Tall Buildings as Urban Habitats: A Quantitative Approach for Measuring Positive Social Impacts of Tall Buildings' Lower Public Space

After decades of high-speed development, designing tall buildings as critical components of urban habitat, rather than simply standing aloof from their environments, has become an important concern in many Asian cities. Nevertheless, the lack of quantitative understanding cannot support efficient architectural design or urban renewal that targets better place-making. This study attempts to fill the gap by providing a typological approach for measuring the social impact of tall buildings' ground conditions: that is, public space, podiums, and interfaces. The central business districts (CBD) of three Asian cities, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore, were selected as cases. Typical patterns and categories of lower-level public spaces among the three CBDs were abstracted via typological analyses and field study. The following evaluation is achieved through the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). This quantified approach helps to provide a visualization of high or low positive social impacts of tall buildings' lower-level public spaces among the three cases. This study also helps to suggest a design code for tall buildings aimed at a more human-oriented urban habitat.