Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey are you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and we're back with part two of our talk about
Speaker 1: sky bridges or sky ways. Uh, if you haven't heard
Speaker 1: part one yet, maybe should go check that one out first.
Speaker 1: But as a brief refresher, a sky bridge or a
Speaker 1: skyway is an architectural feature that you can think of
Speaker 1: as kind of a hallway in the sky, or an
Speaker 1: enclosed bridge linking two buildings by the upper floors. In
Speaker 1: the last episode, we talked about some modern examples of
Speaker 1: sky bridges and some interesting ones from history, such as
Speaker 1: the the Bridge of Size in Venice, Italy's enclosed passageway
Speaker 1: that may look romantic from the outside but has mostly
Speaker 1: historical associations with torture and zens. But in the uh,
Speaker 1: let's see. But in today's episode, I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking more about what sky bridges mean, how they're interpreted,
Speaker 1: and how they might be used in the future. That's right, So,
Speaker 1: first of all, I do want to refer back to
Speaker 1: some examples just briefly that we we were we discussed
Speaker 1: the you know, just the idea of say, the powerful
Speaker 1: Medici family in Italy using these enclosed spaces and occasional
Speaker 1: things that we would definitely categorize as a sky bridge
Speaker 1: to move from one place to the other without interacting
Speaker 1: with enemies or commoners, etcetera. We also looked at some
Speaker 1: examples of of royalty in China engaging in similar practices,
Speaker 1: using these as sort of privileged passage ways for royal
Speaker 1: members of society. Oh so you what was the the
Speaker 1: Chinese ruler who went about in these halls so that
Speaker 1: devils would not see where he walked and he could
Speaker 1: only embrace good people. It's said, yes, yes, that would
Speaker 1: have been impertin shi Wong. Yeah, so that he could
Speaker 1: uh quote act mysteriously to avoid devils and meanwhile embrace
Speaker 1: virtuous individuals. And one thing that we mentioned was that, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: this is this is one thing within a historical context,
Speaker 1: but generally speaking, I think a lot of us wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to overtly um invoke that kind of idea. So
Speaker 1: in there we get to some of the sort of
Speaker 1: controversy and back and forth over just the nature of
Speaker 1: the sky bridge, like not not only what it physically does,
Speaker 1: but also like what is it? What does it do?
Speaker 1: Um in terms of society and urban planning and uh
Speaker 1: and just the like the larger nature of the city
Speaker 1: that goes beyond just mere structures and moving people around.
Speaker 1: And so I want to come back to the architect
Speaker 1: John Portman Jr. John Portman Jr. Live through seventeen UM
Speaker 1: American neo futurist architect and real estate developer. Uh we
Speaker 1: allude we mentioned some of the examples of his work
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, Georgia. He's known for popularizing the atrium,
Speaker 1: but also in using a lot of sky bridges. Now,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned, of course that there are a number
Speaker 1: of practical reasons to have sky bridges in a structure,
Speaker 1: moving people around so they don't have to uh engage
Speaker 1: in say hostile environment and you know, hot temperatures, freezing rain,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Also, you're gonna have situations where
Speaker 1: you want to share resources within two different towers, so
Speaker 1: connect those towers at a higher floor. That way people
Speaker 1: don't have to go all the way back down and
Speaker 1: then back up again, perhaps crossing a street or uh
Speaker 1: you know, checking in and out of security along the way.
Speaker 1: That sort of thing. But in the case of Portman's
Speaker 1: Peachtree Center sky bridges, there's apparently been controversy over the
Speaker 1: years over the use of such walkways. So this area
Speaker 1: emerged during the nineties seventies, and while some of of
Speaker 1: it is is dated, some of it is still quite impressed.
Speaker 1: If I have to say, the Marta train station at
Speaker 1: Peachtree Center is probably the coolest looking one in the
Speaker 1: system and has these these rock walls as well as
Speaker 1: this kind of still I would say futuristic looking, like
Speaker 1: shiny metal surfaces. I don't know if he designed, uh,
Speaker 1: the Marta station in question, but there was one Marta
Speaker 1: station at least that was used as a setting for
Speaker 1: a cut scene in John Carpenter's Escape from New York.
Speaker 1: I think because it, you know, the sort of the
Speaker 1: blocky concrete fixtures in it just looked futuristic enough. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: certainly at the time that was was that five Points station.
Speaker 1: I can't recall off hand, but but certainly you're right
Speaker 1: on that sounds likely. Yeah, yeah, that that also is
Speaker 1: a huge enclosed space that it is impressive in its
Speaker 1: own way to walk through. But at anyway, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is all part of the you know, the varying stages
Speaker 1: of revitalization efforts in downtown Atlanta, and during this time
Speaker 1: and especially the decades to follow, Peachtree Center was, in
Speaker 1: the eyes of its critics, this thing that by its
Speaker 1: very structure sought to cut out street level Atlanta in
Speaker 1: its entirety um and now not only people but businesses.
Speaker 1: So rather than optimistically futuristic, the critics would say, well,
Speaker 1: this is actually more wellsy in a world of privilege above,
Speaker 1: cut off from the realities of the street below. For
Speaker 1: there was one account that I was looking at looking
Speaker 1: through various old news stories, and I saw one about
Speaker 1: a believe it was a janitor strike that was taking place,
Speaker 1: and this particular author had mentioned people avoiding the protesters
Speaker 1: by making use of the sky bridges, which seems like
Speaker 1: a stark example of the sort of u uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of privileged walkway that in ways I think
Speaker 1: can be compared to some of these older models that
Speaker 1: we were discussing now, the nineteen seventies we're also not
Speaker 1: a period during which green downtowns were prioritized, just certainly
Speaker 1: not in Atlanta. Uh So, of one can can factor
Speaker 1: that into the kind of weirdly spaceship like architectural approach.
