Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is dropping clues about its highly anticipated design for a new Hyperloop One transportation system that will connect Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The cities are located more than 150 kilometers apart (about 93 miles), a trip that Hyperloop can theoretically make in just 15 minutes.
A new video shows a system of two side-by-side tubes built over a series of Y-shaped legs. Air-cushioned pods are to be propelled at super high speeds through the vacuum tubes. The system would have stops at both cities’ airports as well as the Burj Khalifa, and include future cargo connections to the Khalifa and Jebel Ali ports.
Jakob Lange, a partner at BIG and the director of its experimental department, shares his vision on what Hyperloop can accomplish:
Suddenly you can live in a forest, take the Hyperloop, go in to work every day and it’s only going to take 10 minutes. Suddenly you spread out the possibilities for everybody to live where they want—by the sea, by the water, in the forest— wherever.
Although Hyperloop is the brain child of SpaceX’s Elon Musk, the technology has now been open-sourced. A number of companies, including Hyperloop One, have been racing to complete the first viable transportation system.
“We’re not waiting for new technology like carbon nanofibers or anything in order to do this, Lange says in the video. “We have everything we need, and it’s a matter of doing it in the best possible way. We are in a new time now where you can actively develop a new transportation system in very, very few years and change the world.” Indeed, transportation is at the forefront of urban planning and revitalization, and if successful, Hyperloop has the potential to shake things up.
After a highly publicized test in the Nevada desert, Hyperloop One enlisted BIG as well as architecture and engineering firms AECOM and Arup to help bring its concept to life. The big reveal for the UAE project is November 7.
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