ABSTRACT
Megastructure has an informal and an evolving definition; its common understanding today defining excessively tall buildings, such as the Burj Kahlifa in the Arab Emirates or the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia. Megastructure can also describe a megacity, either encapsulated within a single structure or expanded additively, modular fashion and ad infinitum, in response to need. Megastructure is the stuff of science fiction narrative and movie sets, such as the Tyrell Corporation pyramid seen in the opening sequences of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Arthur C. Clarke’s classic novel set in the twenty-second century, Rendezvous with Rama. However, beyond movies, there is also Buckminster Fuller’s visionary megaproject – one that is still published as a novelty to this day. This is his proposed 1.6 kilometer high, 3.2 kilometer wide superdome with a footprint huge enough to envelope fifty blocks of Manhattan Island – including all of upper Manhattan’s skyscrapers.
