ABSTRACT
One of the most comprehensive reviews of the social and psychological impacts of living in high-rise buildings was conducted by Robert Gifford in the journal Architectural Science Review. Gifford’s work paints a generally negative picture of the experience. The idea of creating streets and communal spaces in the sky has a long and chequered history. Within 30 years of the first skyscraper being constructed in Chicago in 1885, visions of future cities with playgrounds and parks at height and towers connected by flying skybridges were being imagined. Whereas streets in the sky can be seen to have failed in the west, the idea of creating social and communal spaces at height in tall buildings has been reinterpreted and reinvented in the Asian context. Fuelled by vast urbanisation, many Asian cities are seeing huge levels of skyscraper construction, and thus, increasing amounts of life taking place in the vertical realm.
