8 Impressive and Thrilling Buildings With a Sky Bridge

A sky bridge is an elevated walkway that links two or more buildings above street level. The 8 impressive and thrilling buildings with a sky bridge in this guide run from the Petronas Towers, whose double-deck bridge hangs 170 m above Kuala Lumpur, to unbuilt schemes that turned the bridge into a building in its own right, followed by three newer record-breakers. It is written for students and designers researching tall buildings and precedents: each entry gives the architect, date and bridge dimensions, and the closing sections explain how sky bridges are engineered, where city-wide skyway networks exist, and which codes govern them, with jurisdiction caveats.

“Sky bridge”, “skywalk” and “elevated walkway” usually bring to mind a narrow glass walkway strung between two commercial towers, built so that people can move between buildings without going down to the street and back up. Architects have used bridges for far more inventive reasons than that; they have even built bridges for cyclists.

In the 1960s, sky bridges were treated as radical urban surgery: a way of pulling city circulation into a third dimension. Planners such as Victor Gruen argued for lifting pedestrians clear of traffic, and elevated networks spread from Minneapolis to Hong Kong with very mixed results. A few achieved a fluid connection between buildings; others turned a short walk into a confusing detour.

Photo: Getty Images/Bo Zaunders

Today sky bridges turn up in airports, malls, transit hubs and hospitals, where they work quietly as thoroughfares. Some architects push them much higher, straddling the upper floors of some of the tallest structures in the world, where a bridge stops being circulation and becomes the reason the building is remembered. Several of the designers behind the projects below appear on any list of the most influential architects in history.

Over the past decade the element has come back into fashion. Some structures use the elevated walkway purely for circulation. Others treat it as a separate building: a horizontal volume with pools, gardens and restaurants lifted 250 m into the air.

What is the purpose of a sky bridge?

A sky bridge lets people move between buildings without going down to street level, which shortens journeys, shelters pedestrians from weather and traffic, and frees ground space. In residential and mixed-use towers it can also host shared amenities such as pools, gyms, gardens and restaurants, and it can double as an emergency escape route between towers.

What is the difference between a sky bridge and a skywalk?

The terms are used interchangeably, but in common usage a sky bridge is a single high-level connection between towers in one development, while a skywalk or skyway describes a low-level network of enclosed walkways linking many buildings across a city district, usually one or two storeys above the street. Bridges connecting buildings go by several other names too: “pedway” in some Canadian cities, the “+15” in Calgary (because its bridges are about 15 ft above the street), and “pedestrian walkway” in building codes.

Which building has the highest sky bridge in the world?

The Crystal at Raffles City Chongqing, completed in 2019, is generally cited as the highest sky bridge connecting multiple towers, at about 250 m above ground and 300 m long. The Petronas Towers skybridge holds a narrower record as the highest two-storey bridge, at 170 m.

Sky bridges at a glance

The table summarises the eight main entries in this list of 8 impressive and thrilling buildings with a sky bridge, built and unbuilt.

8 interesting works of architecture with stunning skywalks

1. Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur

Photo: Getty Images/Alan Copson

Architect: Cesar Pelli · Completed: 1998 (opened 1999) · Bridge: 58.4 m long, 170 m above ground, floors 41 to 42

The Petronas Towers carry the most recognisable sky bridge on earth. The double-deck span sits at the 41st and 42nd floors and is widely described as the highest two-storey bridge in the world. It is not rigidly fixed to either tower: the deck rests on a two-legged arch supported lower down the towers, and the connections at each end are designed to move, so the bridge can accommodate the towers swaying independently in the wind.

Its second job is life safety. If one tower has to be evacuated, occupants can cross to the other. Visitors can reach the skybridge on timed, ticketed tours with limited daily numbers, which makes it one of the few sky bridges on this list the public can walk across.

2. Linked Hybrid, Beijing

Photography: Iwan Baan

Architect: Steven Holl Architects · Completed: 2009 · Bridge: a ring of eight bridges between the 12th and 18th floors

Linked Hybrid is the most ambitious argument on this list that a sky bridge can be public space rather than a corridor. Eight residential towers and a hotel tower stand in a ring, tied together by a loop of bridges carrying a swimming pool, a fitness room, a café, an art gallery, an auditorium and a salon. The idea was a second, elevated street: a “city within a city” of about 220,000 m² with more than 750 apartments, according to the architects.

The environmental engineering is just as notable: about 660 geothermal wells, 100 m deep, provide heating and cooling (sources give 655 to 660), and greywater is recycled into a central pond. The complex was named CTBUH Best Tall Building Overall in 2009.

