The original and full post was published on the school's blog
DIDI PEI of Pei Partnership Architects came to speak extensively about Kenneth King and Kellogg Wong's book Vertical City: A Solution For Sustainable Living which is a proposal for a new way of life, based on an amalgamation of input from experts in their field: architects, urban designers, engineers, microbiologists, transportation and sustainability experts. From the discussion, the Vertical City concept would be an autonomous system that would eliminate urban sprawl, thus creating an highly efficient, comfortable standard for a life of the near future. The site of this new city typology is speculated to be in China, a country whose urban population has increased 30% in only 40 years, a number that is predicted to continue blooming exponentially. The studios and Didi discussed the social, economic, and technical implications of realistically creating this model, in China and other regions of the world.