Skyscraper offices bring both comfort and isolation to workers

By Wu Yiyao in Shanghai

China Daily - 2014-10-03

Mu Yuqi, a 23-year-old college graduate, turned down a job offer from a bank in Shanghai. The reason was simple - he did not want to work in a skyscraper.
He said he does not have acrophobia, or fear of heights, but he dislikes the sense of isolation brought on by working in a tall building. "I felt quite depressed when I worked there for an internship. Each time I looked outside, I could see only walls of other buildings," Mu said.
He also had to remember to bring his entrance card wherever he went, otherwise, it meant he would have a lot of trouble getting into the office. "I liked the building as a tourist attraction when I was in high school," Mu said, "but not now."
Mu chose to work for another bank branch in a lower building. But as Shanghai's population continues to rise amid China's fast urbanization, expansion into the sky remains a key solution to the problem of limited land supplies.
"With roughly 250 million people set to move into Chinese cities in the next decade or so, the pace of urban construction - including roads, railways and water infrastructure and cultural institutions, in addition to tall buildings - has outstripped any previous period in human history," according to a report by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a nonprofit organization based in Chicago.

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