Talk:Tower block

Article merged with 'apartment block'
I do not think the article should be merged. Tower blocks evoke far more negative connotations than apartment blocks do - especially in the United Kingdom. They deserve a dedicated entry in Wikipedia, and should not be dilluted by apartment block information. I have added my own section to the article, including references - Post-war British tower block vision and reality. I agree that the rest of the article needs to include more references and include a more thorough world view. Regards, Evan

Evanmgranger (talk) 11:28, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. Tower blocks mean something entirely different to Apartment buildings in the UK. Tower blocks are more synonymous with the US expression 'The Projects' than they are with the expression 'Apartment Block' The current article explains how the circumstances around their construction has led to this quite different impression.

Jpmaytum (talk) 16:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Also agree, tower blocks in a UK context need their own page - they have a history and cultural legacy in the UK which is distinct enough, in my opinion, to deserve their own, unique entry.

Markt74 —Preceding undated comment added 13:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC).

As there is no consensus for a merge, I will remove the merge tag.  SilkTork  *YES! 08:00, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Streets in the sky
Suggested sources for expansion of this section: - Fayenatic (talk) 13:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.urbanadventure.co.uk/?p=11
 * http://www.open2.net/savingbritainspast/streets_in_the_sky.html
 * http://www.towerblocks.org.uk/html_report/index.htm

Confusion about scope
The article title is "tower block" which sounds like an apartment block. The first sentence list the various kinds of high-rise buildings, yet many of the international sections are focused on apartment towers. It's confusing and diminishes the usefulness of this article. A.Roz (talk) 03:45, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Confusion about scope
Definitely confusing!!!...now that I clicked on this section. but before I cliked here I... I redid the Canadian section which focused on Toronto. The way it was originally written was slanted and intandem towards the "uk tower block problems, or what might be associated with problems with social housing and "projects" in new york.

apartment block or towers is just that a bunch of apartment buildings together. because they are together does not make them social housing which the U.K section seem to suggest, and the way the canadian section was written.

There are many apartment building built in the 1960's that many young trendy types will soon be, or are now clamoring to to get into.

There were rental apartment building that were built by real estate owners and business men, and there were social apartment building that were built by the government. And theses two are not at all synonymous.

Many of the apartment buildings that were built were built for young middle class families, and to a lesser extent, singles or couples...but mostly for families.

"Except for public housing, the construction of apartment blocks has declined in Toronto since the 1970s, and most multi-unit buildings since then have been built as condominiums. Furthermore, public housing is increasingly being combined with private condominium development, such as with the redevelopment of Regent Park."

Most public housing building was came to and end by the 1980s, and any type of social housing pretty much came to an end in the early 1990s with the conservative government in ontario.69.165.138.51 (talk) 04:47, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

"In Eastern Europe and Russia they are more popularly known as Commie Blocks"
I never heard term "Commie Block" in Russia. I believe that only few Russian active members of english-speaking urbanfan internet community using it. Quoted sentence should be changed, as it shows how foreigners calls the subject, not Russians. Russians using terms like "многоэтажный дом", "многоэтажка" for multi-storey house. More specifically, old houses called as "khrushchovka" or "brezhnevka" by the name of soviet leader, during which rule houses of that type was built (first one commonly used for 2-5 level buildings, and second used not so often). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka. Blocks of khrushchovkas called "khrushchobee" (as mixing with russian "трущобы" - slums/ghetto). But I never heard this word used for post-soviet built houses. So most universal term for Russian Tower Blocks would be "мноэтажки" - "mnogoetazhkee" (a plural for multy-storey house), it can mean Tower Block when used as opposite to area not containing multy-storey houses. Though because of wide meaning of the word I doubt that it would be suitable for the article. Anyway, "commie block" is real off the mark.
 * Well... "Commieblock" is a derogatory term coming from Bri'ish blokes. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 11:42, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
 * However, the formal tern in Russian is "Vysotnoe Zdanie". Although, yes, the informal term is "mnogoetazhka" (literally "multi-floory"). 81.89.66.133 (talk) 05:14, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Optimum numbers of floors?
Can we have some info on studies about the optimum range of floors? Like e.g. 4 floors is the maximum to go up without an elevator and over 300 floors, there's so many elevators necessary and traffic jams at the elevators at rush hours, it's not advisable either. Info in that line. Thy --SvenAERTS (talk) 01:35, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

