Debating Tall Landscrapers vs. Skyscrapers What does the office of the future look like? The leading tech industry giants all seem to agree the main goal is “connectivity” that forges collaboration and ideation. But there are significant differences in how this manifests in the built environment. Recently, Facebook and Google have proposed or built “landscrapers” – large, elongated buildings, in both low- (Menlo Park, California) and high-density (London) cities. Others, such as Salesforce (San Francisco) and Tencent (Shenzhen) (see Case Study, page 12), have chosen skyscrapers. We asked, “Are ‘landscrapers’ a more plausible form of office building than skyscrapers for low- to mid-density cities?” YES density within a smaller geographic space? So entails being in a tall building. Silicon Amy Webb far, we’ve seen an inverse correlation between Valley is an obvious exception. Apart from Professor, Stern School of Business, New York density and quality of life. That brings us to projecting unprecedented power and University/Founder, Future Today Institute architectural design. New buildings in prestige, these magnificent and highly densely-populated urban centers have no bespoke horizontal office monuments In the near future, landscapers will create way to go but up. In our new economic have been created to attract high-caliber entirely new urban footprints in emerging centers, architects will be freed to develop employees. Complete with their very own low-density economic centers. There are a new models for working and living. Recent utopian visions with physical number of factors conspiring to push innovations in elevator technologies, such as manifestations so remote from their what was once a concept from the fringe the ropeless elevator, will make it easier to surroundings, these physically isolated into the mainstream. move people and objects around. There are landscrapers often resemble stranded also autonomous vehicles that roll on the alien ships. For example, we’re seeing a migration ground and fly overhead, that will soon be from America’s popular coastal cities to capable of safely transporting humans. It isn’t In contrast, modern skyscrapers are those with more underdeveloped land. that landscrapers are a better option – they extroverts. They survive and strive by This is happening, in part, because it’s might very well be inevitable. being firmly imbedded in the urban fabric. become too expensive to live and work in Towers in Manhattan have long capitalized our existing major metros. When Amazon on the subway and the ubiquitous street announced the shortlist for its second NO vendors and trendy food halls, while new headquarters offices, the majority were in Julian Chen supertalls in Hong Kong have sowed places like Columbus, Indianapolis and Senior Architect, Henning Larsen Architects seeds for new transport hubs and cultural suburban Washington D.C., which have a venues. Ironically, despite their heights, lot more available land. The “landscraper” is nothing new. It traces its skyscrapers are far from being detached heritage back to the postwar exodus of monuments. They reinforce urban centers There’s another reason we can expect our white-collar employment to the suburbs in by providing space and proximity to trade future economic centers to shift inland: North America. As cities fell into decline, and urban life, which in turn creates more climate change. Our weather patterns are companies abandoned their former demand for space and proximity. becoming more extreme, our sea levels headquarters in urban high-rises and opted are rising, and our ability to maintain for self-imposed isolation on the periphery in Unlike the recent headline-grabbing elaborate structures sitting on coastlines the form of the “office park.” landscrapers, skyscrapers are speculative will become increasingly difficult. by nature. Fortunes rise and fall. To the Today, cities are where inspirations and detriment of local communities, Smaller cities may have seemed innovations are found; they are also where diminished giants have, in the past, left unattractive before. A wider expanse of Millennials feel at home. Global companies are behind ghosted suburban headquarters in land meant more time driving in the car, increasingly leaving their suburban bases the cycles of booms and busts. But which meant restaurants and shops were behind for urban centers to attract (and speculative skyscrapers have a shelf life more spread out, which gave some the retain) top talent. Banking giant UBS beyond their original occupants because impression that nothing interesting was recently abandoned its Connecticut of their spatial efficiency and connectivity happening. Autonomous vehicles will landscraper and reinforced its presence in to transportation and urban life. The same ultimately bring us closer together. Midtown Manhattan. may not be said of empty landscrapers. Are landscrapers a better option than Due to shortage of space and high land cost, ultra-tall buildings, that allow for a greater being in centers of growth and innovation .