As our cities become denser and more vertical, designers seek opportunities to bring the urban realm higher into the sky.

On 23rd June, our Design Partner Nick Cordingley shared his insight on the integration of social spaces within the vertical city at the 9th annual Vertical Cities conference.

Nick illustrated the idea - that placing amenity spaces at higher levels to interconnect vertical communities is an inevitable evolution of the future cityscape - by exploring theoretical and built examples in some of the most densely populated cityscapes in Asia.

He also presented two principal case studies by 10 Design as examples:

• Pazhou District in Guangzhou, China: A two-tower development linked by a public skydeck, rising 134.5m in height, creating a new elevated public realm which provides al fresco dining, a city park, an observatory deck, an art gallery and more.

• Xian, China: Another two-tower scheme connected with a shared atrium, where a number of vertical ‘town squares’ linked by a series of skybridges are created at each refuge floor.