New Underground City Project: Salt Bay

Discipline

City and Regional Planning

Semester

Autumn 2021

designer

Fay, Alexander Lammers, Alexandra Kaniecki, Margaret Robinson, Kayla

faculty

Blostein, Beth Herrmann, Erik

Description

Our project Salt Bay was the final project for our new underground cities course taught by Professor Kim Burton. Our project revolved around the scenario of overpopulation, specifically, a large increase in births forcing families and other citizens in to retrofitted underground cities. Salt Bay, the name of our fictional underground city, is located in the Cargill Salt Mine in Cleveland, Ohio, below the surface of Lake Erie. The mine has been converted into a city environment with residential, recreational, commercial, and agricultural areas within. The residents who choose to live underground with their families work and live similar to their above ground counterparts. The underground nature of the city does require some isolation from the surface world, and the scarce resources of this scenario are included in our resiliency assessment of the city. Overall, our project focuses on an underground city in a world where overpopulation has become severe enough to warrant underground migration. The challenges and construction of this underground urban environment coupled with the sudden population increase are what defined our underground city.