5.Saudi Arabia's Monster Hotels At Mecca
5.沙特阿拉伯麦加的最大酒店
For the past few years, Saudi Arabia has been busy turning the ancient city of Mecca into the Las Vegas of the Middle East. The pinnacle of this transformation may well be the upcoming Abraj Kudai. Technically a luxury, five-star hotel that will loom over the holy city, the Abraj Kudai is so big that it more resembles a vertical city-state, where every citizen will be a guaranteed millionaire.
过去的几年中，沙特阿拉伯一直致力于将圣城麦加这座古老的城市转型为中东的拉斯维加斯。转型过程中最引人注目的恐怕就是即将建成的Abraj Kudai酒店了。从技术上来讲一座豪华的五星级酒店将巍然耸立于城中，Abraj Kudai酒店规模如此之大，堪称一座垂直型城邦国，而且城中的每个居民保证都是百万富翁。

It will stand 45 stories tall, and everything about the hotel screams obscene wealth. The top floor will house one of the largest Islamic domes in the world, surrounded by four helipads for the ultra-rich to land on. At least five floors will be reserved for the exclusive use of the Al-Saud royal family. The rest of the building, meanwhile, will contain around 10,000 bedrooms and over 70 high-class restaurants. Far below, on the ground floors, a vast shopping mall will vie for space with a conference center and a lavish ballroom. Supposedly designed to resemble a "traditional desert fortress," this monster of a building will cost at least £2.3 billion. Although the Abraj Kudai will be the biggest hotel in the world when it opens in 2017, it pales in comparison to other Mecca projects. A collection of gigantic hotels in the west of the city known as the Jabal Omar development is intended to house 100,000 pilgrims, while the Grand Mosque is to be upgraded to house seven million people at any one time. Ironically, this would stretch so far back that many worshipers wouldn't even be able to see the Kaaba they'd come all this way to worship.
酒店楼高45层，所有与酒店相关的东西都极尽奢华。最顶层将建成世界上最大的穹顶，四周围绕着4个直升机停机坪，以供那些超级富豪降落。还有至少5个专供沙特皇室享用的楼层。除此之外还包含1万间客房，70家高级餐厅。远非这些，一间大型购物中心正在与会议中心和高级宴会厅竞争酒店底层的位置。酒店的设计意在以现代理念诠释"传统沙漠堡垒"，耗资至少高达23亿英镑。尽管Abraj Kudai酒店2017年开业后将是世界上最大的酒店，但是与麦加其他项目相比就小巫见大巫了。在城市的西部地区，名为Jabal Omar的酒店正在开发当中，预计可容纳10万朝圣者，麦加大清真寺也将扩建至可以容纳700万朝拜者。然而讽刺的是，扩建部分远至朝圣者根本无法看到他们远道而来朝觐的卡巴天房。

4.China's Vertical Mega City
4.中国的大型垂直城市

Now let's set our sights beyond that one large hotel. Imagine standing at the base of a building so massive, so self-contained, and so teeming with life that it truly qualified as a city. Right now, preparations are underway for constructing such a sci-fi marvel in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, a booming metropolis on the Pearl River Delta.
现在将我们的目光投向一座大酒店之上。想象一下：站在一座如此庞大、完备、充满生命力的建筑物面前，你会觉得它有资格称为一座"城市"。目前，筹备工作正在中国深圳进行：在珠三角蓬勃发展的大都市构建这样一个科幻奇迹。
Known as Cloud Citizen, the finished building would comprise three interlocking towers, the tallest only a few hundred feet shorter than Dubai's monstrous Burj Khalifa. At around 2 square kilometers (1 mi2), its surface area would be only slightly smaller than all of Monaco. But it's what's inside that would really shake urban design up. Rather than just being a supermassive office block, Cloud Citizen is designed to operate as a self-contained city-within-a-city. Alongside homes and offices, the superstructure would contain farms, parkland, food production centers, and the means to harvest rainwater. It would also power itself using a combination of wind, solar, and algae, effectively allowing it to exist separately from Shenzhen proper. Impressively for such an urban building, the focus would be on green spaces and parkland, with commuters encouraged to walk to work through high-altitude sky parks.Although there are no concrete plans to start construction yet, Cloud Citizen is being taken seriously by the local government. It recently won a city-sponsored design competition, and officials are taking an interest in seeing the project realized.
该设计取名为"云中漫步"，建成后将由3座摩天塔楼构成空中之城，最高的一栋仅比迪拜第一高楼哈利法塔矮几百英尺。总的表面积大约两平方公里，仅次于摩纳哥的国土面积。但是其内里的设计震撼了整个城市设计界。"云中漫步"被设计成一个完备的城中城，而不是只作为一座巨大的办公楼。除了住宅和办公楼之外，这座大型建筑物还将包括农场、绿地、食品生产中心及收集雨水的设施。而且它还利用风能、太阳能及藻类来提供所需能量——这些使其脱离于深圳成为一个独立的存在。令人印象深刻的是这座城市建筑物的设计亮点在于绿地及公园——旨在鼓励上班族穿过空中花园步行去上班。尽管目前还没有具体的开建计划，"云中漫步"项目仍受到当地政府的重视。该项目最近还赢得了城市举办的设计大赛，评委们也对实现这个项目有着浓厚的兴趣。