National variety of English
Per WP:ENGVAR, we use the originally established variety of English unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise. As near as I can tell, American English (story, stories, meters) was well established in this article until a long term vandal mucked it up in September of last year. Since then, it has been partially or totally changed, reverted, unreverted, rereverted and unrereverted several times. I have changed it back to the originally established American English. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 22:26, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

This should be renamed to "highrise" or "high-rise".
It's a far more widespread term than "tower block" nowadays. -- Cheers Horst-schlaemma (talk) 16:09, 10 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Btw, this article is full of vague or even false information, such as calling the Castle towers of NYC the first residential highrises in the city. -- Horst-schlaemma (talk) 16:22, 10 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree, though I would suggest "High-rise building". That is from a US perspective. Are you (Horst-schlaemma) from Europe or the UK? It seems this article started out as an article on residential towers in the UK, and I think that should be retained. Maybe the top of the article could be redone to cover high-rise buildings in general. (Is an office bldg. also called a "tower block" in the UK?) --Margin1522 (talk) 05:24, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Tower block is quite a balance between a "skyscraper" and a "hi-rise"-that's-not-a-100m-skyscraper. There are res' skyscrapers in HK, mind you. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 08:15, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Communal areas
Need a section on the provision of communal areas which is found in new apartment builds in Asia

86.164.82.154 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:01, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

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Definition
Is there a legal definition in the UK of what is a high rise building? I know in Germany and Austria a building is legally classified as high rise if the top floor is higher than 22 m above the ground, in France it's 28 m. I'm wondering if someone could add more legal definitions from different countries around the world other than Hyderabad ... --188.102.70.138 (talk) 16:52, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 21 February 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. "   Calidum  17:42, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Tower block → Residential tower – "Tower block" is unclear in whether it is an office tower or a residential tower, or some mixed-use one. This article seems to be about residential ones. Further it doesn't define that it occupies an entire city block, so block is misleading. Pencil towers (such as found on Billionaires' Row) occupy less than a block. This article was recently moved from high-rise building to tower block, but "high-rise building" is not a term restricted to residential buildings, and this article focuses on towering residential buildings (multi-dwelling buildings). It would be best to be clear this is about high-rise residential buildings, and not some other kind of tower (such as an antenna mast, office tower, or other) -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 05:47, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:PRECISE. I agree that there is a potential ambiguity in the current title. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:32, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Then it should be renamed back as high-rise building because the article is not only about residential towers. The opening paragraph have been pretty clear on this. Some of the examples listed below are also non-residential. C933103 (talk) 11:18, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I think you should reread the article, it is about residential buildings, and not all types of towers. Almost all the information is about residential structures, with little about anything else. Considering the prominence of office towers, one would think there'd be half or quarter of the article about that, but there's little to do with it. -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 05:00, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Quite a number of sub-sections are specifically about high rise residential, but IMO they should get split off to their own article. C933103 (talk) 10:02, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Not just about residential buildings. Titled using British English, which uses the term "tower block". -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:22, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
 * If it is American English vs British English differences, then maybe the previous move from "High-rise building" to "Tower block" should be undone as it's moving articles across spelling variants. C933103 (talk) 06:59, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose per British English and European terminology. --Samotny Wędrowiec (talk) 19:58, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Strongly Oppose The suggested change would be contrary to the widespread terminology used in English Wikipedia. 'Building' is used for office and residential structures and 'Tower' is used for self supporting structures that are used for other purposes (and 'structure' is used for any built structure in the context of the article). Numerous articles and list articles use this terminology and confusing it with a different meaning for 'tower' would not be helpful to readers. I would suggest reverting this article name change back to hi-rise building. Most of the article uses this term and 'tower block' is mentioned as an alternative. The issue with it being mostly about residential buildings can be rectified by including information on office buildings in the article. Robynthehode (talk) 08:42, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Splitting proposal (2022)
I propose that the article be split into two separate pages called Residential tower and High-rise building, one for residential high rise, and the other for high rise building in general. This is because, based on the above move discussion, the current article title seems confusing, and the proposed moved covering only residential towers in article name is not sufficient in covering all the original content of the page. C933103 (talk) 18:45, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Conditional support if my rename request fails (see above, Feb 2022), I would support this proposal -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 16:48, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Strongly Oppose I oppose any split for the reason of terminology used in Wikipedia as per my comments above. Robynthehode (talk) 17:35, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * That terminology issue in page naming can be fixed by renaming the articles (or selecting different split target names), which is a different issue from whether we should have multiple articles or not -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 01:22, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * "terminology used in Wikipedia" do not have higher priority than common English words when it come to article naming. See also WP:MOSAT. C933103 (talk) 10:43, 15 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose --Samotny Wędrowiec (talk) 19:23, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Why? Remember !VOTE C933103 (talk) 10:36, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I should have elaborated. Everything that I would have said about this though has already been said, plus I stand by what I and others said in the previous discussions. --Samotny Wędrowiec (talk) 21:24, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * That European terminology should be respected? Yet that still doesn't resolve the content issue here.C933103 (talk) 07:01, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

