How much private space did a person need? There was no standard answer to this question, but there was a range of answers.
According to some unofficial statistics, a person needed at least eight to ten square meters of private living space to maintain relatively stable emotions.
Even if we used nine square meters, two hundred thousand people would require 1.8 million square meters.
These squares could not be measured out on the ground with a ruler and called good enough. The construction structures also had to be considered. Once the construction area and communal areas were added, five million square meters would not actually be enough! Six or seven million square meters might be needed.
If they only had private space, would they need to work?
Would they need to socialize?
Would they need...
This might be a design involving tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of square meters. And that was only the planar area; it did not include the three-dimensional space. It absolutely was not something one person could complete in a short time.
Even mobilizing the strength of a team would not make it easy to complete, because after the design was finished, models still had to be used to verify its feasibility and safety.
Underground buildings faced many safety requirements as well. It was not enough to simply pour concrete and build them.
Nick had believed from the beginning that this was a task no one could complete.
Moreover, building a city underground meant hollowing out a large portion of the underground space. They had to consider how to support the space and prevent collapses.
This was different from building structures aboveground. At least the sky would not fall down and crush them.
Overall, the engineering involved in this plan was enormous. Nick