Speaker 1: That one season, some of these buildings were discussing so
Speaker 1: giant open atriums in buildings joined to each other by
Speaker 1: enclosed tunnels and bridges cut off from an outside where
Speaker 1: you have a languishing downtown and also just everything is
Speaker 1: just a sweltering gray heat island. Uh. This is actually
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that Trees Atlanta was founded in
Speaker 1: to begin the quote greening of downtown. Oh, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that, So I don't know exactly how far this
Speaker 1: far back this reputation goes, but at least today Atlanta
Speaker 1: is known as a city that has an unusual amount
Speaker 1: of trees and it's in its urban center. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: as far as downtown Atlanta goes, especially a lot of
Speaker 1: that is we can think Trees Atlanta for so that
Speaker 1: all that's very very local to us. But I think
Speaker 1: these are all great examples of some of the you know,
Speaker 1: the discussions that take place over the use of the
Speaker 1: sky bridge and next where the direction we'd like to
Speaker 1: go in though is taking a step back and talking
Speaker 1: about for the most part, taking a step back. But
Speaker 1: a lot of this is also still contemporary as well.
Speaker 1: But talking about futurism and the sky bridge the ideas
Speaker 1: that end up being wrapped up in concepts that have
Speaker 1: sky bridges in them. You know, what we're what we're
Speaker 1: actually trying to achieve, And what are some of the
Speaker 1: visions sort of the loftier ideas that are caught up
Speaker 1: in all of this, and indeed, what are some of
Speaker 1: the really pivotal forward facing ideas that we can point to,
Speaker 1: uh in the early twentieth century. So, when I was
Speaker 1: thinking about the social meaning of sky bridges, especially in
Speaker 1: science fiction, it's interesting. I have a general sense that
Speaker 1: sky bridges are often used in fictional architecture to emphasize
Speaker 1: exactly this kind of theme you were just talking about.
Speaker 1: It was sort of people living in elevated tubes of
Speaker 1: privilege that disconnect them from the realities below. And one
Speaker 1: specific example is that I had a pretty distinct memory
Speaker 1: of the movie Metropolis, the nine Fritz long movie, UH,
Speaker 1: sort of German expressionist science fiction masterpiece. UH. And my idea,
Speaker 1: at least in my head, was that this movie was
Speaker 1: full of sky bridges. But when I did a Google search,
Speaker 1: I didn't find a lot of examples. The main thing
Speaker 1: I actually found in screenshots appeared to be rail lines
Speaker 1: connecting the tops of buildings, and I found what looks like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it looks like hand drawn UH illustrations
Speaker 1: based on the movie that do appear to have like
Speaker 1: connected enclosed hallways, but I'm not sure how accurate my
Speaker 1: memory that the city in Metropolis is full of sky
Speaker 1: bridges is. Nevertheless, for some reason, I had that impression
Speaker 1: there certainly are these these elevated rail lines going between
Speaker 1: UH skyscraper tops and Metropolis. Is A is a great
Speaker 1: dystopian sci fi film, one of the major themes of
Speaker 1: which is economic injustice. It it presents a sort of
Speaker 1: class bifurcated society where you have, you know, idle rich
Speaker 1: people sort of frittering away their days up in the
Speaker 1: tops of great tall buildings, apparently rarely or never having
Speaker 1: to go down into the streets. And meanwhile, the workers
Speaker 1: and the factories who make this techno utopia possible are
Speaker 1: confined to physically lower spaces, even subterranean tunnels and caverns.
Speaker 1: And eventually there there is a revolt in the in
Speaker 1: the film, but the theme is certainly there. But though
Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't have as many sky bridges as I
Speaker 1: actually remember, and I don't know, maybe they're just not
Speaker 1: coming through in the screen, you know, grabs that people
Speaker 1: have put up on the internet. I think there are
Speaker 1: definitely sky bridges in Metropolis. I know that some of
Speaker 1: the sources I was looking at they referenced specifically early
Speaker 1: twentieth century science fiction cinematography. And when you're talking about that,
Speaker 1: you're talking about Metropolis. I mean, Metropolis is the the
Speaker 1: the example of a futuristic cinema from from from especially
Speaker 1: the twenties part excellence, you know, I mean, this is it,
Speaker 1: this is the big one. And h I did want
Speaker 1: to note that this vision of tall buildings occupied by
Speaker 1: the rich at the top while the workers live down
Speaker 1: on the ground. This, interestingly, it squares with some reality,
Speaker 1: such as the idea of like I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: the penthouse apartment. But also the class associations are often inverted.
Speaker 1: Like I was reading some actual research papers about the
Speaker 1: psychological and social impact of living in tall buildings, which
Speaker 1: I'll get into in a minute, and these studies often
Speaker 1: cited the exact opposite that there there are widespread assumptions
Speaker 1: of high high rise living being associated with lack of
Speaker 1: economic means, but as much as architecture is often a
Speaker 1: metaphor for for economic realities, I think also lots of
Speaker 1: sci fi has visions of future urban spaces where the
Speaker 1: tops of tall buildings are connected, and doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: that meaning. It's not always a class critique. I think
Speaker 1: sometimes instead it's supposed to be taken as a sign
Speaker 1: of a complex or complicated a did society, that there
Speaker 1: are avenues connecting things back and forth, like the like
Speaker 1: the arteries of a circulatory system, that it's a complex
Speaker 1: and not of associations resembling a kind of like the
Speaker 1: vines in a jungle in physical form. And and of course,
Speaker 1: and in fact there's sort of a literal analogy to
Speaker 1: the the biological architecture of a rainforest, because on a rainfort,
Speaker 1: in a rainforest, you know, you have sort of one
Speaker 1: level of life going on at the forest floor, which
Speaker 1: of course is all connected by the continuous surface. But
Speaker 1: then you have the tree canopy level where the the
Speaker 1: lateral connection of the ground level is replicated up above. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I think even in sci fi movies without
Speaker 1: an economic critique, there we see all these hallways going
Speaker 1: back and forth between the skyscrapers and it just makes
Speaker 1: us feel like, wow, it's so complex and there's so
Speaker 1: much going on, and it would be you know, it
Speaker 1: would be hard for me to even understand how the
Speaker 1: you know, the many layers of this society. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's interesting to crack this nut. Because one thing, and
Speaker 1: I'll come back to some sources that touch on this
Speaker 1: in a bit. If you think of like the upper
Speaker 1: penthouse of a of a of a very tall building,
Speaker 1: of skyscraper, what have you, the thing is like that
Speaker 1: is a dead end. Uh. That is the the point
Speaker 1: at which you you generally have no choice but to
Speaker 1: turn around and come back down. Um. And uh, you
Speaker 1: know you can say, oh, well maybe there's a helicopter
Speaker 1: port up there. Okay, well there's that. Um. And certainly
Speaker 1: you can extend this by pointing out that while some
Speaker 1: of the futuristic visions of cities and where we're going
Speaker 1: with they have been planning, they also often involved say
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of flying cars moving around or other
Speaker 1: flying the flying vehicles, flying machines that are serving as
Speaker 1: as a way to connect these isolated islands in the sky.
