Feb. 14, 2008 -- It's a radical idea: Because Turkey faces the risk of a devastating earthquake, engineers propose building an entirely new Istanbul from scratch.
The satellite city, which would be located about 30 minutes away from the country's largest metropolis, would house about 4 million residents as well as Istanbul's corporations, hospitals, and major economic and government institutions.
Built with modern quake-resistant technologies, the buildings would not only serve as homes and places of business, they would provide refuge to citizens of the old city, should a seismic catastrophe shake the ancient city at its foundation.
"That would save them from the brunt of the earthquakes and also provide a lifeboat," said Mete Sozen, professor of civil engineering at Purdue University if Lafayette, Ind. "This city could save the day."
Sozen, who is from Turkey, came up with the idea after working on a computer simulation to visualize what would happen to Istanbul in the face of a strong earthquake. The city sits near the geologically active North Anatolian fault line. As a result, it has seen its share of quakes over the centuries.
In 1509, a quake triggered a tsunami that destroyed more than 100 mosques and killed 10,000 people. In 1999, a quake left 18,000 dead and thousands of people homeless. And seismologists predict that a major earthquake will probably hit the region by 2025.
The city, which served as the capital of the Roman Empire from 330 to 1453, is made up of antiquated structures as well as more modern, but cheaply constructed buildings.
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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