Sustainability and High-Rise Design for the Future Importance of Connectivity Between Vertical Living and the Natural Environment

Abstract

High-rise living had been universally accepted as a sustainable solution to the housing problem by the end of the 20th century. However, it invariably results in the separation of people from nature, a fact that is especially true of users occupying the upper floors of high-rise apartments. Consequently, such a lifestyle has long been associated with the poor mental and physical health of their users. Sustainable high-rise buildings are, therefore, not merely about responsivity to environmental, technical and economic issues, but also about the improvement of high rise dwellers’ quality of living. Such concerns become even more important in the context of the high-rise’s evolution as a holistically sustainable urban dwelling of the future, due to rising real estate prices in urban areas. It is a foregone conclusion, therefore, that the aforementioned negative influences would also occur in the Sri Lankan context, especially since high-rise living has yet to become entrenched in the collective conscious of her people as a viable lifestyle choice. This paper demonstrates how the outdoor natural environment affects the mental wellbeing of high-rise dwellers. Responses of dwellers of three different high-rise apartments in Colombo, Sri Lanka, regarding their phenomenological experiences of how the outdoor natural environment affected their mental wellbeing, were collected and qualitatively analysed. The results show how the presence of visual connections to the natural environment contribute to the mental health and wellbeing of high-rise dwellers. These findings have relevance to the way user friendly high-rise apartments would be designed in the foreseeable future