Speaker 1: The classic examples of that would be like Blade Runner.
Speaker 1: Now I think you could assume that maybe with Blade Runner,
Speaker 1: like you look at some architectural features and say, there's
Speaker 1: implied critique here. There there's some kind of implied critique
Speaker 1: about the society we're being shown. But there are other
Speaker 1: cases where I don't know if there is. It's just
Speaker 1: sort of like inherited science fiction texture. Like in the
Speaker 1: Star Wars prequels, you see that traffic going back and
Speaker 1: forth at many levels. There's like you know, like the
Speaker 1: layers of a cake, the different criss crossing streams of
Speaker 1: flying cars. Yeah, yeah, I mean there's definitely an underworld
Speaker 1: to Coorisson as well. But yeah, there are other films
Speaker 1: like I don't know, The Fifth Element, for example, has
Speaker 1: a lot of cool flying cars and that that feels
Speaker 1: may be more like just sci fi texture. But to
Speaker 1: come back to this idea like Corisson with an underworld
Speaker 1: and all of this, I can't help but think, of course,
Speaker 1: of Dante's Inferno and all of this, and think again
Speaker 1: of the of the skyscraper as mountain in Dante's Divine Comedy.
Speaker 1: We of course have the complexities of the the underworld
Speaker 1: of Inferno. We have the mount of Purgatory that extends
Speaker 1: upward and reaches the point of paradise, because because then
Speaker 1: in the third book, of course, we have to have
Speaker 1: only realm and the heavenly realm. I guess we might
Speaker 1: we might well compare to some of these visions of
Speaker 1: the the the upper parts of skyscrapers being connected together.
Speaker 1: We don't want isolation and loneliness in our heavens. We
Speaker 1: want elaborate complexity. Ah, this maybe a more apt analogy
Speaker 1: even than you intended, because you remember, like how often
Speaker 1: in the Paradiso Dante just talks about how like I
Speaker 1: couldn't describe what I was seeing. Yeah, it's just and
Speaker 1: and certainly when you look at illustrations, it's you know,
Speaker 1: you can have a pretty firm map of of of
Speaker 1: the inferno, pretty firm map of the mouth of Purgatory.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Paradise is just this, like swirling circles and
Speaker 1: interconnected wheels. Of course, any of these cinematic examples we're
Speaker 1: looking at, yeah, they they hearken back to Metropolis. Metropolis
Speaker 1: is the granddaddy of them all. And Metropolis is one
Speaker 1: of those movies that they just stands the test of time.
Speaker 1: It's certainly worth taking a look at again. Uh, but
Speaker 1: while it is one of the most popular, enduring and
Speaker 1: certainly sci fi influential visions of sky bridges and this
Speaker 1: interconnected skyscraper world. Um. That film, too, was continuing trends
Speaker 1: of futurism, which apparently can be traced back to American
Speaker 1: folk artist Erastus Salisbury Field, who lived eighteen o five
Speaker 1: through nineteen hundred. So I didn't even live to see Metropolis,
Speaker 1: but he did this, this wonderfully intriguing work titled Historical
Speaker 1: Monument of the American Republic um eighteen sixty seven through
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight being the dates on this piece, and
Speaker 1: definitely looked this up. You can find images of this
Speaker 1: online and Joe, I've included an image of this for
Speaker 1: you here. Oh okay, So I think this vision of
Speaker 1: the future is that everyone will get to live in
Speaker 1: their own Tower of Babel. Yeah it is. It is
Speaker 1: very uh brugal esque. I would say these don't instantly
Speaker 1: read a skyscrapers to the modern I but I mean
Speaker 1: there there are certainly architectural features here that you will
Speaker 1: see on modern tall buildings. But yeah, this, this is,
Speaker 1: this looks like a fantastic realm. So whereas in a
Speaker 1: more mundane age you you have the jealous competition with
Speaker 1: your neighbor for who can have the prettier lawn or
Speaker 1: the fancier I don't know, satellite TV antenna. Uh. In
Speaker 1: this case, you're competing to see who can kill God first. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if they're gonna pull it off, they're gonna do it.
Speaker 1: From these what looked to be like penthouse temples kind
Speaker 1: of goes are in in their structure that are all
Speaker 1: connected by bridges and have just oodles of statues at
Speaker 1: the top. I assume those are statues. Uh, and this
Speaker 1: is and they literally appear to be clouds swirling around them.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a cool drawing. Yeah. Yeah. So this
Speaker 1: was created for the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: six and Woulden Safaric the the authors that I referenced
Speaker 1: in the first episode. They say that this image influenced
Speaker 1: a number of other artists, including Charles R. Land Um
Speaker 1: and Vernon hoe Bailey, who created the night Streets High
Speaker 1: in the Air illustrations. These are also worth checking out,
Speaker 1: and Joe I have included two examples of these for you. Now,
Speaker 1: these are not necessarily uh sky bridges are skyways in
Speaker 1: the more narrow sense that we're talking about earlier of
Speaker 1: basically an enclosed hallway that's got stuff all around the
Speaker 1: But these are still interesting because they are ideas of
Speaker 1: the bridge connecting skyscrapers buildings at height, having a second
Speaker 1: level or maybe multiple levels of lateral connection. But here
Speaker 1: they're just open streets. I mean that's interesting too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you see a train moving through one of them,
Speaker 1: like a great worm burrowing through this behemoth. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these are these are impressive images that also have uh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's the coloration, at least the versions
Speaker 1: I have here, Like one is definitely like a charcoal
Speaker 1: looking black and white, and the other has this kind
Speaker 1: of washed out, um like orange and brown temp to it.
Speaker 1: It makes it feel kind of apocalyptic in some ways.
Speaker 1: But still this yeah, this was roughly twenty years before
Speaker 1: we'd see such images in cinema. Another key twentieth century
Speaker 1: figure in all of this was editor and publisher Moses King,
Speaker 1: who commissioned many such images for King's Views of New York. Uh.
Speaker 1: This was a book that came out, and I've included
Speaker 1: a cover from from this publication for you, Joe. And
Speaker 1: as you can see, this one's just crazy with it.
