MUMBAI (Metro Rail News): The avant-garde architecture of Beijing-based MAD Architects has merged with Hyperloop’s futuristic transportation technologies to unveil a new, solar-powered rapid transit system. Designed with an emphasis on sustainability, the elevated, tube-based infrastructure will promote car-free living, incorporate urban farming and harness renewable energy to minimize its environmental footprint.
The versatile system is designed for easy integration in a variety of environments, from dense urban centers to remote deserts.
MAD Architects’ collaboration with Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (Hyperloop TT) is meant to transform the future of travel by showing how the transportation infrastructure can complement the natural environment and bring people closer to nature.
The Hyperloop concept, which was popularized by Elon Musk in 2012, is a proposed mode of transportation that uses a pressurized system of large tubes, through which pods carrying people or freight can be pushed at high speed without lag from air resistance.
MAD Architects and HyperloopTT’s vision expands on this idea with the integration of sustainable systems and green public space, which can be built along the tops of the tubes as well as underneath them.
“The pylon design minimizes the system’s physical footprint by lifting its functions almost 7 meters above ground,” explained MAD Architects of the versatile pylon design that doubles as structural support. “This eliminates the possibility of collision with road traffic, which in turn decreases the cost of land acquisition. It is composed of a single-mold fiberglass structure, proving its efficiency in both its development and usage.”
The base of each pylon is designed to accommodate organic urban farming activities and solar-powered LED grow lights. The Hyperloop TT system would also be powered with solar and wind energies. Flexible solar panel skin modules would be affixed to the system and used to power the Hyperloop, LEDs and interactive information boards.
Bladeless wind turbine forests would be installed at certain sections to create an additional source of power and reduce energy costs.