3.India's Gigantic Smart Cities
3.印度的百座智能城市

It sounds like a Silicon Valley dream: a city where everything is connected to the Internet and a central command center digitally links every citizen. Yet this idle daydream may soon be a reality and not in California. Known as Dholera, it's one of the Indian government's enormous new infrastructure projects that could be ready within a decade.
这听起来像一个硅谷梦：一座每件事情都连接到网络的城市和一个数字化联系着每个市民的中央指挥中心。然而这个白日梦不久就会成为现实，当然不是在加利福尼亚。印度政府预计在十年内完成大量新型基础设施的建设，而作为托莱拉出名的项目则是其中之一。
Part of the phenomenally ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, a $90 billion scheme to link the two most important cities on the subcontinent, Dholera would be the jewel in the project's crown. Built from scratch on reclaimed land, it would be big, powerful, and stunningly high-tech. Digital crowd and traffic control would aim for no jams, no pollution, no mobs of people lining up at terminals, no dirt, and no littering. Every house would be wired up to the Internet, a stunning achievement in a country where, in 2013, only 3 percent of homes had any Internet access. Dholera's other draw is its size. Designed to cope with India's ever-expanding population, the city would be twice as big as Mumbai, or roughly three times the size of Malta. Even more impressively, Dholera is just the tip of the iceberg. If the project comes off (and the government is pushing ahead, despite serious setbacks), there are plans to build another 23 smart cities just as impressive across the region.
该项目作为宏伟的德里-孟买工业走廊的一部分，预期投资900亿美元，连接印度次大陆的两个最重要的城市，托莱拉犹如皇冠上的明珠。在新开垦的土地上从零建起，依靠的是强大的、惊人的高科技技术。数字化人群和交通管制将会实现以下目标：无交通堵塞、无污染、无大批在终点站排队的人群、无灰尘、无乱扔垃圾。届时每个家庭都被连接到网络——这对一个2013年仅有3%的家庭连接到网络的国家来说，将会是一个惊人的成就。多莱拉另一个吸引人的地方在于它的规模。为了应对印度日益膨胀的人口，这座城市将会是孟买的2倍，马耳他的3倍。更令人印象深刻的是，多莱拉只是冰山一角。如果这个项目成功的话（尽管遇到阻碍,政府仍在极力推进），政府计划在这个地区再建23座同样让人耳目一新的智能城市。