Speaker 1: They're just bridges connecting all of these skyscrapers, skyscrapers that
Speaker 1: that look more um contemporary for this time period. But
Speaker 1: then also flying machines galore. Oh, your city is full
Speaker 1: of biplanes. Were minds full of triplanes? Yeah, I see
Speaker 1: some airships. Uh, pretty fantastic looking. So this is what
Speaker 1: would in Safaric have to say in their paper, and
Speaker 1: that paper again if anyone wants to check that out,
Speaker 1: it is skybridges, a history and a view to the
Speaker 1: near future, they write. Quote. The early skybridge sky city
Speaker 1: portrayals came about as a direct response to very real
Speaker 1: urban issues which were pressing at the time. Primary of
Speaker 1: these urban issues was the impact that both tall buildings
Speaker 1: and increased vehicular traffic were having on the ground floor
Speaker 1: urban condition. Tall buildings were increasingly growing in height and
Speaker 1: overcrowding the street, and the conflict between pedestrian and vehicular
Speaker 1: traffic was increasing. The recurring themes in all the early
Speaker 1: futuristic visions evolved as a response to these problems, both
Speaker 1: the stepped back tiered skyscraper and the multi level circulation system.
Speaker 1: The stepped back skyscraper was seen as a way to
Speaker 1: preserve light and air on congested, over developed New York streets,
Speaker 1: and the multi level circulation system a practical organizational tool
Speaker 1: to handle the vast number of new vehicles and people
Speaker 1: flooding into the city. Ah, So to come in to rob.
Speaker 1: I don't think you explained this one yet, but the
Speaker 1: the idea of the stepped back teared skyscraper results also interesting.
Speaker 1: So you're imagining something. Well, actually this might explain the
Speaker 1: idea of the why the towers in that drawing look
Speaker 1: like the Tower of Babel from from Broigel. You know that,
Speaker 1: like it's a terrorists I don't know what you call it,
Speaker 1: stadium seating levels? You know that they go back each level. Uh,
Speaker 1: and this, I guess would let more light into the city, right,
Speaker 1: I mean this this also factored into a few other
Speaker 1: design issues that and engineering issues that were were definitely
Speaker 1: present in buildings of that time period. And and sometimes
Speaker 1: it was like the code of the city that if
Speaker 1: you built it, you had to have upper level stepped
Speaker 1: back from the street a certain amount. Interesting. Now, another
Speaker 1: another name to mention here American architect, illustrator and poet
Speaker 1: Hugh Ferris no connection to GAYL. Ferris Jr. Ferris Wheel fame.
Speaker 1: Their last names are spelled differently, but Hugh Ferris another
Speaker 1: big name who created uh some images for Nines, the
Speaker 1: Metropolis of Tomorrow and Joe. If you look at these,
Speaker 1: just beautiful art deco black and white illustrations. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: these are pretty fabulous, Like this is Gotham City. They
Speaker 1: make me think of the Oscar statue for some reason. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I couldn't say why, but they are very pretty. Thank Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I just want to drive home that this
Speaker 1: this craving for sky bridges and interconnected skyscrapers like this.
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of this mix of this attempt to
Speaker 1: solve practical problems while also clearly to you know, to
Speaker 1: create beautiful architecture, to bring dreams into physical reality. And
Speaker 1: uh and I imagine there's a bit of of of
Speaker 1: of of pushing and pull between those, uh, those aspirations. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think you you know, we've talked about some
Speaker 1: of the dystopian associations of of sky bridges in science fiction,
Speaker 1: but they certainly don't have to have those. And in
Speaker 1: some ways you look at interconnecting higher levels of buildings
Speaker 1: as a very positive social outcome especially given that it
Speaker 1: just looks like the reality is urban population density is
Speaker 1: probably going to continue to increase. Um. You know, they're
Speaker 1: strong urbanization trends worldwide. People are more often just moving
Speaker 1: further into city centers. Into percent of the world's population
Speaker 1: lived in cities. The World Health Organization estimates that by
Speaker 1: twenty fifty that number will probably climb to about sixty
Speaker 1: six percent. It's hard to know for sure, but if
Speaker 1: you know, trends continue, so people are continually crowding more
Speaker 1: and more into cities. Population density is increasing, and where
Speaker 1: we're going to fit all those people that there is
Speaker 1: no way to generate additional surface area, So the main
Speaker 1: direction you have to go would be up or down. Um,
Speaker 1: So I guess you could dig into tunnels, but you know,
Speaker 1: natural light is nice, so you want to go up? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and to your point, like access is also a
Speaker 1: big point that's not necessarily going to be as baked
Speaker 1: into the architectural design. Um, you know, just to to
Speaker 1: take it in a different direction. It's like the difference
Speaker 1: between a fully public park and a and a membership
Speaker 1: based golf course in a city. Yes, like one of
Speaker 1: the they're both big green spaces. But they're totally different
Speaker 1: in how they connect with the city and the people
Speaker 1: of the city exactly. So you can imagine a a
Speaker 1: city full of tall buildings that are connected at upper levels,
Speaker 1: just providing new kind of public spaces in the In
Speaker 1: the better version of this future, where you know, it's
Speaker 1: like the streets below, there's new things to see and
Speaker 1: do up their new places to live and and uh
Speaker 1: sites to visit. And so when you look at these
Speaker 1: sci fi visions of a future where tall buildings are
Speaker 1: often connected by sky bridges and other lateral thoroughfares, again
Speaker 1: creating a kind of like like the canopy level of
Speaker 1: the trees and a rainforest, it implies the society where
Speaker 1: one can travel from build to building at the top
Speaker 1: level without ever having to go down to the bottom,
Speaker 1: exit the building, and use the surface level streets. And
Speaker 1: I guess what that means about if you're trying to
Speaker 1: imagine the life people would live in that environment, it's
Speaker 1: just a life where there are fewer reasons to exit
Speaker 1: the high rise environment. So today, if you live in
Speaker 1: a tall building, you probably need to exit that building
Speaker 1: to do most things, to see family and friends, to
Speaker 1: go to work, to go shopping and so forth. But
Speaker 1: what if all of those things were also in the
Speaker 1: tops of nearby buildings and you could travel across sky
Speaker 1: bridges from one to the other. That that's clearly a
Speaker 1: future that some people have in mind, and it's not
Speaker 1: impossible to imagine something like this. But if you are
Speaker 1: imagining that as the future, it's worth asking how would
Speaker 1: this situation affect our minds and our culture. You know,
Speaker 1: you can such a radical restructuring of the you know,
Speaker 1: the location and architecture of our lives, that that's probably
Speaker 1: not totally neutral. So has anybody looked into the question
Speaker 1: of what being in a high rise all the time
Speaker 1: does to people? Are there psychological effects of spending more
Speaker 1: of your time in the upper floors? And it turns
Speaker 1: out yes, there actually is a good bit of research
Speaker 1: on this subject. So I came across a review of
Speaker 1: the existing body of literature on this from by a
Speaker 1: couple of scholars affiliated with Cornell University. So this paper
Speaker 1: is by Solid Clintari and Mardel Shepley. It was published
Speaker 1: in the journal Housing Studies again one and it's called
Speaker 1: Psychological and Social Impacts of High Rise Buildings. A review
Speaker 1: of the post occupancy evaluation literature. So this paper looks
Speaker 1: as specifically at what are called post occupancy evaluation studies,
Speaker 1: which are the quote evaluation of buildings in a systemic
Speaker 1: and rigorous manner after they have been built and occupied.
