Towards Instant Availability and Full Life Cycle Resilience in Vertical Cities: Automated Deployment and Transformation of High-Rise Buildings to Mitigate Social Challenges

High-rise buildings often can accommodate the population of small horizontal cities. The investment in high-rise buildings is considerable and therefore a rapid return on investment is necessary. The immediate availability of high-rise buildings can be achieved by automated prefabrication of highly finished modules and their instant on-site assembly by robotic and automated construction sites. A high-rise building as a vertical city can be considered as a sophisticated organism that can constantly change throughout its lifecycle in response to economic growth, demographic change, and environmental pressures. To date, many new urban high-rise developments claim to be "vertical cities", yet few represent this important characteristic. This article analyzed the technological readiness and innovations in the field of construction automation and robotics including single-task construction robots, automated on-site construction factories, and ambient assisted living. These technological advances enable the realization of future vertical cities that are able to continuously grow and transform in terms of form and function. Finally, the article proposes a visionary archetype of vertical city in the name of "dynamic vertical urbanism" that is easy to expand vertically and horizontally in order to achieve instant availability and full life cycle resilience thanks to advanced building technologies.