Sky High Living


Book Description

There are many books about tall buildings, but few focus on residential high-rises. Perhaps this is because they are traditionally not as tall as commercial high-rises. This book explores a selection of residential tall buildings from around the world, predominantly from North America and Asia.




High-Rise Living in Asian Cities


Book Description

This book is intended to fill a knowledge gap in the study of contemporary high-rise living. While there has been much documentation on the engineering and technological aspects of tall buildings, relatively little has been written about the social and livability of high-rise. Much less is written about Asian cities even though Asia is the current hotbed of high-rise development. Even though traditional discourse of high-rise housing is not always positive, new forces are redefining its place in 21st century urbanity. Many cities around the world are reembracing high-rise in urban agenda under current narrative of sustainable development. High-rise is fast becoming a priority area in international research agenda. The quest is for livable and sustainable high-rise development. Against the background of current trends--globalization, urbanization, mixed-use development, and new-built taller buildings in inner city areas in both developed and developing countries, this book examines the software: design, economics, estate management, legal and property rights, physical environment, planning, community development, and social dimensions of high-rise living. Analysis is with the widely acclaimed successful high-rise public housing in Hong Kong and Singapore to understand the advantages and worries of high-rise living, and to distill the key points and lessons in the making of a ‘good’ highrise living environment. Hong Kong and Singapore have been constructing high-rise for more than four decades each. The majority of their population has moved to live in high-rise, selecting to live high-rise, and registering consistently high residential satisfaction. The height of apartment buildings in both cities continues to rise. The tallest is anticipated to be 70-storey. It is the contention of this book that contrary to earlier common negative discourses on public high-rise living, the high-rise environment may yet offer urban residents a satisfying dwelling experience. Leading housing academics, researchers and practitioners in the two cities have contributed to this book. This book presents a timely contribution to our understanding of a widening urban phenomenon that will affect a growing number of the world’s population.




Downtown High-Rise Vs. Suburban Low-Rise Living


Book Description

It is widely assumed that the ¿dense vertical city¿ is more sustainable than the ¿dispersed horizontal city.¿ This concept has certainly been a large factor in the unprecedented increase in the construction of tall buildings globally over the last few decades, especially in the developing world. The concentration of people in denser cities ¿ sharing space, infrastructure, and facilities ¿ is typically thought to offer much greater energy efficiency than the expanded horizontal city, which requires more land use, as well as a higher energy expenditure in infrastructure and mobility.Though this belief in the sustainability benefits of `dense¿ versus `dispersed¿ living is driving the development of cities worldwide, the principle has rarely been examined at a detailed, quantitative level. Studies to date have been mostly based on large data sets of generalized data regarding urban-scale energy consumption, or large-scale transport patterns. Crucially, there are very few studies that also consider a ¿quality of life¿ aspect to urban vs. suburban living, in addition to differences in energy use patterns.Chicago, subject city of the research, is uniquely positioned for a study exploring density vs. sprawl from a sustainability point of view. The birthplace of, and center for innovation in tall buildings, Chicago also has an ever-growing suburban area that is typical of most US cities. And yet, again in line with many other cities around the world over the past decade or two, it has seen suburban growth alongside densification of its downtown area and a resurgence of people seeking high-rise urban living.This research report offers a quantitative evaluation of long-held assumptions, and with sometimes surprising results. The ground-breaking study quantitatively investigates and compares the sustainability of people¿s lifestyles in both urban and suburban areas from environmental and social perspectives, using detailed information directly collected from households and best available data from public resources. It fills significant research gaps in our knowledge of the sustainability of urban density compared to suburban sprawl. This is an indispensable resource for policy makers, developers, urban planners, architects, utilities, and anyone else with a stake in shaping the future of the built environment.




High-Rise: A Novel


Book Description

"Harsh and ingenious! High Rise is an intense and vivid bestiary, which lingers unsettlingly in the mind." —Martin Amis, New Statesman When a class war erupts inside a luxurious apartment block, modern elevators become violent battlegrounds and cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks on “enemy” floors. In this visionary tale, human society slips into violent reverse as once-peaceful residents, driven by primal urges, re-create a world ruled by the laws of the jungle.




High Rise Stories


Book Description

In the gripping first-person accounts of High Rise Stories, former residents of Chicago’s iconic public housing projects describe life in the now-demolished high-rises. These stories of community, displacement, and poverty in the wake of gentrification give voice to those who have long been ignored, but whose hopes and struggles exist firmly at the heart of our national identity.




