Architectural and engineering partners of Uber demonstrated what skyports, the stations of the world's first urban aviation network, will look like.
During the Uber Elevate Summit, eight firms unveiled 16 new skyport designs for Uber Air vehicles. Where exactly are they supposed to be placed? To do this, Uber is working with developers and cities to install skyports on top of parking lots and other low-utilization structures.
So far, Uber Air is in the pilot stage, which will involve three cities - Dallas, Los Angeles and Melbourne. It is expected that test flights will begin as early as 2020, and commercial flights in 2023. Well, since the project promises to be successful, it is necessary to start developing the appropriate infrastructure now. And now architects from different companies are working to imagine something that has never existed.
This project is a real find for designers and engineers who got the opportunity to realize something unusual, something that no one has worked on before. All presented projects are united by the fact that their creators sought to take into account the needs of people in the near future. And skyports are equipped not only with shops and restaurants, but also with gyms and parking lots for bicycles and various electric vehicles, from scooters to cars. Solar panels are clearly visible on some designs.
The architects also tried to take into account the possibility of integrating skyports into the existing infrastructure. And this is important, because the newest buildings will have to be "squeezed" among the already built buildings or become part of future projects. Thus, the project of the American design company Corgan involves the construction of a skyport over one of the Dallas freeways. But the Mithun project from Los Angeles is a skyport over a small city park - a kind of connection between the world of nature and technology.
As for the size, both relatively compact projects and very impressive buildings are presented. From a few hundred meters, to be placed on the roofs of existing parking lots, to several thousand, conceived as self-contained buildings - something like a small shopping center, on the roof of which Uber Air vehicles can arrive.
It is still difficult to judge the future of the project. But, given the speed of development of modern technologies, it can be assumed that its development will be rapid.
