While today, only 55% of all humans on Earth live in major metropolitan areas, that figure is expected to climb to nearly 70% by 2050 as a growing number of people flock to cities en masse. The steep rise in urban city center populations has required architects and city planners to come up with novel ways of accommodating these growing numbers, and with a finite amount of land—especially in coastal cities primarily surrounded by water like San Francisco or New York—the answer has largely been building upwards.
And while city skyscrapers are nothing new, Turin-based firm, Carlo Ratti Associati has recently put a new spin on the premise with a 300’ stacked tennis court facility. Commissioned by eminent European media giant, RCS, the PLAYSCRAPER is comprised of eight full-size tennis courts placed atop each other and affording a cool 60,000 square-feet of room to play, with each court sporting an approximately 35’ ceiling height. Each slightly cantilevered floor of the multilevel sports center boasts two sides with floor-to-ceiling windows that provide views of the surrounding cityscape. While thus far the project is solely conceptual, the PLAYSCRAPER—and other projects like it—will almost certainly come to fruition in the coming years as city populations continue to balloon. To learn more about the project, you can check out CRA’s website linked below.
