• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2019

As many architects and visionaries have shown over a period spanning more than a century, the re-creation of the urban realm in the sky through connections between buildings at height has a vast potential for the enrichment of our cities. To many it seems nonsensical that, although the $20^{th}$ and now $21^{st}$ century, have clearly seen a push towards greater height and urban density in our major urban centers, the ground-pavement level remains almost exclusively the sole physical plane of connection. As the world rapidly urbanizes, greater thought needs to be expended on how horizontal space can be developed at height. This paper briefly describes the history, present classifications and uses, and potential future development potential of skybridges between tall buildings.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.19-27
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• 2019

This presentation traces the evolution of the SkyPark across multiple building types in different cities, climates and contexts from urban, architectural and social perspectives.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2019

Tall buildings are one of the most viable solutions to deal with the global phenomenon of rapid population increase and urbanization. While tall buildings are an essential building type to accommodate ever-growing urban population, as buildings become very tall they also produce many critical design challenges related to social interactions, emergency egress, structural systems, etc. While many different design solutions can be sought to resolve these challenging issues of tall buildings, this paper investigates potential of conjoined towers in producing more livable and sustainable megatall building complexes with an emphasis on their capability in efficiently providing exceedingly tall building structures.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.387-396
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• 2020

While tall buildings are an essential building type to accommodate an ever-growing urban population, as buildings become taller and taller, many design challenges arise. As floor spaces are repeated vertically, the occupants' natural horizontal circulation-based social interactions are limited. As buildings become ever taller, safe evacuation to the ground level becomes more challenging in emergencies. With respect to safety as well as serviceability, one of the most fundamental design challenges of exceedingly tall buildings is their structural systems that make the physical existence of tall buildings possible. While many different design solutions can be sought to resolve these issues as well as other design challenges of extremely tall buildings, this paper investigates the potential of conjoined towers to create more livable and sustainable vertical environments. Emphasis is placed on the social and structural capabilities of conjoined towers in providing enhanced social interactions and more efficient ultra-tall structures. The related brief history of conjoined towers is presented. To understand their current status, contemporary design practices of conjoined towers are discussed. Lastly, a new concept of superframed conjoined towers developed for exceedingly tall building complexes is introduced through design studies. Though envisioning future tall buildings is challenging, conjoined towers can be among the strong candidates toward more livable and sustainable vertical urbanism.