Several science fiction movies portray a city in a single building. Such cities are self-contained habitats, incorporating all essential infrastructure, including energy generation, food production, waste management and water. Here comes Arcology that is the fusion of architecture with ecology, a comprehensive urban perspective. In nature, as organisms evolve, they increase in complexity and become a more compact system. A city should similarly evolve, functioning as a living system. Architecture and ecology as one integral process, is capable of demonstrating a positive response to the many problems of urban civilization – population growth, pollution, energy/natural resource depletion, food scarcity, and quality of life. Arcology recognizes the necessity of the radical reorganization of the sprawling urban landscape into dense, integrated, three-dimensional cities in order to support the diversified activities that sustain human culture and environmental balance.
