that could be ready within a decade.

這聽起來像一個硅谷夢：一座每件事情都連接到網絡的城市和一個數字化聯繫着每個市民的中央指揮中心。然而這個白日夢不久就會成爲現實，當然不是在加利福尼亞。印度政府預計在十年內完成大量新型基礎設施的建設，而作爲託萊拉出名的項目則是其中之一。

Part of the phenomenally ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, a $90 billion scheme to link the two most important cities on the subcontinent, Dholera would be the jewel in the project's crown. Built from scratch on reclaimed land, it would be big, powerful, and stunningly high-tech. Digital crowd and traffic control would aim for no jams, no pollution, no mobs of people lining up at terminals, no dirt, and no littering. Every house would be wired up to the Internet, a stunning achievement in a country where, in 2013, only 3 percent of homes had any Internet access. Dholera's other draw is its size. Designed to cope with India's ever-expanding population, the city would be twice as big as Mumbai, or roughly three times the size of Malta. Even more impressively, Dholera is just the tip of the iceberg. If the project comes off (and the government is pushing ahead, despite serious setbacks), there are plans to build another 23 smart cities just as impressive across the region.

該項目作爲宏偉的德里-孟買工業走廊的一部分，預期投資900億美元，連接印度次大陸的兩個最重要的城市，託萊拉猶如皇冠上的明珠。在新開墾的土地上從零建起，依靠的是強大的、驚人的高科技技術。數字化人羣和交通管制將會實現以下目標：無交通堵塞、無污染、無大批在終點站排隊的人羣、無灰塵、無亂扔垃圾。屆時每個家庭都被連接到網絡——這對一個2013年僅有3%的家庭連接到網絡的國家來說，將會是一個驚人的成就。多萊拉另一個吸引人的地方在於它的規模。爲了應對印度日益膨脹的人口，這座城市將會是孟買的2倍，馬耳他的3倍。更令人印象深刻的是，多萊拉只是冰山一角。如果這個項目成功的話（儘管遇到阻礙,政府仍在極力推進），政府計劃在這個地區再建23座同樣讓人耳目一新的智能城市。

baijan's Artificial Archipelago

2.阿塞拜疆的人工羣島

In China and India, they build new supercities. In the Netherlands, they build new mountains. In Azerbaijan, they build new countries.

中國和印度在建造新的超級城市；荷蘭在建造新的山脈；而在阿塞拜疆，他們建造的是新的國家。

In the waters off the coast of Baku, on the Caspian Sea, whole mountains' worth of rocks are being poured in to create a new archipelago. Known as the Khazar Islands, the new land will be like a country within its own right. Consisting of 55 separate islands, the archipelago will have its own airport, yacht club, Formula One track, and an 800,000-strong population crammed into its thousands of apartment blocks. More impressive still, the largest island will also be home to Azerbaijan Tower, predicted to be possibly the tallest building on Earth. In 2013, it was estimated to cost $100 billion, significantly higher than the country's entire GDP. The idea came to billionaire businessman Ibrahim Ibrahimov on a flight back from Dubai in 2010. Lacking a notebook, he drew his designs on some tissue paper and told architects to build them exactly as he'd drawn them. Crazily, they agreed. At time of writing, the Khazar Islands are well underway, with at least one mountain already leveled to provide rocks for their foundations.

在裏海的巴庫地區水域沿岸，整座山脈中可開鑿的岩石都被投入這裏，來建造一個新羣島。該羣島就是大家所熟知的哈札爾羣島， 它將會像個國家一樣享有自己的權利。哈札爾羣島由55個分離的島嶼組成，擁有自己的機場、遊艇俱樂部、F1賽道以及被800萬的人口塞滿的不計其數的公寓。引人矚目的是，阿塞拜疆塔（預計將成爲世界上最高的建築）將坐落在這座羣島上。在2013年，人們預計將花費一千億美元來建造該島，比阿塞拜疆的GDP高得多的多。2010年，億萬富翁商人易卜拉欣·伊布拉希莫夫在從迪拜回來的飛機上突發這個念頭。因爲沒帶筆記本，於是乎他把他的設計稿畫在了幾張紙巾上，並告訴建築師完完全全按照他畫的來建造。令人震驚的是他們竟答應了。在筆者寫作本文之際，哈札爾羣島正在如火如荼地建造中，已有一座山被夷平以提供地基所需的石頭。

a's New Silk Road

1.中國的新絲綢之路

Stretching from Venice in Europe all the way through Central Asia to the furthest edges of China, the Silk Road was once the greatest trading route on Earth. Unimaginable sums of money moved along its pathways, along with refugees, religions, and Eastern culture. In just a few short years, they might do so again. The Chinese government is determined to bring the Silk Road careering into the 21st century.

從歐洲的威尼斯經過亞洲中部一路延伸至中國的最遠端，絲綢之路曾是東方最偉大的貿易通道。無法想象的鉅額財富，連同難民，宗教信仰，東方文化沿着這條路綿延而去。在短短的幾年後，這條路可能再次出現。中國政府決定將絲綢之路帶入21世紀。

Known affectionately as the "One Belt, One Road" plan, the idea is to combine a new overland trading route with an expensive new maritime one, through roads, railways, and pipelines. When finished, the road will give China an unbreakable corridor of power and influence stretching all the way from its central city Xi'an to Moscow and Rotterdam. That's over 10,000 kilometers (6,000 mi) of Chinese dominance, a significantly longer distance than from New York to Buenos Aires. But the project wouldn't stop there. Aside from linking China, India, and Russia together into the most important economic corridor on Earth, the other half of the plan would see coastal projects and ports connecting China with the rest of Asia and even East Africa. In effect, it would spread Chinese influence out across half the modern world. It's been described as a bigger investment than the Marshall Plan, and the effects would be world-changing. The craziest part? This monster project could be well underway by 2020.

這個想法被親切地稱爲"一帶一路"計劃，它通過公路、火車、輸油管道將陸路貿易通道與一條昂貴的海上貿易通道聯繫起來。一旦完成，這條路將成爲中國一條牢不可破的重要走廊，從它的中心城市西安延伸至莫斯科和鹿特丹港市，這一路都將受到影響。這條路長度超過一萬千米（6000英里），大部分位於中國境內，比從紐約到布宜諾斯艾利斯的距離要遠的多。這個工程可不會就止於此，除了將中國、印度、俄羅斯連接起來成爲世界上最重要的經濟走廊以外，剩下的那部分計劃就是通過海岸、港口將中國與亞洲剩下的國家甚至與東非連接起來。事實上，中國的影響力可能通過這條路遍佈世界的另一半。它被認爲是比馬歇爾計劃還大的投資，影響力可能改變世界。要問整個計劃最瘋狂的部分？那就是到2020年這個魔鬼計劃已經順利進行啦。

審稿：木木子 來源：前十網