At 13,123 feet high, the massive, mountain-shaped building envisioned by Japan's Taisei Construction Company would overshadow Mount Fuji itself by nearly 700 feet. That's the equivalent of NINE Empire State Buildings stood one upon the other! The building, known as the X-Seed 4000, is designed to house up to one million residents on as many as 800 floors! Designers have had to consider tricky questions of temperature and pressure differentials between the base and topmost floors, and are looking to utilize solar power to solve these and other critical issues. The cost, you ask? Somewhere between $300 and $900 billion... what's that, an Iraq War or two? Couple of manned Mars missions? Quite do-able - if you're Japan, one of the world's richest countries.One might think the Japanese government would never allow the placing of an edifice the size of the X-Seed 4000 anywhere near sacred Mount Fuji, but Taisei's plans call for the monumental mini-city to rise relatively close by, rising up upon huge caissons sunk deep into the mire underlying Tokyo Bay.

Could it happen? Well, skeptical citizens of Florence, Italy, scoffed at Leonardo da Vinci's detailed drawings of helicopters and other flying machines. Yet da Vinci's dreams did take flight, centuries later. I wouldn't rush to put down a deposit on a unit just yet, but Taisei's outrageous X-Seed 4000 proposal has the same potential to fly high.

View: Full Article | Source: Inventor Spot

Is there enough air that high up to support life well enough for people to live on the top floors? O_o

Say hello to the biggest terrorist target in the world.

why? its not like japan sticks its nose everywhere like the US, i bet Japan has alot less enemys (if any) than the western countrys

anyway, that would be some feet of engineering, a miracle of the modern world even, iwonder how long it would take to build that beast

NGC aired this feat of engineering maybe last year. or last summer, [ or was is the same, i think that was a 3 tower building connected by a inverted pyramid in the middle. ]
anyway the Japanese gov. planned to build that and remove all the other buildings surrounding that engineering miracle to be a model of environment conscious country. planting forest around the said building.

[ not quite sure but i think i'm pretty close to what i'm saying ]

LMAO!!!
well I bet that would take over 4 decades to build. dear Lord God don't ask me to help building that monster ...!!!!!!!



[runs away in fear of responiblitly]

I take it they will have full time fire departments living and working inside the building (if you call it a building)

At least you would have a focal point of attack that you could concentrate on protecting

yeah- al queda and earthquakes could do a number on it, and if japan is really the worlds richest country.
couldnt they invest the money in a more logical something instead of the next tower of babel?
how about the worlds biggest homeless shelter.....

(im in a mood-sorry)

Lol makes the Millennium Tower that I saw on Discovery last night look like a fern compared to a palm tree.

The points about terrorism are valid.

NTL, that shouldn't stop the march of progress. If so, they have already won.

If this place ever got built i would make plans to visit it, if in my lifetime.

pretty cool. i think i've seen this building been aired on tv. this is an underground city right?

what is the purpose of a building like that? If its a population problem, couldn't they just pass out condoms and birth control? It would be cheaper. I think its a crazy idea. Imagin climbing the stairs! lol.

My gosh, how much power will it take to keep the plumbing in full circulation all the way to the top? Maybe they will grab the water from the clouds and let gravity pull it down, rather than pumping it up. What about air pressure and oxygen levels, how long will it take to get to the top floors in the elevators? and ... and ... oh boy, too many questions . Seems quite a sizable number of those living there will be needed just to keep the place running. I hope they don't find out after it is built that it is too expensive to maintain.

Oh well you know what they say all money and no brains...

if you are referring to japan, i might add that your ignorant to make that statement. japan is a place with little land space and if they are going to build that to house that amount people, it will decrease housing problems by )(*#@*#*#)*#))*#@. japan is a place full of natural landscape like mountains etc. hence, there are little places to build building for housing etc. what they have done here is to harness nature energy to solve the problem. that is after all, how WWII started; they made babies like mad and had no room to house them, so they invade manchuria and boom. WWII :<

anyway. its a nutty idea imo, but if anyone is nutty enough to do it, it will be japan.(they have tons of experience in inculcating natural landscape with building)
*they just gota watch out for china and taiwan*

Sinc when was Japan the richest country? I thought it was the U.S. .
Japan is third.

According to Wikipeadia and the World Bank, the USA is first in Gross Domestic Product, at 13.2 Trillion $US. Japan is second at 4.3 Trillion $US and Germany is third at 2.9 Trillion $US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...y_GDP_(nominal)

To be fair the USA has a population of 303 million and Japan has a population of 127 million. So it is much closer then the numbers suggest.

As for the air being thin, Mount Everest in Nepal is 29,000 feet high and humans can breath there. Usually they bring oxygen with them however.

It is likely that around half the people would get altitude sickness if they went as far as the top of the structure.
Altitude Sickness

i think i have to agree on the others. US is losing quite a lot of money, US lost a lot of money from the war in Iraq and already loaned some of it from the world bank.

The US hasn't "lost" money, they used it. Wrongfully, in my opinion, to try to bring a democratic state to the Middle East out of a tyranny. It has been clear the Iraqi's don't want it. They would, seemingly, rather have another dictatorship or a theocracy maybe.

The US "gives" money to the World Bank and others "borrow" it. Got a link otherwise?

I remember seeing something on Discovery channel on this. I thought the middle sections of the building were going to be parks with gardens for the people of that level.

Would be cool to see something like that though.