The first thing that the City of London and other 'downtown' authorities might note about BIG's proposal for these residential towers in the heart of Seoul's business district, is the fact that they are residential!
Credit to the Koreans for realising that the ever increasing tidal flows of humanity in and out of the business district on a daily basis is unsustainable and massively wasteful. Having an empty city at night and empty satellite towns and suburbs during the day with enormous and costly transport infra structure connecting them, is breathtakingly stupid! BIG's proposal highlights this, but it also has other qualities that are worth a closer look.
The idea, after the collapse of the world trade centre in 2011, of linking towers together to make them more resilient of terrorist attack, has been quite widely explored. This is the latest manifestation of that. But the proposal also explores the idea of greater density of development higher-up where the light and views are better.
The cross bridges connect at 70m and 140m and incorporate sky gardens that the residents can use. So not so high that one needs breathing apparatus to go out onto the observation deck, but high enough that a tennis ball accidentally thrown over the side might kill somebody below!
