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!
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Stacking Suburbia
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?