MVRDV and Airbus Envision Balcony to Balcony Travel in Future Cites
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MVRDV has been collaborating with Airbus for over two years, where alongside Bauhaus Luftfahrt, ETH Zurich, and Systra, they have been researching how best to integrate flying vehicles into existing cities.
Their vision? Cities that are centred around vertiports that come in various shapes and sizes enabling people to hop onto a flying vehicle from the comfort of their own balcony. Some vertiports could also double up as public amenities capable of producing renewable energy from solar panels.
Commenting on the research, MVRDV said:
"The research findings envisaged vertiports of various types and sizes, just like traditional transport stops, stations, and terminals."
"However, unlike stations for other urban transport options such as trains, metros, or buses, the network does not require any linear infrastructure in between. No tracks, tunnels or roads are required, saving energy, natural resources, and land. This allows designers to adapt the vertiports to a variety of different locations, plugging into and enhancing existing urban scenarios with a number of different configurations."
At this stage, the research is focussed around the idea that the vertiports would complement existing methods of transport such as road and rail to ensure
a smooth integration to already established cities.
MVRDV has rendered images of examples of them being integrated into cities which
includes a greenery-covered version in São Paulo, Brazil, and another installed off the coast of San Francisco. One particularly wild idea envisions people using a drone-like vehicle to move from skyscraper to skyscraper in Shenzhen, China, without needing to touch the ground.
Already getting excited about your first trip in an air taxi? You may have to hold off for a little longer as we are still a while off any of these ideas being implemented.
Winy Maas, founding partner of MVRDV said:
"As cities become denser and technologies improve, it becomes increasingly clear that the truly three-dimensional city – one that includes flying vehicles – is surely one of the city models of the future… a city where my mobility is at my balcony!"
"But to reach this future will require many small steps. It's a credit to Airbus that they are thinking about these issues in advance and doing so in a way that will improve things in the meantime."
