Retrofitting and reinforcing those edifices is not the best option said Sozen. He and his team estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. At that price tag, why not just build a new one? Sozen and his group, including Purdue University's Nicoletta Adamo-Villani, assistant professor of computer graphics technology, created an animation of the new city using TeraGrid, the world's largest open science computing grid. The visualization shows, among other things, the location of proposed business, residential and entertainment districts, wide streets, and a cluster of earthquake-resistant buildings arranged in the shape of a star. "The idea of starting from scratch and building a new city is totally feasible," said Charles Thornton, founding principal of Thornton Tomasetti, the structural engineering responsible for designing the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and the Taipei 101. "Let's look at Brasilia in Brazil and Canberra in Australia. Both cities were built from scratch," he said. The big challenge is infrastructure, though. "You need power and water and sanitary systems and transportation," said Thornton. They also need support of the Turkish government. And that could be Sozen's biggest challenge. But according to Sozen, he is not the only person who thinks his idea is worth pursuing. An individual in Turkey who runs a major construction bank is planning to collaborate with other businessmen and present the Satellite City proposal to the World Bank. Stay tuned for Istanbul 2. Related Links: Tracy Staedter's blog: What the Tech? Istanbul Earthquake Master Plan |
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