In the Caliphate of Azithan, known to its neighbors as the Necromancer Kingdom ...
In this thought exercise, I wonder how much of a city you can reasonably have in a single building. I'm intentionally missing super rich housing, but what else isn't here? Where are mistakes in my reasoning?
We know specialized teams build temples that form the basis of cities.
These temples are de facto small cities, called insulae, and given names. These are consolidated city made manifest. This isn't the only thing in a city, but it is common to have one to ten in each city.
While the insulae temples have emergency housing for hundreds, about a hundred people actually live in one. Without elevators and lightbulbs, the lower to the ground the better. The price for the barracks is locked by the Church at 20 cups of floor per week; once weekly prayer gives 50 and you need 28 to eat. That is, the church ensures that the Faithful Profit is sufficient to live, if not very well. For better living, pray more or get a job.
The insulae are five stories tall, 100 feet deep and 250 feet long. That's five floors, ~30 meters deep and ~75 meters long for the Canadians. They are made of concrete and local materials. While that's 25,000 square feet per floor (2,300 square meters), some measure of that is in hallways and stairs, water and waste, call it 20%, leaving 20,000 square feet (1,800 sq meters) of space to allocate per floor. There's a separate stairwell solely used by the Lifeless carting things up and down.
Basement: Storage for the lifeless when not in use, as well as the machine room for the building. Also stores flour and other sundries.
The first floor contains many things the community needs: temple, retail, and a small daycare / school and gym, as well as mixed use meeting room space. There is a single luxury apartment with a private entrance, as well as the priests humble apartment.
The second floor contains a dozen relatively nice apartments, with running water and private kitchens. It also contains a large office / commercial space, which itself has a kitchen and bathroom. Average apartment size is ~800 square feet, or ~75 square meters. [ For comparison, this is slightly larger than the one bedroom apartment my wife and I live in. ]
The third floor has two dozen dorm style apartments, with communal bathrooms and kitchen. This also has a large light industrial space, with the same amenities. The dorms are much smaller than on the previous floor: ~300 square feet, or 28 square meters. [ These are twice the size of the dorms I really liked in college. ]
The fourth floor is a lot like the third, but with less running water and smaller units. This means more units; four dozen dorm style apartments, and similarly larger light industry. These dorms are small; 150 square feet each. The rooms are around the outside, with the light industry in the middle. Water is supplied by lifeless carting it up. [ These are the size of the dorms I liked in college. Fine for a single person, not so much for multiple people. ]
The fifth floor is barracks style, containing bunks and little else. There's isn't so much running water as there is an out whole for waste water. If there are monks in the community, they live here.
This is similar to a previous post on housing in the Insulae, but with a different focus. I've also rethought how to structure the interior, so that they contain a lot of what goes into a city that doesn't require an open flame. That's why there's nothing like a blacksmith shop.
What have I missed, and what sounds dumb?
Edit: Thanks to Josh Roby and Tony Lower-Basch, the insulae has less running water and a basement.
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Five story building (especially with concrete as a material ... High compressibility but terribly brittle under tensile load) implies quite advanced building techniques. Water on every level implies well-nigh modern tech.
ReplyDeleteWhere are Lifeless stored when not in use?
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch That's a dense post! How familiar are you with the roman insulae?
ReplyDeleteThey went to six, seven, even eight stories; the limit wasn't really the building materials, as safety and view, and ordered by Nero to not be more than seven. He was disobeyed.
For the water, you're probably right; the top floors water has got to be supplied by Lifeless. The top floor barracks probably only has an out pipe, which gives a reason to still have public baths. So, hooray.
Josh Roby I forgot the basement! Eek: the lifeless are stored in the basement, which is one part storage and one part machine room.
ReplyDeleteStray thought: http://www.bible-history.com/ancient_oil_lamps/
ReplyDeleteWish it wasn't a bible link. But, yes, lighting is super important!
ReplyDeleteWith concrete and other presteel construction, even having windows is hard; the build'll fall apart if you have large windows. For ex, we live on the 10th floor and have a balcony; the balcony door is floor to ceiling glass. Can't do that without steel.
I was not familiar with Roman insulae. I wonder how they were building those ... obviously, brick-work arches and timber frames, but the article I found talks about also doing it in primitive concrete. That runs counter to my expectations of what concrete does on its own. Live and learn!
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch While reinforced concrete didn't exist yet, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some hay in there, adding support.
ReplyDelete[ And, actually, could build this as a "U", such that residential is on one wing, commercial along a wing, and industrial up another wing. That you have the land inside as a bath house and park Maybe. ]
ReplyDelete