Looking at history and even contemporary use of underground space, to the casual observer the use of underground space seems to be limited to that of the urban service layer. The thinking on the use of urban underground space as done by Webster, Hénard and Utudjian – discussed in Section 3.3 – seems to have concentrated at first and was indeed fixated on ridding the surface from urban blight and placing all those uses that do not require daylight into the subsurface.

In 2011 a plan by Foster + Partners was discussed on the website Co.Design. Interestingly, it showed a cross-section of the proposed plan with the caption ‘traffic and pollution below’. Although the figure itself has since disappeared from the website, it illustrates that ‘urban service layer’ thinking is still present even in contemporary design.

You do not currently have access to this chapter.
Don't already have an account? Register

Purchased this content as a guest? Enter your email address to restore access.

Please enter valid email address.
Email address must be 94 characters or fewer.