I am usually known for my optimism for the future. But I am having a difficult time deciphering whether the new 170-km-long vertical city that Saudia Arabia just revealed (see above video) is a legitimate development proposal, a new metaverse project, or a dystopian spoof about how we're all going to live in beehives once autonomous everything and artificial intelligence takes over.

The Line, as it is cleverly called, is intended to form the basis for a new and allegedly livable city called Neom. This is a city that is intended to lead Saudi Arabia into some sort of glorious post-oil future. And the plan is for it to eventually house some 9 million people; all within a 170-km-long mirrored strip that is 200m wide, 500m tall, and accessible end-to-end in 20 minutes via high-speed rail.

I would love to see the development pro forma for this one (if it even exists), but I certainly don't need it to determine that this thing is never going to be built -- certainly not in its current incarnation.

I was on a panel last month with Jamie Miller, director of biomimicry at B+H Architects, and he remined me just how much I am fascinated by the use of biomimicry in architecture and engineering. Nature is pretty impressive and I think there's a lot that we can learn from her.

Here is a recently completed example of what I'm talking about.

The project is the new Pinal County Attorney's Office in Florence, Arizona (designed by DLR Group). What the team did here was try and emulate the skin of the saguaro cactus. That ultimately translated into vertical self-shading fins on the envelope of the building.

Here's what that looks like (via DLR Group):

Here is some evidence suggesting that the fins are truly helping performance (via Urbanland):

And here is the explanation for why it works and why nature does this (also via Urbanland):

Sit in front of a saguaro cactus for an hour and you will see the way it protects itself and thrives in the intense desert heat. Its vertical fins provide continuous self-shading and redistribution of heat. This ability to self-shade breaks sunlight up into smaller areas that shift continually, preventing any one area of the cactus skin from overheating. This adaptation not only makes the saguaro viable, but also gives it a beautiful and distinct character. Creating a 3-D computer-generated model of a saguaro cactus and using a daylighting simulation model confirmed that no part of the plant received more than 15 to 20 minutes of direct sun at any one time, avoiding the possibility of sunburn.

How cool.

I recently mentioned that it would be nice to be able to buy a five-storey building in Soho (New York) for $70,000. Yes, that was in 1968 dollars. But even in today's dollars, we're talking less than $600,000. I would gladly buy a cast-iron five-storey building in Soho for that price today if it were somehow possible.

In response to this post, a reader sent me this (thank you), which is another great example of an artist buying an old buying in New York for what is clearly an absurdly low price. The artist is photographer Jay Maisel, and the building is The Germania Bank Building at 190 Bowery.

Jay bought the six-storey building in 1966 for $102,000. He then used it as his residence, a studio, and as a place to collect a hell of a lot of things. Though at one point he also rented out some of the other floors to artists like Roy Lichtenstein.

It is alleged that most people thought the building was abandoned. But this was obviously not the case. Jay sold the building to RFR Holdings in 2014 for $55 million. And in 2019, streetwear brand Supreme opened up in the bottom.

Today, I understand that Web3 things are also happening in the building. And who knows, it might be the case that we'll be reading about some of them, in a similar kind of way, fifty years from now.