London Super Tower

Proposed by the firm Popularchitecture, the London Super Tower would meet the city’s housing need for an estimated 100,000 new people by 2016, while keeping an incredibly small footprint. To accomplish this end, the tower would shift the habitations upward – 1,500 meters upward by the time it was completed.

But this is no ordinary residential skyscraper. It is designed to become “a vertical extrusion of the city.” A single floor would become a neighborhood, 20 floors would form a village, and villages would be grouped into three super-districts within the tower, complete with their own elected local officials. Structurally, the façade would be load-bearing, and the core would be open, spanned every 20 floors by bridges. The façade is also punctured by circular openings that function as the gardens, parks, sports facilities, and open-air theater. Water and household wastes would be recycled in the tower, and it would harvest water from the clouds that would envelope it on overcast days.