Envisioned for the coastal town of Limassol in Cyprus, a wild apartment tower concept has round swimming pools sprouting almost organically from the facade on all sides. Developed by the French firm Hamonic + Masson, the Limassol Tower grants every unit in the building its own private pool.

Clusters of platforms and sun shades at ground level continue the pattern, so that from above, the complex looks like a colony of spores or mushrooms (or maybe a juggling act of dinner plates that’s dangerously close to crashing to the ground?)

“The volume’s transparency means unobstructed sea views are maximized. A sliding glass door is the only element separating living areas from the balconies, meaning the feeling of being outside is possible simply by opening the window. On the ground floor a regal entrance opens the doors to a unique living experience.”

“We seek to enhance quality of living by offering a range of amenities: an underground fitness zone illuminated by natural sunlight, an art gallery on the ground floor and a premium spa on the first floor, all with independent entrances. Wellbeing and luxury combine to create an exclusive living experience.”

The architects say they wanted to capture the “natural splendor” of the environment with their design. Rising about 180 feet into the air, the building features 19 luxury apartments, some with views of the sea.

Few people would argue with the allure of having your very own private swimming pool just outside your door, but one wonders how the engineering of this structure would actually play out. Is this a realistic concept that could actually be built, or yet another fantasy project that just doesn’t translate into real life? Feel free to chime in if you know. It’s certainly an interesting departure from the standard seaside apartment building, at least.

Taking advantage of virtually endless vertical space within urban centers, entire cities-within-cities could spring up into the skies, packing in thousands of new housing units as well as parks, recreational space, offices, shops and everything else you’d expect to find on a typical block. These 12 residential skyscraper designs build up instead of out, often using staggered or stepped arrangements of stacked modules to maintain air circulation, access to daylight, and views. Rather than creating closed class-based communities, most make their communal spaces open to the public, and reserve the ground level for greenery.

High-Rise High-Density Tropical Living in Singapore

How do you pack 100,000 people into a square kilometer without sacrificing quality of life? WOHA’s entry into a competition to design a vertical city for Singapore devised a greenery-laden ‘lattice city’ made of staggered modules. This porous arrangement ensures that all levels get plenty of fresh air and daylight, free up the ground level for nature reserves and heavy industry, and weave social spaces throughout. The plan was created to be walkable, but large elevators and people movers can zip inhabitants vertically and horizontally as needed.

Stacked Modules in Vancouver

Conceived for Vancouver, this design by Ole Scheeren is made up of stacked rectilinear modules that poke out of the main tower at various angles, projecting the living spaces outward to mimic the spacious feel of living on the ground and create cantilevered terraces. The aim is to reconnect architecture with the natural and civic environment, encouraging social interaction between inhabitants.

Vertical Village in Singapore by OMA

Condo units that would take up a lot of space if there were all placed on the ground are instead stacked in hexagonal arrangements for The Interlace, a residential project by Ole Scheeren/OMA. 31 individual six-story blocks come together to create a network of both private living spaces and communal areas, with eight large courtyards and various terraced gardens.

Vertical City in Jakarta

The city of Jakarta in Indonesia is in need of both higher density housing and green space – but designs like these prove that you don’t have to choose. MVRDV has designed a 400-meter-tall tower called Peruri 88 that integrates housing, offices, retail, a luxury hotel, parking, a mosque, an imax theater and more into what is essentially its own city within the city.

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Vertical Cities 12 Towers Take Urban Density To The Skies

Suspended aquariums, snowy landscapes, jungles and caves can all be found in the heart of the city, steps away from dense urban housing, in the middle of this wild skyscraper concept. Winner of eVolo magazine’s 2015 skyscraper competition, ‘Essence’ by BOMP re-introduces nature to heavily developed areas with eleven diverse landscapes built right into its core.

The futuristic urban tower design aims to be a secret garden in the middle of the city, combining architecture and nature within an environment where wildlife and greenery are rarely found outside of parks. “The main goal of this project is to position non-architectural phenomena in an urban fabric,” say the designers.

The eleven natural landscapes overlap each other within the vertical structure, including a jungle, a cave, a waterfall and even an ‘ocean.’ The landscapes were chosen for their complex range of “visual, acoustic, thermal, olfactory and kinesthetic experiences.”

Open to the public, this series of natural spaces includes fish tanks lifted 30 meters above the floor and other natural features, with different paths offering different adventures. Each is positioned beside large glazed walls overlooking the city, offering a strange juxtaposition of environments. See the rest of the contest entries at eVolo.

Works from 27 iconic modern artists are translated into architecture to make up one of the most colorful fictional cities every imagined. You can almost envision ‘Archist‘ coming to life in a real city like Amsterdam or Barcelona, with a collection of structures bringing the aesthetics of Mondrian, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali and Ray Lichtenstein to their largest-ever scale.

The illustration series by architect and artist Federico Babina produces surprisingly realistic yet, in many cases, instantly recognizable building designs representing each artist’s body of work.

Some of these artists already produce works that are architectural in nature, such as Anish Kapoor’s undulating sculptural installations and the massive crochet playscapes of Ernesto Neto. Others, like the geometric works of Anne Truitt and Frank Stella, easily translate to the three-dimensional, oversized medium of building materials.

But for the artists working in a more figurative style, Babina had to get a little more creative. The Lichtenstein is especially notable, looking almost like an appropriately Picasso-ized jumble of skin, hair, lips, teeth and clothing.

Buildings twist and bend onto themselves in ways that seem to defy physics. Some have sprouted massive slides, or bear facades that roll up like the top of a tin can. Others have unsupported staircases that float out into the sky. You may have guessed already that these buildings aren’t real – they’re the fantasy creations of architectural designer Victor Enrich.

Calling to mind the surrealist architectural collage of Filip Dujardin, Enrich’s designs are so realistic at first glance, they prompt a quick double-take. Enrich travels the world and takes photographs of cities, manipulating them digitally to produce these strange images.

The Barcelona-born designer says he’s been interested in maps and urban forms since childhood, inspired by toys like Legos. When traveling, Enrich looks for scenes that inspire shocking shifts, whether those changes would be possible in the real world or not.

“A combination of photography and 3D architectural visualization is used. Once the object is chosen, it is shot from a point easy to recognize by users, not pretending to achieve the greatest picture ever, but instead, a picture that anybody could do. The shot is the basis to produce a replica of the building by using very detailed photogrammetric techniques that end with the creation of a three-dimensional model that fits almost perfectly into the picture.”