Stacking Suburbia

A cartoon by A.B. Walker from Life Magazine in 1909. Reprinted in Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas, pg 83.

One of the major challenges with the high places we construct is that we're built for a surface-based existence. The surface is where the action is, and it's where our species has lived and evolved since before we colonized the world. Even the Ancient Romans called their six- to seven-story apartment buildings insulae, which is Latin for island, symbolizing the isolation that comes with living and working away from the surface. The advent of the modern skyscraper brought with it the possibility of living and working far, far away from the surface, which creates a special set of problems. How can we recreate the variety of the surface in the sky?

Take a look at this cartoon by A.B. Walker from Life Magazine in 1909. It shows a skyscraper that stacks suburban homes on top of each other. Consider living like this for a moment. Would you be willing to take an elevator to get to your single-family home, 100 meters above the surface? Would this be more desirable than a typical apartment in a high-rise building? It's an entertaining thought to ponder, and an interesting mashup of different paradigms of living in the modern world. You'd be living in a suburban dwelling, but you wouldn't be living in the suburbs. What you do get is a single-family detached home; what you don't get is easy access to the surface next to you or the sky above you. You'd have a roof over the roof above your head, and you'd need to take an elevator ride to get to your actual front door.