Speaker 1: This systemic evaluation measures and monitors the performance of a
Speaker 1: built environment using data gathered from behavioral techno, coal and
Speaker 1: functional observation. So this is what what's happening in buildings
Speaker 1: after people have moved in and lived there now. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: this is another one of those social science areas where
Speaker 1: there are lots of different studies, but they aren't always
Speaker 1: perfectly easy to compare to each other because they're not
Speaker 1: always measuring exactly the same thing, or maybe limited in scope,
Speaker 1: or have results that conflict with one another. But a
Speaker 1: few trends do seem to emerge from this literature. The
Speaker 1: top line I would say is that spending your life
Speaker 1: up in a tall building is associated with some fairly
Speaker 1: consistent negative consequences for life and health, especially for lower
Speaker 1: income occupants, but that these negative effects can probably be
Speaker 1: mitigated or even erased by better design of high rise
Speaker 1: living spaces. So what are some of the negative effects
Speaker 1: that have been repeatedly found to be associated with high
Speaker 1: rise living. I want to mention a couple of these
Speaker 1: in more detail and then give some summary comments In
Speaker 1: terms of the ones I'm gonna mention more Detai Hill.
Speaker 1: One of them appears to be loneliness and social isolation.
Speaker 1: So since the nineteen seventies, researchers have found that people
Speaker 1: living in high rises are likely to experience more feelings
Speaker 1: of loneliness and less social and community engagement. Why would
Speaker 1: this be well? The authors of this review right quote
Speaker 1: Ronald two thousand seven indicated a relative deficiency in social
Speaker 1: engagement in a broad comparative study of European high rise
Speaker 1: housing and attributed this isolation to designs that quote support
Speaker 1: individualization and anonymity. A study conducted in Singapore reported minimal
Speaker 1: neighborly relations and concluded that high rise living quote does
Speaker 1: not readily build community. So at least, what some of
Speaker 1: these studies seem to conclude is that there's something about
Speaker 1: the way we are building high rise building high rise
Speaker 1: residential buildings that sort of discourages people from forming community
Speaker 1: relationships with their neighbors and encourages a kind of isolated
Speaker 1: way of living that it sort of makes you feel
Speaker 1: like you need to retreat into an anonymous space. Oh,
Speaker 1: once again, I'm reminded of the lyrics of Warren zevon
Speaker 1: Um from Splendid Isolation. I want to live on the
Speaker 1: upper east side and never go down in the streets.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I didn't even think of that, but yeah.
Speaker 1: And so the authors of this review that they look
Speaker 1: at a number of studies from different places all around
Speaker 1: the world Scotland, Hong Kong, India, which all found that
Speaker 1: high rise living was more associated with things like loneliness,
Speaker 1: anti social behavior, decreased trust in neighbors, and stuff like that. However, uh,
Speaker 1: and this seems to be important. I think. The researchers
Speaker 1: note that it may not actually be the fact that
Speaker 1: you were high up off the ground that causes this,
Speaker 1: Like it might not actually be the elevation. It may
Speaker 1: be more the kind of more kind of side effect
Speaker 1: resulting from trends in the design of high rise buildings.
Speaker 1: In other words, it may just happen to be that
Speaker 1: high rise buildings are designed in ways that discourage social
Speaker 1: interaction and community and that breed loneliness and isolation. But
Speaker 1: that would be the case no matter what floor you
Speaker 1: lived on. So it's not a not a case of
Speaker 1: what if if God wanted us to live in the skies,
Speaker 1: he would have given us wings. It's more of a
Speaker 1: situation where well and were human beings are not wired
Speaker 1: to live in this kind of isolation generally speaking, like
Speaker 1: we are social creatures who need to have some level
Speaker 1: of community around us. Yes, and also that there's some
Speaker 1: indication that maybe the designs of high rise residential buildings,
Speaker 1: when they do force interaction between residents, it tends to
Speaker 1: be negative interactions, like the author's site of study of
Speaker 1: of high rise residential buildings in Paris, which found that
Speaker 1: people attributed their poor relationships to quote, overcrowded conditions in
Speaker 1: their high rises, which they've viewed as prompting irritability and conflict.
Speaker 1: So it's possible that friendly designed spaces for high rise
Speaker 1: life would not produce these negative effects at all. And
Speaker 1: then I thought this was really interesting. To further complicate things,
Speaker 1: there are some studies that don't find this association, or
Speaker 1: even find the exact opposite, with people living in high
Speaker 1: rises having fairly strong community bonds, especially when building designs
Speaker 1: include things like central courtyard areas like common spaces where
Speaker 1: people can gather, or when residents had pre existing external
Speaker 1: social connections, meaning that like they know each other in
Speaker 1: some capacity other than just being neighbors in the building,
Speaker 1: maybe they work together, or they they are you know,
Speaker 1: knew each other before they moved in. Uh to read
Speaker 1: from the authors here quote. In many of these latter studies,
Speaker 1: various sociological factors in the overall environmental design, rather than
Speaker 1: high rise buildings per se, appear to be more relevant
Speaker 1: to the health of social interactions. It's also notable that
Speaker 1: all of the included studies that found positive community relationships
Speaker 1: in high rise contexts were conducted in East or Southeast Asia,
Speaker 1: such as Singapore, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, while the majority
Speaker 1: of studies that found negative community impacts were carried out
Speaker 1: in the US and Europe. And so, I don't know
Speaker 1: what would be the cause of these cultural differences in
Speaker 1: the impact of high rise buildings. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there it's a result of different trends in architecture in
Speaker 1: these places or cultural differences, but those divergent outcomes are interesting.
