Vertical City-a Design Theory Of High-rise Buildings

As one of the greatest invention of last century,High-rise building serves as the solution to handle the population issues.Instead of spreading horizontally,the vertical development has made huge influence on our society and environment.Within this trend,several changes have taken place in high rise buildings.Small public place has been introduced in to make high rise to be more like the character of a city.Under the impact of ecological,economic,and technological conditions,the concept of “vertical city” has been brought out in the academic fields.All the researchers and architects,such as OMA,MVRDV,BIG,Steven Holl since 20 th have been working on this topic,making this wild idea come in reality.Comparing to the low rise buildings,people often treat a high rise building as a separated object in the air,far away from the city park and other public space.The floor planes in a high rise building are no more than a stack of plates,all the same but without any vitality.High rise building holds a large amount of space volume.It seems like a place filled with a great area of urban land,but unfortunately,not planned well.This article tries to break the traditional rules to design a high rise building.On the other way,it argues a high rise building should be regarded as the vertical extension of a city.Designers should apply the theory and strategy of urban design to reconstruct a high rise building.The urban elements,like street,public space,green park,could be transferred into a high rise building.