skyscrapers of the present

after the happenings of 9/11 in new york, the typology of the skyscraper has underrun a series of discussions. in an attempt to rethink its standardised principles - those of serialization, repetition, maximal usage, concentration - some architectural practices have been suggesting new configurations for the skyscraper in order to cope with the increasing urban complexity of the 21st century cities.

contemporary urban life is becoming ever more complex, with divers, overlapping audiences, with multiple, simultaneous demands. dense proximity of differences, and a new intensity of connections distinguishes contemporary life from the modern period of separation and repetition. the task is to order and articulate this complexity in ways that maintain legibility and orientation.
:: patrik schumacher in the sky-scraper revitalized: differentiation, interface, navigation, 2006

new problematics of this typology arised, accompanying old, still not optimised issues. what is now en vogue is not only how tall the skyscraper should be, but also how efficient in terms of energy consumption, c02 emission, program mixing. also, formally the aim is to reach complexity by means of variation, optimisation in terms of navigation, and new principles of interface within its surrounding environment.

for this purpose, new techniques have been and still are in development. parametric design, biomimetic studies, algorithmic architecture, only to cite a few, open a new range of possibilities for architecture to deal with.

this reasearch aims at exploring these possibilities and try to propose new architectural configurations for the skyscraper. it sees the skyscraper not only as a huge structure, but also, and perhaps mainly, as a huge concentration of people.