ABSTRACT
Already well-argued elsewhere is the case for architects and engineers to design our man-made environment to be sustainable or 'green'. "Green" or ecologically-responsive design objectives are to build with minimal impact on the natural environment and to integrate the built-environment with the ecological systems (ecosystems) of the locality. For many designers today, these design objectives are regarded as given pre-requisites for all their design endeavours. This proposition of the skyscraper as an ecologically-responsive building might well appear to be a conundrum for some. Afterall, the skyscraper is the city's most intensive building-type (besides perhaps, the shopping-mall or the convention centre). Skyscrapers, in comparison to those other considerably smaller experimental low-energy ecological buildings, are by all means and purposes not low-energy nor self-evident ecological building types by virtue of their enormous size and high consumption of energy and materials.
