“Rethinking the High-rise Life”
Assemble Papers,
August 2017
Assemble Papers,
August 2017
I’ve spent most of my life living in apartments. Eight, to be exact.
From multi-residential towers that cover the dense island-metropolises of Singapore and Hong Kong, to the apartments emerging all across inner-city Melbourne, I have by now assembled a somewhat comprehensive taxonomy of modern leisure facilities available to those who choose the high-rise life. Swimming pools, saunas, personal gymnasiums, ornamental roof gardens, tennis courts, private movie theatres, barbeque zones, foyer seating areas, sky-decks…
The inevitable ubiquity of multi-residential dwelling comes with big civic challenges that can no longer be postponed or ignored. We are in an era where neighbours and commons should matter more than ever; where diverse demographics and flexible programs should not be nice-to-haves, but be seen as integral to the metropolitan neighbourhood’s long-term success. Be it at ground level or up above on the nth floor, when we start to redefine social infrastructures surrounding our high-rise life, we take the ‘apart’ out of ‘apartments’, in doing so making room for genuine public life to prosper.
From multi-residential towers that cover the dense island-metropolises of Singapore and Hong Kong, to the apartments emerging all across inner-city Melbourne, I have by now assembled a somewhat comprehensive taxonomy of modern leisure facilities available to those who choose the high-rise life. Swimming pools, saunas, personal gymnasiums, ornamental roof gardens, tennis courts, private movie theatres, barbeque zones, foyer seating areas, sky-decks…
The inevitable ubiquity of multi-residential dwelling comes with big civic challenges that can no longer be postponed or ignored. We are in an era where neighbours and commons should matter more than ever; where diverse demographics and flexible programs should not be nice-to-haves, but be seen as integral to the metropolitan neighbourhood’s long-term success. Be it at ground level or up above on the nth floor, when we start to redefine social infrastructures surrounding our high-rise life, we take the ‘apart’ out of ‘apartments’, in doing so making room for genuine public life to prosper.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/add83298876c80c490fa7ac0b73b444693fb05cba431408de9112dd96ca9f104/Screen-Shot-2021-07-18-at-10.49.12-AM.png)
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![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/def13add9ec8d45671f843b60b7d7911768543e3822eb7a5ecf96b9d032dec94/Screen-Shot-2021-07-18-at-10.51.57-AM.png)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cd787c950d954cf334313f66c0f3d19feed2784ddcb2210032ab6e2a10ce655e/Screen-Shot-2021-07-18-at-10.52.20-AM.png)