Earlier this week, Oklahoma City Council approved plans for the 1,907-foot-tall Legends Tower. If built according to these plans, it would become the 5th tallest building in the world and the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

Currently, the tallest building in the US is One World Trade Center at 1,776 feet (581 meters). This is a symbolic height meant to reference the date of the Declaration of Independence.

To be even more specific, though, the Legends Tower wasn't approved at 1,907 feet. As I understand it, it was approved with with an unlimited height. Meaning, if the developers wanted to go even taller in the future, they could.

This is sort of unique. Usually when a new by-law/ordinance is passed, it includes a maximum height in feet/meters. In this case, I guess they'll just use an infinity symbol and call it a day.

Here are some quotes from Dezeen:

"AO is delighted that the Oklahoma City Council has approved the development team's request for unlimited height for the Boardwalk at Bricktown," said AO.

"We are grateful that the City Council has embraced the vision of Matteson Capital and the entire design team to transform the city into a global destination."

The obvious question is "will this get built?" And I don't know the answer to that. But I do think that infinity is just as symbolic as 1,776 feet.

A few months ago, one of my old professors from architecture school -- Phu Hoang -- reached out to me through this blog. That's one of the benefits of writing publicly -- it becomes your calling card. In this case, it had been at least 16 years since I was in his design studio.

We connected over a call. He told me about his and Rachely's firm, MODU Architecture. And he let me know that he's no longer teaching at Penn. He is now the Head of Architecture of the Knowlton School at Ohio State University.

Then, following the call, he was kind enough to send me a copy of his new book, Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism:

The typical approach to modern building design is to have clearly defined boundaries between interior and exterior spaces. The outside is the outside. And the inside is a climate-controlled space that is, for the most part, sealed to the outside.

Most of us spend the vast majority of our lives in these latter spaces. In fact, since the advent of modernism and the International Style over a century ago, the general idea has been that these spaces can and should be mostly the same.

HVAC systems make it so that you don't really need to worry about context or the environment. What works in Toronto can work in Phoenix. You just need to dial up your cooling loads.

This is so much the case that whenever I'm in a city with a fairly benign climate, such as somewhere in California, I always find myself fascinated by the fluidity between interior and exterior spaces. It's such a foreign concept to me that it stands out: "Wait, how is this not sealed?

Indoor urbanism, on the other hand, makes the argument that this binary approach is the wrong way to think about spaces. Here's an excerpt from a recent Metropolis article about MODU:

They call this approach “indoor urbanism,” which privileges the blurred boundary between what has traditionally been considered interior space and exterior space. This in-between space–straddling open and closed, artificial and natural–deserves architects’ keen attention, especially as the planet warms. “Indoor urbanism recognizes that architecture and cities are situated on an environmental continuum, as a matter of degrees rather than absolutes,” write Hoang and Rotem in Field Guide.

Examples of this thinking can be found throughout their work. This project in Jackson, Wyoming is one of my favorites both because I love Jackson and because it's a cold and snowy place. And yet, even in this climate zone, their design includes for several "semi-exterior areas" that serve to connect you to nature.

This is a decidedly different way to think about architecture and urbanism. But as our climate crisis intensifies, it's only going to become more relevant.

Here's an unproven hypothesis that you can all challenge me on: many or most people only care about the environment while it is convenient to do so. Said oppositely, once it becomes inconvenient to care about the environment, we tend to start prioritizing other objectives.

The example I have in my mind right now is parking. Now, to be clear, cars are not the best mobility solution for the environment. But let's assume for a minute that you need parking and you have only two available options: below-grade parking or above-grade parking.

The former is worse for the environment. If you were to look at the embodied carbon in below-grade parking versus above-grade parking, it would be higher. So from an environmental perspective, you want above-grade parking.

It also makes for more flexible spaces. It's hard to convert below-grade parking to much else. Again, this strengthens the environmental case, because now you're building something that can be repurposed in the future.

However, unless you're forced to only build above-grade parking (as is the case in Miami), many/most cities tend to shun it. The most common objectives are (1) that it's unsightly, and therefore needs to be wrapped with occupiable spaces, and (2) that it kills street life.

What this suggests is that (1) and (2) are seen as being more important than the environment. And I think this is noteworthy in its own right. But here's the other thing: this is arguably a false dichotomy. I mean, does above-grade parking necessarily kill street life?

The above two street view images are from 1111 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. It's a parking structure and area of the city that I have visited many times. And I have to say, the street life seems fine to me. What do you think?