It's Alive: a vision for tall buildings

Publication

It’s Alive imagines a tall building that can actively adapt to the changing needs of users and the surrounding environmental conditions in the year 2050.

An illustration of a futuristic tall building

Last updated: July 2021

Buildings have the power to shape the societies we want to be and become. As more people live, work and play in cities – and amid increasing competition for urban land and natural resources – buildings need to evolve.

Society is facing many challenges from the global pandemic climate crisis, urbanisation and an ageing population which calls for buildings to adapt their function, design and use.

It’s Alive is a conceptual vision for a ‘living’ socio-technological tall building in the year 2050 that imagines tall buildings fulfilling multiple roles in response to the changing needs of our society and planet. The report is designed to start conversations about what is possible, plausible, and preferable.