Speaker 1: This is fascinating. Yeah, it reminds me I've been I've
Speaker 1: been watching this show on Apple TV titled Home, which
Speaker 1: is about different specifically about different home designs that have
Speaker 1: been constructed that you know, that explore new ideas or
Speaker 1: explore old ideas. And in the show they do get
Speaker 1: into some of some of the cultural aspects. It makes
Speaker 1: me wonder like if if multigenerational households are a part
Speaker 1: of this equation, because you definitely see I mean, in general,
Speaker 1: I think you see this UH, this trend away from
Speaker 1: that with with modern city based living, but perhaps less
Speaker 1: so in UH in like East Asian models versus European
Speaker 1: and and US models. But but I'm not sure. Well,
Speaker 1: so that's the idea of loneliness and isolation UH and
Speaker 1: and promoting anti social living. But another thing is that
Speaker 1: many studies have found a fairly consistent link between high
Speaker 1: rise living and UH several negative mental health outcomes, though
Speaker 1: in this case, again it's difficult to isolate the high
Speaker 1: rise itself is the causative factor rather than attendant social
Speaker 1: and cultural issues that that often go along with high
Speaker 1: high rise living in places where this has been studied.
Speaker 1: So if it is actually living in the high rise
Speaker 1: building that causes negative mental health outcomes, how would that work? Well,
Speaker 1: one explanation would be that this is caused by reducing
Speaker 1: exposure to nature, reducing exposure to vegetation and green space.
Speaker 1: If you are up in the high rise and there's
Speaker 1: not much greenery around you in the you know, rooms
Speaker 1: in the hallways that you that you occupy, and being
Speaker 1: up there, you're just less likely to get out into
Speaker 1: nature at the ground level. That probably will have some
Speaker 1: negative consequences for mental health. And this seems to be
Speaker 1: backed up by at least a couple of studies showing
Speaker 1: that adding more natural elements to high rises. So maybe
Speaker 1: if you include access, like you ease access to green
Speaker 1: space from the upper floors of the high rise, or
Speaker 1: you include green space within those places, that that reduces
Speaker 1: some of these problems. And finally, the authors cites some
Speaker 1: probably important findings about the potential effect of high rise living,
Speaker 1: specifically on childhood growth and development. So they write, quote,
Speaker 1: a number of studies conducted during the nineteen seventies found
Speaker 1: increased behavioral problems, physical health issues, and decreased motor and
Speaker 1: academic skills among children living in high rise buildings. They
Speaker 1: say that these findings have been confirmed in later studies
Speaker 1: several times, and then they write quote, As is the
Speaker 1: case with other demographic population. However, the current research has
Speaker 1: demonstrated that these outcomes are strongly mediated by income level
Speaker 1: and other socioeconomic variables. Children from wealthier families who live
Speaker 1: in high rises are much more likely to have access
Speaker 1: to vibrant play spaces and to experience a greater sense
Speaker 1: of safety and involvement in the surrounding neighborhood, which makes
Speaker 1: it unsurprising that they exhibit few of the developmental issues
Speaker 1: that are widely reported for their less privileged peers. And
Speaker 1: that last point about a sort of economic determinism in
Speaker 1: the outcomes of child development can actually be extracted to
Speaker 1: the findings of this research more broadly. So the authors
Speaker 1: right in their discussion section that you know, one of
Speaker 1: the most significant trends observed here is that quote the
Speaker 1: high rise environment appears to intensify existing socioeconomic divisions. So
Speaker 1: there seems to be a kind of Matthew principle at work, right,
Speaker 1: Like the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Speaker 1: So when you when you study wealthy people, it seems
Speaker 1: that the ones living in high rise environments tend to
Speaker 1: report outcomes are just as good or even better than
Speaker 1: equivalent equivalently wealthy people in other built environments, whereas for
Speaker 1: lower income people, living in a high rise is correlated
Speaker 1: with a lot of negative outcomes when compared to other
Speaker 1: types of buildings, and this seemingly paradoxical result could have
Speaker 1: It could have a number of causes, so it's hard
Speaker 1: to pin it down to one thing, but to the
Speaker 1: extent that the built environments themselves are at least one
Speaker 1: of those causes, a lot of these unequal outcomes could
Speaker 1: probably be alleviated by better, more humane building design in
Speaker 1: affordable residential high rises, and so some of the better
Speaker 1: designs would probably you know, couldn't be limited to this,
Speaker 1: but would probably include things like the incorporation of these
Speaker 1: vibrant shared spaces right essentially courtyards, lobbies, gathering places which
Speaker 1: have safe open spaces for children to play and explore
Speaker 1: and for people to gather. Also, on top of that
Speaker 1: lots of natural light and greenery. These factors seem really
Speaker 1: important for people psychological well being. You need to be
Speaker 1: able to see the sun, there need to be plants around, uh.
Speaker 1: And then they also call out things like better wayfinding
Speaker 1: and layout design, though I think they mentioned this more
Speaker 1: in the context of like a commercial buildings though that
Speaker 1: matters too, you know. They say the floors of tall
Speaker 1: buildings can sometimes be hard to navigate in ways that
Speaker 1: cause a kind of stress and confusion that that really
Speaker 1: builds up onto on you over time. Yeah, like that
Speaker 1: feeling of of exiting the elevator and not really knowing
Speaker 1: like which way you're supposed to go in and yeah
Speaker 1: and uh okay, sort of getting lost in the hallways. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Than so, to bring all this back to the idea
Speaker 1: of building this sci fi fantasy city, sort of the
Speaker 1: concrete canopy, if we were to try to build cities
Speaker 1: that had um, that had life, that existed in a
Speaker 1: more consistent way, and the upper levels of buildings, I
Speaker 1: do think that's wible, But it sounds like you need
Speaker 1: to be very careful how you design in that city.