Urban Mental Health (Oxford Cultural Psychiatry series)


Book Description

Over the past fifty years we have seen an enormous demographic shift in the number of people migrating to urban areas, proliferated by factors such as industrialisation and globalisation. Urban migration has led to numerous societal stressors such as pollution, overcrowding, unemployment, and resource, which in turn has contributed to psychiatric disorders within urban spaces. Rates of mental illness, addictions, and violence are higher in urban areas and changes in social network systems and support have increased levels of social isolation and lack of social support. Part of the Oxford Cultural Psychiatry series, Urban Mental Health brings together international perspectives on urbanisation, its impacts on mental health, the nature of the built environment, and the dynamic nature of social engagement. Containing 24 chapters on key topics such as research challenges, adolescent mental health, and suicides in cities, this resource provides a refreshing look at the challenges faced by clinicians and mental health care professionals today. Emphasis is placed on findings from low- and middle-income countries where expansion is rapid and resources limited bridging the gap in research findings.




High Life


Book Description

The first comprehensive architectural and cultural history of condominium and cooperative housing in twentieth-century America. Today, one in five homeowners in American cities and suburbs lives in a multifamily home rather than a single-family house. As the American dream evolves, precipitated by rising real estate prices and a renewed interest in urban living, many predict that condos will become the predominant form of housing in the twenty-first century. In this unprecedented study, Matthew Gordon Lasner explores the history of co-owned multifamily housing in the United States, from New York City’s first co-op, in 1881, to contemporary condominium and townhouse complexes coast to coast. Lasner explains the complicated social, economic, and political factors that have increased demand for this way of living, situating the trend within the larger housing market and broad shifts in residential architecture and family life. He contrasts the prevalence and popularity of condos, townhouses, and other privately governed communities with their ambiguous economic, legal, and social standing, as well as their striking absence from urban and architectural history.




Building the Skyline


Book Description

The Manhattan skyline is one of the great wonders of the modern world. But how and why did it form? Much has been written about the city's architecture and its general history, but little work has explored the economic forces that created the skyline. In Building the Skyline, Jason Barr chronicles the economic history of the Manhattan skyline. In the process, he debunks some widely held misconceptions about the city's history. Starting with Manhattan's natural and geological history, Barr moves on to how these formations influenced early land use and the development of neighborhoods, including the dense tenement neighborhoods of Five Points and the Lower East Side, and how these early decisions eventually impacted the location of skyscrapers built during the Skyscraper Revolution at the end of the 19th century. Barr then explores the economic history of skyscrapers and the skyline, investigating the reasons for their heights, frequencies, locations, and shapes. He discusses why skyscrapers emerged downtown and why they appeared three miles to the north in midtown-but not in between the two areas. Contrary to popular belief, this was not due to the depths of Manhattan's bedrock, nor the presence of Grand Central Station. Rather, midtown's emergence was a response to the economic and demographic forces that were taking place north of 14th Street after the Civil War. Building the Skyline also presents the first rigorous investigation of the causes of the building boom during the Roaring Twenties. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the boom was largely a rational response to the economic growth of the nation and city. The last chapter investigates the value of Manhattan Island and the relationship between skyscrapers and land prices. Finally, an Epilogue offers policy recommendations for a resilient and robust future skyline.




Modern American Housing


Book Description

Modern American Housing brings together the most enlightened thinkers from the worlds of architecture, social practice, and real estate development to present the latest developments in the design and construction of new housing stock in re-urbanizing cities throughout the United States. New housing is grouped into three sections—housing towers, reused historical structures, and urban infill—and documented with photographs, pre-construction renderings, floor plans, and maps indicating location in urban settings. An accompanying essay and a discussion with urban planners, architects, and policymakers round out this fresh look at the past and future of the American house.




High-Risers


Book Description

A Booklist Best Book of the Year: “The definitive history of the life and death of America’s most iconic housing project,” Chicago’s Cabrini-Green (David Simon, creator of The Wire). Built in the 1940s atop an infamous Italian slum, Cabrini-Green grew to twenty-three towers and a population of 20,000—all of it packed onto just seventy acres a few blocks from Chicago’s ritzy Gold Coast. Eventually, Cabrini-Green became synonymous with crime, squalor, and the failure of government. For the many who lived there, it was also a much-needed resource—it was home. By 2011, every high-rise had been razed, the island of black poverty engulfed by the white affluence around it, the families dispersed. In this novelistic and eye-opening narrative, Ben Austen tells the story of America’s public housing experiment and the changing fortunes of American cities. It is an account told movingly though the lives of residents who struggled to make a home for their families as powerful forces converged to accelerate the housing complex’s demise. Beautifully written, rich in detail, and full of moving portraits, High-Risers is a sweeping exploration of race, class, popular culture, and politics in modern America that brilliantly considers what went wrong in our nation’s effort to provide affordable housing to the poor—and what we can learn from those mistakes. “Compelling.” —Chicago Tribune “[A] fascinating narrative.” —Booklist (starred review) “A weighty and robust history of a people disappeared from their own community.” —Kirkus Reviews “Austen has masterfully woven together these deeply intimate stories of the residents at Cabrini against the backdrop of critical public policy decisions. Ultimately this book is about how as a country we acknowledge and deal with the very poor.” —Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here Named a Best Book of the Year by Mother Jones Nominated for the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Nonfiction; the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize; and the Chicago Review of Books Award