3. Sky Habitat, Singapore

Photo: Getty Images

Architect: Safdie Architects · Completed: 2015 · Bridge: three sky gardens at levels 14, 26 and 38

Sky Habitat takes the stepped, porous logic of Habitat 67 and stretches it vertically across two 38-storey towers holding 509 apartments in the Bishan district. Three broad bridges, framed in white steel trusses, link the towers.

The lower two are landscaped circulation routes, “streets in the air” with planting and seating, so residents can meet without returning to the ground. The uppermost bridge carries an open-air swimming pool. Splitting the mass into two towers also matters in a tropical climate: the gap lets breezes pass through the block and daylight reach deep into the apartments.

4. American Copper Buildings, New York

Via Field Condition, Pavel Bendov

Architect: SHoP Architects · Completed: 2017 · Bridge: about 30 m long, about 91 m above ground, three storeys

Named for the roughly 5,000 copper panels that will slowly weather to green, these two angled rental towers lean towards each other and meet in a three-storey glazed skybridge, widely reported as the first major skybridge built in Manhattan in about eight decades.

Inside are a 75 ft (23 m) lap pool, a lounge and part of a large shared amenity floor. The bridge also does unglamorous work: it houses mechanical plant serving both towers. The glazing has a mesh interlayer that cuts solar gain while keeping views of the East River and Midtown.

5. InTempo, Benidorm

Via Zarateman / Wikimedia Commons

Architect: Pérez-Guerras Arquitectos e Ingenieros · Location: Benidorm, Spain · Completed: 2021 · Height: 47 storeys, about 190 to 200 m

InTempo is the strangest entry here because its “bridge” is an inverted cone, beginning around the 38th floor and stitching two towers into a single M-shaped silhouette, one of Spain’s tallest residential buildings.

It is also a cautionary tale. Started in 2007 and scheduled for 2009, the tower was stalled by the 2008 financial crisis, bankruptcy and changes of ownership before being finished around 2021. In 2013 the Spanish press reported that the scheme had grown from 20 storeys to 47 without the lift design keeping pace; the developers disputed the strongest version of the story, that the building had no lifts at all, but the episode became one of the most repeated construction anecdotes of the decade.

Unbuilt sky bridges that still changed the conversation

Three of the most discussed sky bridge designs of recent years were never built. They are included because they set the terms: a bridge as a habitable volume, as public programme, as an argument about how tall buildings should behave.

6. The Cloud, Seoul

Courtesy of Luxigon/MVRDV

Architect: MVRDV · Location: Seoul, South Korea · Status: unveiled 2011, cancelled 2013

MVRDV’s Cloud proposed two towers of 260 m and 300 m joined at around the 27th floor by a ten-storey pixelated volume of about 14,000 m², with a sky lounge, wellness and conference centre, pools, restaurants and cafés, and gardens on top.

The design drew immediate international criticism for resembling the World Trade Center towers during the 2001 attacks; the practice apologised and said the resemblance had not been intended. The wider Yongsan development collapsed financially and the project was cancelled in 2013.

7. Cross # Towers, Seoul

Courtesy of MIR

Architect: BIG · Location: Seoul, South Korea · Status: unbuilt

Designed for the same Yongsan district, the Cross # Towers interlock vertical and horizontal masses so that two bridges read as a single knotted figure from a distance. Both bridges were to carry accessible rooftop gardens, with the interiors programmed for community uses rather than left as circulation: the bridge as the development’s community centre, lifted into the skyline.

8. The Big Bend, New York

Courtesy of Oiio Architecture Studio

Architect: Oiio Studio · Location: New York · Status: concept, 2017

Oiio’s Big Bend takes the idea to its logical extreme: instead of two towers with a bridge, a single slender tower bent into a hairpin, so that the whole building becomes the bridge. Measured along its curve it would run about 1,200 m (4,000 ft), which the designers presented to Dezeen in 2017 as making it the longest building in the world rather than the tallest.

It depends on lift technology that can run horizontally and around curves, and it was published less as a development proposal than as a comment on Manhattan’s height race along Billionaires’ Row.

3 more sky bridges worth knowing

Beyond the 8 impressive and thrilling buildings with a sky bridge above, three newer projects have set records. Since this list first appeared, the centre of gravity for sky bridge design has shifted towards Asia and the Gulf, and the scale has jumped from a link to a horizontal building.

The Crystal, Raffles City Chongqing

Safdie Architects’ Crystal, completed in 2019, is a 300 m-long glass-and-steel “horizontal skyscraper” about 250 m above the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers. It sits across four towers and cantilevers towards two more, carrying gardens, a pool, restaurants, a hotel lobby and a glass-floored observation deck. Its segments were prefabricated and lifted into place with hydraulic strand jacks.

