The utopia of the tall, green building and the birth of a new generation of environmental performance icons

Abstract

The urban chaos at the end of the 19th century that characterized the main Industrial Revolution cities such as London and Paris inspired Le Corbusier to propose radical urbanistic changes in which tall buildings assumed a prime position. The 1960s gave rise to visionary projects based on great, promising technological advances, with a focus on the issues of housing, mega-structures, and tall buildings. Three groups led this new architectural and urbanistic approach: Archigram in England, the Metabolists in Japan, and the French Group, which created a whole series of architectural utopias, tackling the theme of the tall building. At the same time, the model of the tall office building grew with the economic development of cities that were important internationally, such as New York and London. In the 1970s, a new worldwide concern created new utopias for the tall building, questioning conventional models. In this period, the first proposals for the tall," green" building were developed in terms of utopias. In the 1990s, Malayan architect Ken Yeang became an international reference for the theme of the" Environmental Tall Building." His ideas are based on new architectural aesthetics, showing an intensive use of vegetation, daylight, and natural ventilation to achieve environmental comfort and energy performance. More recently, his architecture became well-known for the ideas of" vertical landscaping" and" vertical urbanism." Besides the utopia of the tall, green building, examples built in European cities since the 1990s claim to define the architectural and technological bases of a real generation of more environmentally-friendly tall buildings. The utopian historical precedents have influenced practicing architects with respect to form, function, and technological possibilities, while the architectural challenges to achieve sustainability continue to inspire many questions, such as what are the premises for the sustainable tall buildings, and what are the technological possibilities to achieve the its goals of these structures?