Speaker 1: You'd want to design it in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: make people miserable and cause these negative downstream outcomes for
Speaker 1: their for their well being and mental health. Again, this
Speaker 1: is not exhaustive of the things you need to do,
Speaker 1: but it seems clear that like a very important thing
Speaker 1: would be putting plenty of things like parks up there. Um,
Speaker 1: and I think this is partially the spirit of an
Speaker 1: architectural movement I've read about called streets in the Sky,
Speaker 1: where I think the idea is sort of to create
Speaker 1: high rises in which there are lots of public areas
Speaker 1: that are more like the streets on the ground, not
Speaker 1: like private hallways, but open spaces connecting desirable destinations that
Speaker 1: cause that that have plenty of foot traffic, and of
Speaker 1: course foot traffic is associated with all kinds of positive
Speaker 1: outcomes in residential areas, you know, resultant improvements in public safety,
Speaker 1: and just a positive vibe that comes along with people,
Speaker 1: you know, wanting to hang out and go from place
Speaker 1: to place. I think attempts to design buildings like this
Speaker 1: may may have had some limited success so far, but
Speaker 1: you could imagine it working better if it was more
Speaker 1: widely adopted, if you had more contiguous buildings connected each
Speaker 1: with destinations for shopping in public spaces, especially lots of
Speaker 1: greenery and natural light, places that people would want to
Speaker 1: go and be walking around in all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess one of the big challenges here, obviously
Speaker 1: is that one sky bridge is not going to fix it.
Speaker 1: Like we're not talking about throw up with skybridge, So
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, throw up to sky bridges and
Speaker 1: we'll fix things. No, you you, you really are talking
Speaker 1: about a whole different approach to treating these these towers,
Speaker 1: the skyscrapers, and they're uh not only you know what's
Speaker 1: available with the the the upper levels, but also the
Speaker 1: street level as well. Uh you know, I mean there
Speaker 1: there are plenty of existing apartment towers in cities like
Speaker 1: Chicago that that were designed with the idea of, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't have to leave this tower, like here your shops,
Speaker 1: here's your here's where you park your car, and it's
Speaker 1: all in the various layers of the design, and so
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's almost like a tear down approach. Um,
Speaker 1: you would need a new type of building, a new
Speaker 1: type of architecture to create the city. And and so
Speaker 1: there have been some really interesting designs that have emerged
Speaker 1: over the years. Um. One of which that I've been
Speaker 1: fascinated by in the past is a Russian concept that
Speaker 1: emerged called the the vulcan bugle. Okay, this is um.
Speaker 1: This can be translated as cloud hangers, sky hangers, or
Speaker 1: sky hooks, and these were the brain child of a
Speaker 1: Russian architect by the name of l uh Lisitski, who
Speaker 1: lived eighteen through nine. Um, I encourage everyone out there
Speaker 1: to look up some images of these. These are what
Speaker 1: are sometimes described as horizontal skyscrapers. Uh that they were
Speaker 1: never built, but the basic concept here, the the the
Speaker 1: idea was that there would be eight, um basically three
Speaker 1: story L shaped buildings in Moscow position fifty meters above
Speaker 1: the street on three pylons. So yeah, imagine one of those. Um,
Speaker 1: imagine a tetris block that is uh what to what
Speaker 1: two or three up and then it has a little
Speaker 1: L part. Now imagine turning that horizontally, turning it on
Speaker 1: its side, and then sticking that up in the air
Speaker 1: on a massive pylon. I think, I think it's very
Speaker 1: cool design. Though you can imagine being nervous walking under
Speaker 1: one of these, yes, yeah, um, you know, but I
Speaker 1: guess you'd get used to it, you know, the same
Speaker 1: way we get used to the concept of skyscrapers in
Speaker 1: the in the air above us. But um, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's basically the idea here. It's a wide, horizontal living
Speaker 1: space elevated with a very narrow footprint on the street.
Speaker 1: So again go back to what we're talking thing about earlier,
Speaker 1: like some of the reasons that people were looking at
Speaker 1: sky bridges. Part of it was congestion, vehicular and pedestrian
Speaker 1: congestion below They're like, well, we gotta if you can
Speaker 1: reduce the footprint, uh, then then that's great, and then
Speaker 1: if you can connect things above even better. So one
Speaker 1: of the central ideas though, on top of this, was
Speaker 1: that Lesinsky didn't think that vertical living was natural for
Speaker 1: human beings. He argued that we needed horizontal spaces, and
Speaker 1: this sort of of design, while certainly still requiring vertical
Speaker 1: movement you'd still have to take stairs or elevators up,
Speaker 1: it would maximize the horizontal environmental experience. I mean, none
Speaker 1: of the empirical researchers I was reading put it in
Speaker 1: exactly those terms, but in a vague way that seems
Speaker 1: to square pretty strongly with with the research I was
Speaker 1: just looking at that, you know, like that these what
Speaker 1: do they call these vibrant shared spaces, Like having these big, open,
Speaker 1: horizontal spaces seems to be very helpful in creating a
Speaker 1: more humane living environment. Yeah. Yeah. Um. On top of this,
Speaker 1: there was the idea that these pylons would extend into
Speaker 1: the ground, connecting to a subway system. And then he
Speaker 1: also even factored in the idea. Okay, if you have
Speaker 1: multiple of these, um these these sky hangers, the cloud
Speaker 1: hangers in a given part of the city, it might
Speaker 1: be confusing. They all look the same. Uh No, he's saying,
Speaker 1: little color code them. That way you have, you know,
Speaker 1: you're able to instantly tell where you are in reference
Speaker 1: to another. So it's not just a bunch of sort
Speaker 1: of alien gray buildings all emerging from the same area.
