Imagine if you could visit friends, shop at the grocery store, exercise at the gym — all in the same skyscraper. Or if you could commute to work by elevator.
That's one of many benefits behind the vertical city, an urban design concept that rethinks horizontal living. The idea is this: While normal cities are made up of hundreds of buildings, vertical cities would be a few slender buildings standing hundreds of stories high.
Here's the the design for one of our favorites, a 189-floor vertical city concept for the United Arab Emirates.
UNICEF predicts that as much as 75% of the global population could live in cities by 2050. Vertical cities could be a smart way to house all those people.
Since the 16th century, artists have imagined what these cities would look like — the earliest example was Pieter Bruegel the Elder's oil painting, "The Tower of Babel." Within the last decade, architects have started to make them more real.
Italian firm Luca Curci Architects designed a vertical city for the United Arab Emirates. Up to 25,000 people could live in their 180-floor skyscraper.
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