A city in the sky - from unsustainable architectural singularities towards true urban multiplicities

In Japan, living in high-rise residential buildings is an imported socio-cultural model, the example of blunt introduction of an urbo-morphological type without any attempt at contextualisation. What gets imported are the same urban and architectural layouts, the expression of the same kind of elitism that shapes similar developments in Moscow, Dubai or Melbourne with the same materials and construction methods proliferating through a vast global logistics network and the same dislocation of existing urban fabric and the new objects. Those symbols of status and lifestyle refer to the perceived quality of life purportedly existing elsewhere. In reality, the actual need for high rise residential development in a rapidly shrinking and ageing Japanese society is highly dubious – unless serious attempts at its contextualisation indicate ways in which it could contribute to mitigation of that, and other problems which are specific to Japanese society and this particular moment in its history