Welcome to On Verticality. This blog explores the innate human need to escape the surface of the earth, and our struggles to do so throughout history. If you’re new here, a good place to start is the Theory of Verticality section or the Introduction to Verticality. If you want to receive updates on what’s new with the blog, you can use the Subscribe page to sign up. Thanks for visiting!
Click to filter posts by the three main subjects for the blog : Architecture, Flight and Mountains.
Bipedalism and The Skyscraper
I came across this diagram the other day, and it immediately struck me. It was drawn in 2003 by James Wines of SITE for his Antilia Tower project, and it superimposes a human body on top of a tower section. I’ve previously written about the conceptual link between the bipedal human body and the tower, but this diagram takes it a step further and matches the functions of each part of the body to each part of the tower.
James Wines and the Highrise of Homes
This is the Highrise of Homes, designed in 1981 by James Wines and his firm SITE. The project consists of a series of stacked levels with individual homes built throughout each level. These homes appear much like the single-family detached homes of suburbia, which is a curious mashup of typologies. Wines is using Verticality to re-arrange a typical suburb into a vertical tower, complete with sidewalks, front and back yards, and pitched roofs. This rearrangement creates some curious scenarios and experiences which are worth pondering.