Mikhail Matveyev, Professor of the Ural State University of Architecture and Art, about his vision of urban development.
In his project, Mikhail Matveyev proposed the concept of formation of the elevated city with its gradual construction and all the infrastructure on the second level. According to the architect, the construction should be carried out around a multilevel transport system. According to the expert, SkyWay meets all the requirements:
«It's unmanned, high-speed, eco-friendly transport. It should be both individual, and group one, and you can enter it can directly from the apartment, without even going downstairs for that. These types of transport have already been created and are being implemented in mega-cities. For example, the Ecotechnopark is being built near Minsk, where SkyWay will be used— the elevated transport system in which the movement is organized by means of suspended rails stretched between the supports.
The transport system of the growing structure of the sky city will not only become a way of movement of the second layer inhabitants, but also will be integrated into the urban public transport system. Due to the travel speed and lack of congestion, such transport system will become the main means of transportation of citizens around the city».
The idea of vertical growth of cities is not new. In the 1930s, there were being created projects of super-high buildings. In the USSR, it is the 945-metre Palace of Soviets, which was never built; later on, in Japan, there was the project X-speed 4000 with its 4000-metre heigh building. A modern metropolis is hard to imagine without skyscrapers. Topical developments in the field of building technologies and new materials allow to embody such projects, but the transport question remains open.
The concept, consonant with the ideas of Mikhail Matveyev, is being developed by the SkyWay project. The solution for the «second level metropolis« by SkyWay involves the construction of linear cities connected by the multifunctional string infrastructure. High-speed and convenient transport networks from the point of view of logistics, will allow to abandon «the cities-anthill« and give an opportunity to people to settle at considerable distance from the centre in more comfortable conditions.