Speaker 1: No one is say orange, one is red, one is green,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Also, these would be positioned at intersections where
Speaker 1: traffic and congestion was that it's worse freeing up room.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, so these are these are fascinating to look
Speaker 1: at some of the the images of what could have
Speaker 1: been here. And while there are modern buildings with fantastic
Speaker 1: cantilever designs that that bring these images to mind, no
Speaker 1: volcan Googles were ever actually built, certainly not in Russia,
Speaker 1: and largely it seems to be just two ahead of
Speaker 1: its time. Uh, partially as a concept perhaps, but also
Speaker 1: just I think engineering wise. Uh. The Sitsky seemed to think, well,
Speaker 1: it's just we weren't ready to build these. Yet you know,
Speaker 1: as I'm looking at these pictures, though, a consequence was
Speaker 1: emerging in my mind. We've been talking about more more positive,
Speaker 1: more equitable, more humane ways to design cities that are
Speaker 1: connected at the upper levels. But I was just thinking
Speaker 1: about how, to some degree, some of the benefits of
Speaker 1: of horizontal space are kind of zero some right, because
Speaker 1: if you were to end up creating a city that's
Speaker 1: totally covered in these horizontal spaces at higher levels, you'd
Speaker 1: essentially be cutting off the ground level from sunlight. You know,
Speaker 1: like you get some diagonal sunlight, but there are some
Speaker 1: limits on what you could put up above without negatively
Speaker 1: impacting the quality of life below. And then you get
Speaker 1: back into that that possible vision of of of bifurcation
Speaker 1: with with negative consequences at the ground. Yeah, Like, oops,
Speaker 1: I accidentally created a shell and created a new underworld. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought of that, because this goes beyond just sort
Speaker 1: of like like hallways connecting tall buildings that might have uh,
Speaker 1: you know, horizontal spaces that are vertically aligned with their
Speaker 1: footprint on the ground. But this is like reaching out
Speaker 1: over empty space. So if you imagine lots of buildings
Speaker 1: like that, they just start to kind of become a
Speaker 1: like a roof for the city. Yeah. And certainly when
Speaker 1: you look at look at these these concepts, they don't
Speaker 1: or certainly the original concepts, they don't really create this
Speaker 1: sense that the like a vibrant street level uh community
Speaker 1: was very much part of the that the aim here
Speaker 1: now looking into the future would And Sapharic point out
Speaker 1: that one of the lingering failures of tall buildings is
Speaker 1: just that lack of integration into the urban fabric. So
Speaker 1: obviously there are a lot of cool skybridges, but most
Speaker 1: buildings are not connected in this way. They're connected to
Speaker 1: the city at ground level, and there's a broad spectrum
Speaker 1: of what it might be like at ground level, from
Speaker 1: having like a vibrant community and shops to it just
Speaker 1: being uh, you know, desolation in some cases. Um. And
Speaker 1: so the goal of many tall buildings, it seems, has
Speaker 1: has has very much been not to fit in with
Speaker 1: the world beneath, but to stand out from it. And
Speaker 1: so they present an idea that may feel equal parts
Speaker 1: fantastic and reasonable. Uh. And and perhaps today as it
Speaker 1: has been for for decades, quote, if cities concentrate perhaps
Speaker 1: ten or a hundred times more people at a given
Speaker 1: location through building tall. There is also a need to
Speaker 1: replicate the facilities that exist at the ground plane up
Speaker 1: in the sky, including the parks and the sidewalks, the
Speaker 1: schools and the hospitals and other public civic functions. The
Speaker 1: ground plane should be considered as a duplicable layer of
Speaker 1: the city which needs to be replicated, at least in
Speaker 1: part at strategic horizons within and between buildings in the sky,
Speaker 1: not as a replacement of the ground plane, but as
Speaker 1: an addition to it. Every tall building would then need
Speaker 1: to be considered as a vital element in an overall
Speaker 1: three dimensional urban framework, rather than a standalone icon superimposed
Speaker 1: on a two dimensional urban plan. I think that's very
Speaker 1: well put. Yeah, this idea that again you're not replacing
Speaker 1: the street, but you were augmenting it. You're replicating it,
Speaker 1: so you would have still have a vibrant street level
Speaker 1: a community, but that you would have this sky level
Speaker 1: community as well. Yeah. So yeah, I think it's some fascinating,
Speaker 1: fascinating ideas here. Um. I would obviously love to hear
Speaker 1: from tower dwellers out there, and and former tower tower
Speaker 1: dwellers and perhaps future tower dwellers who are listening to
Speaker 1: this show because I, for one, I've I've never lived
Speaker 1: in a tall building. I've I don't think I've really
Speaker 1: worked in a tall building. I mean our most recent well,
Speaker 1: I mean our most recent studios, our most recent office
Speaker 1: building was what what fourth floor of a building? Well,
Speaker 1: the most recently the one we used to record in
Speaker 1: a tall building, I mean, but that was what what
Speaker 1: floor will we be on? Like four? Yeah, it had
Speaker 1: a nice balcony, I remember that, that one, that one.
Speaker 1: But I guess one of the things about that building
Speaker 1: is that we had for most of the run there,
Speaker 1: we had the entire floor and a balcony, so we
Speaker 1: did have a lot of horizontal space, so maybe that
Speaker 1: was part of it. We didn't feel as locked in. Also,
Speaker 1: though that original office had some cubicles, wasn't wasn't full
Speaker 1: open office yet. Oh yeah, I did love those cubicles.
Speaker 1: They were stylish cubicles too. They weren't your They weren't
Speaker 1: like what you would see on the office or something.
Speaker 1: They were more like what you would see on severance.
Speaker 1: You know. They're they're fun cubicles. Yeah. But anyway, like
Speaker 1: I said, we'd love to hear from everyone out there
Speaker 1: in different parts of the world. What is it? What
Speaker 1: is it like living in the tall building? Does any
Speaker 1: of this match up with what we've been discussing in
Speaker 1: these episodes? Or again, your favorite skywalks? Tell me about
Speaker 1: your skywalks? Um uh, what are your favorite? What is it?
Speaker 1: What has it been like to traverse some of the
Speaker 1: notable skywalks out there in our world. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you would like to check out other episodes of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, head on over to the
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. Get that wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. You'll find core episodes on Tuesdays
Speaker 1: and Thursdays. You'll find short form artifacts or monster facts
Speaker 1: on Wednesday's listener mail. On Mondays and on Fridays, we
Speaker 1: do weird el Cinema. That's our time to set aside
Speaker 1: most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film.
Speaker 1: Also add this, if you want to be a part
Speaker 1: of the Discord channel or proup, Discord whatever Discord world
Speaker 1: for this show, email us and we'll send you a
Speaker 1: link to join that. I wanted to share that some
Speaker 1: of the users there are doing a book club. It
Speaker 1: looks like they're planning to read umberto echoes the name
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Speaker 1: on that again, email the show. Joe will give you
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Speaker 1: that we get the invite to the discord. To you
Speaker 1: huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
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