Urban architecture has included high rise buildings as far back as the Tower of Babel in the Bible’s book of Genesis. “Its top in the sky” is the phrase used to describe the tower and was an idiom for impressive height. Another account mentions that the Tower reached a height of 695 feet, which was taller than any structure built in history until the Eiffel Tower in 1889, which is 1,063 feet in height.

In classical architecture, the landmark was an object set apart by its height, mass and silhouette. High rise buildings often served as accents to highlight the city center or to serve as dominant urban structures. They created a new visual identity and shaped the skylines of the city.

Modern High Rise Condos

Modern high rise condos try to incorporate the topographic features into the buildings and to have a unique expression inherent to the particular cities in which they are located. When a contractor or developer creates tall buildings in cities with century’s worth of history, it may be a challenge, but the past, present, and future should be able to live alongside each other in harmony. Architecture can successfully blend into a location when it is sensitive to the surroundings and the background of the property.

The imperative is to consider the impact on the surrounding city, improved space utilization, environmental strategies, and other factors that serve to increase the value of the building while providing the preferred living characteristics sought by potential tenants.

New high rise construction makes use of the latest technological advances. The advances are also a part of the renewal of unattractive industrial areas for updated purposes. Old industrial areas whose purpose has become lost become a potential place to develop high rise construction.

Urban Living Becomes More Attractive

After approximately 60 years of a single family house in the suburbs being the preferred living arrangement, numerous factors have made those arrangements not as livable. The high maintenance, taxes, insurance, gasoline costs for commuting, as well as other expenses, can make homeowners think longingly of the benefits of urban living.

People are thinking long and hard about living in the smaller and yet efficient atmosphere of a condo in a beautiful high rise building, owning property that needs no landscaping maintenance; an area that is pedestrian friendly and offers mass transit instead of having to bear the high costs of a motor vehicle.

Added to the above are the social assets of having areas and activities in the buildings that bring residents together to easily make new friends and to enjoy a variety of events and hobbies that make for happier living. Additionally, many upscale high rise buildings include fitness centers, a pool, outdoor recreational areas and other desirable amenities.

Some studies predict that by 2050 the population will have reached nine billion and that six to seven billion will be living in cities. There will be a need to continue increasing urban density, and well-built and well-designed high rise buildings are central to achieving that.

In today’s world, computers, tablets and Smartphones run our lives. In a short amount of time, the explosion of technology in the market has many people never imagining their lives without it. In order to understand how we came from the dark ages to where we are today, we should first understand the evolution of technology. Most of today’s technologies were born out of purpose. Search engines are a good example, they were created to sort out the huge amounts of online data. Every new upgrade of a technology creates something that was better than before.

Every time this happens, technology evolves and has become the thing that is essential today. Future new technologies come from ideas that get compounded to form new technologies. Technologies that exist today evolve into more powerful technologies that they were before. With the speed at which technology is evolving, it is no wonder why people are struggling to keep up. The following is an overview of how fast technology and the internet have evolved in just the past few years.

The Past

As recent as the 1990s, the internet was a new commodity that some businesses and homes had. People at that time remember the painfully slow sound of the dial-up signal as it connected to the internet. As more people saw the value of having internet access, technology once again stepped up to eliminate the use of a phone line to access the internet with an even faster way to connect to the World Wide Web. This advance also caused websites to advance and suddenly everyone had either a Tripod or Geocities website all of their own.

About this time, the blogging craze took off on the consumer level. This allowed the sharing of information to become much easier. Rather than handing over a floppy disc or CD-ROM, more people started to email documents or store larger files on a USB drive. With the advance of new technologies popping up, they would compound and form a stronger, faster and better technology. As this technology developed, it changed the way people operated, worked and coincidentally live today.

The Present

Since the 1990s, internet access has popped up nearly everywhere. It is rare to find a place of business, library, or coffee shop without access to a Wi-Fi signal. Even without a Wi-Fi signal in close range, most people can still access the internet with their cellular device or Smartphone. Because of this anytime/anywhere internet access, many businesses have created web apps that will answer the consumer’s common needs. These apps or applications will do everything from sending huge amounts of information to tracking food portions with just the click of a button. One of the differences that is most noticeable with today’s internet is the ability to be personable in such an impersonal setting. It has been social media that has changed the way people engage with each other online.

Even though this form of communication is superficial, it has helped people remain close that may otherwise would have lost contact all together. Even face to face conversations are becoming easier because of web/video conferencing that has broken the barriers of geography. Now, businesses can communicate with customers in more of a human manner, people can have a face to face conversation without having to travel across the country, and people can reach out to others across the world in an easier and faster manner. With all the new technologies influencing how people access each other and information, the future looks promising.

The Future

Technology will allow work to be accomplished faster and easier, internet access will become faster and more streamlined. Devices like tablets and Smartphones will keep evolving to work together better.

Data between these machines will be shared automatically, which will limit the need for human involvement. More and more businesses and people will put themselves in the cloud or have everything stored online rather than on a single device. This will allow an enormous potential to change how business is done, how the traditional office will look and how companies and people will interact with each other on a daily basis. As technology continues to evolve, the world will change with it and create new ways of working together and new habits.