The Link, One Za’abeel, Dubai

Nikken Sekkei’s Link is a multi-storey concourse about 230 m long, slung some 100 m above a live highway between the two One Za’abeel towers. Its cantilever of 67.277 m was recognised by Guinness World Records as the longest cantilevered building, taking the title from Marina Bay Sands. The steel structure was lifted in stages without closing the road beneath, and it is topped by an infinity pool.

Marina Bay Sands SkyPark, Singapore

The reference point for all of them. Marina Bay Sands (2010) laid a 340 m boat-shaped deck across the tops of three towers about 200 m up, with a cantilever of about 67 m and an infinity pool that became one of the most photographed pieces of architecture of its decade, and proved that a sky bridge could be the commercial engine of an entire development.

City skyway networks

Which cities have skyway systems? The best known are in cold-winter cities of North America, where enclosed bridges let people cross downtown without going outside. The Minneapolis Skyway System is usually described as the largest continuous network, at about 15 km (9.5 miles) linking some 80 downtown blocks. Calgary’s +15 network, about 16 km long, is the largest by length but is split into separate sections. Des Moines, St Paul and other Midwestern cities have their own, and in Asia, Hong Kong’s Central district links offices, malls and transport by an extensive network of footbridges.

Skyways solve a real problem but carry a well-known cost: by drawing pedestrians and shops up to the first floor, they can empty the streets below. Many cities now design new links to strengthen street life rather than replace it.

How sky bridges are actually built

Three problems separate a sky bridge from an ordinary bridge, and they explain why so few get built. The diagram below shows the main connection types.

Movement. Two tall towers do not sway in unison. A rigid connection between them would have to resist large forces, so high-level bridges are typically supported on hinges, sliding bearings or expansion joints that let the span shift relative to the towers under wind and seismic load. The Petronas arrangement, a bridge carried on an arch and free to move at its ends, is the textbook case.

Erection. Lifting heavy segments across a gap hundreds of metres up is beyond ordinary cranes, so the usual method is to assemble segments at or near ground level and raise them with hydraulic strand jacks, as at Raffles City Chongqing and One Za’abeel, often with the streets or rivers below still in use.

Fire, egress and ownership. A bridge between two buildings affects both buildings’ fire strategies, and it often crosses a property line and public airspace, raising questions of evacuation, security, access rights and maintenance liability. Codes treat these links specifically. In the United States, for example, the International Building Code’s section on pedestrian walkways (Section 3104 in recent editions) requires walkways to be of noncombustible construction and sets options for separating them from the connected buildings, such as fire barriers at the ends; the exact rules depend on the edition your jurisdiction has adopted. Other countries handle bridges within their own fire and building regulations, so the design team’s fire engineer and the local authority should agree the strategy early.

Are sky bridges safe?

Modern high-level bridges are engineered for wind, thermal movement and, where relevant, seismic load, using connections that let the span move with the towers rather than resist them, and several, including the Petronas skybridge, are designed as evacuation routes between towers. The best-known failure is a warning about details rather than height: on 17 July 1981 two suspended walkways in the atrium of the Hyatt Regency hotel in Kansas City collapsed during a crowded event, killing 114 people. Investigators traced the failure to a change in the hanger-rod connections made during construction that roughly doubled the load on the critical connection. The disaster is still taught in engineering schools as a lesson in checking design changes.

Can the public walk on sky bridges?

Some can. The Petronas skybridge, the Marina Bay Sands SkyPark observation deck and The Crystal at Raffles City Chongqing all offer public or ticketed access, and city skyways such as Minneapolis’s are public routes during opening hours. Bridges in residential buildings, such as Sky Habitat or the American Copper Buildings, are for residents only.

Why don’t more buildings have sky bridges?

Cost and legal complexity, more than engineering. A bridge between two buildings crosses ownership boundaries and often public airspace, and it complicates fire strategy, security, access rights and long-term maintenance. It also pays for itself most easily when both towers belong to a single development, which is why most high-level sky bridges appear in master-planned complexes.

Why sky bridges are back

The bridge has stopped being a convenience and become the argument. In dense cities where the ground plane is already taken, lifting shared space into the air is one of the few ways left to give a tower something more than a lobby, and the projects that do it well, from Beijing to Chongqing, treat the span as a building rather than a corridor. For more high-rise experiments in the same spirit, see our roundup of extraordinary tower designs.

In short, across these 8 impressive and thrilling buildings with a sky bridge and the record-breakers that followed: the Petronas skybridge (170 m) remains the most famous and the highest two-storey example; The Crystal at Raffles City Chongqing (about 250 m up, 300 m long) is the highest linking several towers; and The Link at One Za’abeel holds the record for the longest cantilevered building at 67.277 m. For anyone designing one, the lessons are the same at every height: let the bridge move, plan how it will be built and lifted, and settle fire strategy and ownership before the drawings get beautiful.