Image courtsey of Popularchitecture

Thomas Teatum of Architecture and ConceptDesign company, Popularchitecture has proposed a 1,500-metre high super tower as a solution to London’s housing problems. A building like this has only recently become feasible in technology terms. Teatum believes we need to overcome concerns about the visual impact of tall buildings. More crucially, he considers that we need to revisit the way we think about investing in buildings. Current construction projects are limited by the investment cycle – typically a 15-20 time year scale. Teatum urges us to think on a scale of hundreds of years – to build our cities in the way the Romans did: “If we consider investment in buildings such that they last 100-200 years, we alter the way people invest in the city. This perhaps implies that different institutions should invest in buildings? Certain buildings will then be viewed more as a piece of urban infrastructure, interconnected with the city, rather than a stand-alone building”. Watch out for an interview with Thomas Teatum, exclusively on the Cleantech Investor website next week.