[jl6]

It’s the sci-fi death star cyberpunk dystopia aesthetic. The place was demolished before most of us ever heard about it, and yet we feel like we’ve been there, crawling through its air ducts, picking up a health boost at its meat markets, buying ammo from its shady traders, escaping from the cops through its windows, getting an achievement for doing it all without injuring the civilians…

By the way, 8 year old me loved Glider! Nice work.

[creer]

"Death star"?! To me that evokes "designed", "manufactured" and "no need to think too much about human scale". See Seattle Central Public Library - especially at night when it's open to interstellar space.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5749/23487975024_13a1504a6b_c...

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1584/24008226682_5f6c6d1f6c_c...

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1570/23820565720_559b380eb2_c...

("Stormtrooper!")

As opposed to cyberpunk, because yes on that: spend money on wiring, computers and noodles, not on wall paint.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmqlxjTSc8w

[jl6]

True. I guess the “Death Star” aspect came to me in the sense of dense construction in all directions around; a place where flat maps may fail you.

[creer]

There was a subway station in Paris - Etoile I think - that was like that: No need of 90 degree angles, stairs here and there in unpredictable locations, and colorful and brightly lit underground "strip mall". A bowling alley or something. Most subway stations are mostly corridors populated only with people and wall poster advertising, while that one because it had a bunch of stores and other venues, felt so much larger and confusing from a navigation point of view.

Some glimpses of it in the movie Subway I think? It's not the main station in that movie, which is Chatelet Les Halles - vast spaces where it's hard to keep track of orientation yes, but seemingly very simple vertically: flat. Which is misleading: most Paris subway stations are complex vertically because of the need to straddle and connect different sides of rail tracks crossing at different levels, while leaving intact different sides of other tunnels, sewers, etc.

[creer]

Here are some 3D models of Paris subway stations that illustrate that:

First how people think of subway stations: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/illustration-o...

And then how they are. Except these diagrams do not show the businesses...

https://old.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/v6v4no/3...

https://preview.redd.it/axr7x8yi9x391.png?width=960&crop=sma...

https://old.reddit.com/r/InfrastructurePorn/comments/v6axqk/...

https://old.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/1aw7ht7/why_are_so...

[creer]

Okay. It's interesting that most of the Death Star's interior views failed on that. Yes a droid is useful to make sense of the plans but most of it seems... flat floors and vertical elevators and "vertical" shafts.

Even the Seattle Central Public Library - a real building - did it better, with tilted multi-floor window planes, escalators, multi-floor corkscrew walking path with numbering on the floor, unexpected openings overlooking big open spaces, etc.