I noticed that you moved the page from High-rise building to Tower block, the page's original title before year 2017, citing WP:RETAIN, but this have created confusion in term of nature of the page's content, as can be seen in the two recent discussions. Please express your view on the issue. C933103 (talk) 11:01, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Support - previous terminology was more precise and should maintained 77.254.181.15 (talk) 11:48, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose I'm not sure how Wikipedia would benefit from a third article about tall buildings, besides the already existing tower block and skyscraper. Zacwill (talk) 06:53, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Consensus should not be about voting and "outweighting". CAN'T VOTE (also: anonymous). Besides. East European people unironically post 4-5 story buildings like Nova Huta; which aren't "hi-rises". Guess that's where any hypothetical splitting should start. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 11:09, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Nova Huta (Eastern Europe section)
5-story houses of Nova Huta are not "high rises" tower blocks, but, instead, happen to be a case of public housing (job-related housing). 81.89.66.133 (talk) 15:08, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Residential skyscraper vs Tower block
I don't really get it. Are some tower blocks are also "skyscrapers"? 81.89.66.133 (talk) 10:20, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Streets in the sky - a bit too British for the general article
Bonjour. Apparently, the whole "Streets in the sky" section of the article is centered around GB's hi-rises. That info belongs in a specialized article, Tower blocks in Great Britain. Merci beaucoup. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 14:28, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Self-critique However, this "streets in the sky" idea was one that failed so hard yet looked so glorious it was epic. I think now the section on streets in the sky should stay in the article to help English-speaking people all over the globe to not re-create it. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 07:23, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Changed several pictures
. The photo from Osedle Batorego: the towers fail to look like a "modern development", removed for not looking renovated. I would suggest to use <- this picture as a second picture for Poland, though. Профессор кислых щей (talk) 11:34, 25 April 2024 (UTC)


 * It was a good example of a fairly typical Polish tower block pre-renovation. I think the problem is more with the name of that entire section: "Modern development". It is called that, but various parts of that section (especially the Eastern Europe subsection) refer to the specific history of tower blocks in each region. It makes more sense for it to be renamed to "Developments by region". --Pitsarotta (talk) 18:55, 27 April 2024 (UTC)