12 – 2021

High-rise Buildings

It saves valuable settlement land – but wastes climate-relevant resources through its construction and operation. Thanks to its exceptional position and visibility it fascinates us, while at the same time it can be seen a distasteful expression of arrogant economic power: in recent years, the high-rise has experienced a new boom, but there are only a few cases where it is truly welcome at its location and has become a part of its community, its quarter, or its street. Generally, it has remained too isolated, both as a building and in social terms, which is due, at least in part, to outmoded legal restrictions.

We asked ourselves how high-rise buildings could be transformed from smug outsiders into friendly neighbours, how they could engage in an open exchange with their surroundings. It soon became clear: these questions are not decided in the top twenty metres of the building but at the base, where the high-rise meets the ground and reveals its attitude to public space and to lively nature. At the plinth it is decided how aloof life in the high-rise is in detail. In the threshold zone it first becomes clear whether the tall building makes a contribution to the city that it dominates visually by virtue of its height. On this account architects ought to devote particular attention to the ground floor zones, the threshold spaces in urban planning.

And another thing also became clear: highrises seem more acceptable when they appear in groups and introduce their own horizon, a new normality. The “stubble field” dotted with lonely protagonists can then develop into a coexistence that is based on dialogue. This makes the urban morphology more legible, moves topographical or transport-related characteristics of a city into focus. However, this requires a (political) intention to engage in design, as otherwise urban design hierarchies begin to become unstable, and submissiveness starts to take hold. Today some cities – above all Basel – already refer in their guidelines to the strength conveyed by high-rise buildings in groups, something we have long been familiar with from cities like New York.