2.Azerbaijan's Artificial Archipelago
2.阿塞拜疆的人工群岛

In China and India, they build new supercities. In the Netherlands, they build new mountains. In Azerbaijan, they build new countries.
中国和印度在建造新的超级城市；荷兰在建造新的山脉；而在阿塞拜疆，他们建造的是新的国家。
In the waters off the coast of Baku, on the Caspian Sea, whole mountains' worth of rocks are being poured in to create a new archipelago. Known as the Khazar Islands, the new land will be like a country within its own right. Consisting of 55 separate islands, the archipelago will have its own airport, yacht club, Formula One track, and an 800,000-strong population crammed into its thousands of apartment blocks. More impressive still, the largest island will also be home to Azerbaijan Tower, predicted to be possibly the tallest building on Earth. In 2013, it was estimated to cost $100 billion, significantly higher than the country's entire GDP. The idea came to billionaire businessman Ibrahim Ibrahimov on a flight back from Dubai in 2010. Lacking a notebook, he drew his designs on some tissue paper and told architects to build them exactly as he'd drawn them. Crazily, they agreed. At time of writing, the Khazar Islands are well underway, with at least one mountain already leveled to provide rocks for their foundations.
在里海的巴库地区水域沿岸，整座山脉中可开凿的岩石都被投入这里，来建造一个新群岛。该群岛就是大家所熟知的哈札尔群岛， 它将会像个国家一样享有自己的权利。哈札尔群岛由55个分离的岛屿组成，拥有自己的机场、游艇俱乐部、F1赛道以及被800万的人口塞满的不计其数的公寓。引人瞩目的是，阿塞拜疆塔（预计将成为世界上最高的建筑）将坐落在这座群岛上。在2013年，人们预计将花费一千亿美元来建造该岛，比阿塞拜疆的GDP高得多的多。2010年，亿万富翁商人易卜拉欣·伊布拉希莫夫在从迪拜回来的飞机上突发这个念头。因为没带笔记本，于是乎他把他的设计稿画在了几张纸巾上，并告诉建筑师完完全全按照他画的来建造。令人震惊的是他们竟答应了。在笔者写作本文之际，哈札尔群岛正在如火如荼地建造中，已有一座山被夷平以提供地基所需的石头。

1.China's New Silk Road
1.中国的新丝绸之路

Stretching from Venice in Europe all the way through Central Asia to the furthest edges of China, the Silk Road was once the greatest trading route on Earth. Unimaginable sums of money moved along its pathways, along with refugees, religions, and Eastern culture. In just a few short years, they might do so again. The Chinese government is determined to bring the Silk Road careering into the 21st century.
从欧洲的威尼斯经过亚洲中部一路延伸至中国的最远端，丝绸之路曾是东方最伟大的贸易通道。无法想象的巨额财富，连同难民，宗教信仰，东方文化沿着这条路绵延而去。在短短的几年后，这条路可能再次出现。中国政府决定将丝绸之路带入21世纪。
Known affectionately as the "One Belt, One Road" plan, the idea is to combine a new overland trading route with an expensive new maritime one, through roads, railways, and pipelines. When finished, the road will give China an unbreakable corridor of power and influence stretching all the way from its central city Xi'an to Moscow and Rotterdam. That's over 10,000 kilometers (6,000 mi) of Chinese dominance, a significantly longer distance than from New York to Buenos Aires. But the project wouldn't stop there. Aside from linking China, India, and Russia together into the most important economic corridor on Earth, the other half of the plan would see coastal projects and ports connecting China with the rest of Asia and even East Africa. In effect, it would spread Chinese influence out across half the modern world. It's been described as a bigger investment than the Marshall Plan, and the effects would be world-changing. The craziest part? This monster project could be well underway by 2020.
这个想法被亲切地称为"一带一路"计划，它通过公路、火车、输油管道将陆路贸易通道与一条昂贵的海上贸易通道联系起来。一旦完成，这条路将成为中国一条牢不可破的重要走廊，从它的中心城市西安延伸至莫斯科和鹿特丹港市，这一路都将受到影响。这条路长度超过一万千米（6000英里），大部分位于中国境内，比从纽约到布宜诺斯艾利斯的距离要远的多。这个工程可不会就止于此，除了将中国、印度、俄罗斯连接起来成为世界上最重要的经济走廊以外，剩下的那部分计划就是通过海岸、港口将中国与亚洲剩下的国家甚至与东非连接起来。事实上，中国的影响力可能通过这条路遍布世界的另一半。它被认为是比马歇尔计划还大的投资，影响力可能改变世界。要问整个计划最疯狂的部分？那就是到2020年这个魔鬼计划已经顺利进行啦。

审稿：木木子 来源：前十网