It's so disconcerting to watch organizations and architects like Arup and Bjarke Ingels support stuff like this. From an artistic perspective it's less interesting than Jeff Koons' proposed animated replica steam locomotive dangling vertically from a crane (https://www.thedailybeast.com/whatever-happened-to-jeff-koon...) and from an engineering perspective it's silly. Koons' loco could have held itself together without any feats of calculation but this is in the category of artist's fantasy made real by extensive structural analysis (and quite probably extensive interior reinforcement, not to mention a huge (floating?) foundation below the waterline.)
Arup was paid tens of millions of public money by the London "garden bridge" promoters. It's now expected to see their name on unusual large scale spectacular engineering projects. But their organizational ethos is loudly advertised as being altruistic and responsible: https://www.arup.com/perspectives/publications/speeches-and-.... It just comes across as smug and sanctimonious, given the way Arup will apparently implement almost anything with a large enough price tag attached. They really aren't a more evolved form of consultancy, even if they claim that they are.
Arup was paid tens of millions of public money by the London "garden bridge" promoters. It's now expected to see their name on unusual large scale spectacular engineering projects. But their organizational ethos is loudly advertised as being altruistic and responsible: https://www.arup.com/perspectives/publications/speeches-and-.... It just comes across as smug and sanctimonious, given the way Arup will apparently implement almost anything with a large enough price tag attached. They really aren't a more evolved form of consultancy, even if they claim that they are.