- Elon Musk’s The Boring Company‘s (TBC) most dramatic underground infrastructure and construction project
- Preservation of habitat and views by maximizing underground construction, and building ultra-compact, historically inspired, above-ground development
This breakthrough pilot project is designed to push the boundaries of the construction arts and ecological sciences. The Boring Company will bore a double-wide tunnel to contain bi-directional underground trains on a perfect slope up from Salt Lake City, terminating underneath Francis Peak. Boring through the center of the mountain, along the axis of the ridge, there will be 8 total metro stops, with horizontal tunnels out to the 3 stations on the Salt Lake City side and 5 stations on the eastern flanks of the Wasatch Ridge.
Setting facts:
- 11 miles along the ridge of Salt Lake City’s Wasatch Mountains
- 20 square miles along a continuous ridge line, comprised of 24 peaks and 15 bowls
- Time to (on existing road): Salt Lake City & international airport is 35 minutes, Ogden is 15 minutes, Snowbasin Resort is 10 minutes, and Park City is 45 minutes.
- Well-preserved alpine environment includes 400 inches of annual snowfall and one of the longest heli-ski runs in the U.S. (1,400m vertical), with slopes averaging between 1,495m at the base and to 2,865m at the peak
- Wide diversity of existing mountain water features, such as waterfalls, ponds, and streams
The beautiful Wasatchia Ranch is currently being surveyed for a series of ultra-compact historically scaled villages, ranging in size from 2,000-8,000 in population. The surface of the 12,740-acre parcel will be almost entirely preserved as green space. And since this is a place steeped in pre-Columbian, Native American history that precedes the 19-century Mormon immigration, the greatest respect for the land and its legacy will be honored in whatever new surface structures will be built. Well-loved mountain places like Innsbruck, Austria and Andorra La Vella, Andorra will serve as some of the design inspiration for the project, as their 6-12 story buildings overlooking narrow streets and steps are so well-adapted to the setting.
Design objectives:
- Buildings constructed out of innovative bricks from The Boring Company’s tunnelling excavation surplus
- Timber-framing, cordwood, and other appropriate high-mass wall constructions fills out the natural materials palette
- The surface villages along the slope will be connected to their metro stations via short underground tunnels
- Each of the villages will have their own styles and elements that will make them unique and recognizable from each other
- They will also have a wide range of building styles to reflect a long history where the villages where built out over time
- These will not be resorts, but rather vibrant mountain villages with a wide diversity of community ownership
Building their communities in such an isolated environmentally challenging place has given the local Mormon communities some of the strongest building culture in the US. And as they are a generally outwardly modest people, along with their keen interest in the histories, traditions, and stories of the world, they are excited to pilot a fundamentally new building strategy that allows for a wide variety of historical styles in the look of the developments.
The project financing breakdown is as follows:
- 27% – LDS
- 26% – State of Utah
- 24% – local and international individual investors
- 23% – institutional investment
These pages explore experimental, forward-leaning concepts. We mean no offense by these ideas, and we can assure you that they don’t currently exist…yet.
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