Sure, but while you're at the office/at work/in your apartment? Does it matter so much whether your building is 2 or 40 stories? You get back on the street for your lunch break either way. The author is not against building parks and recreational spaces where you can have this; I don't really understand your complaint.
> Once upon a time one could actually impress people by building skyscrapers, but that time is over. Now we all know that it is possible, the novelty wore off.
I obviously can't change your opinion here, but there's something very satisfying about looking out from a high floor on a tall building. There's always something satisfying to me about driving towards NYC and seeing the skyline in the distance. Maybe I'm just holding on a little too much to modernist aesthetics, but I agree with the author that skyscrapers can still impress.
For a more recent example, I took a trip to London a few weeks ago. The piece of art I saw there that most affected me wasn't a painting, but a skyscraper: I saw The Shard* (completed 2012), rising up into the clouds and mist. I found it incredibly powerful to gaze up at a building like that. It's an experience I have difficulty describing -- it felt like a quasi-religious monument to some aspect of our contemporary culture, and it affected me as such.
> There are only very few places in the world where space is at a premium
And those are also the areas where people want to live. People like other people. People, in general, like density. Why keep them playgrounds for the international wealthy? Cities used to be places for everyone: immigrants, travelers, artists, businesspeople, parents & children... There are more people now than ever: let's build to the sky.
Yes, I actually like being woken up by birds or seeing an actual tree when I look out of my office window. I don't want to commute to a "recreational space" and I enjoy having meetings in cafes just outside, sitting in the sun, having a coffee. If you walk in between skyscrapers, you have about one hour per day of direct sunlight.
> there's something very satisfying about looking out from a high floor on a tall building
Only when your view is not blocked by another just as tall building across the street.
> [The Shard]
I can appreciate nice architecture. But I lived in London for some time and I also enjoyed the low-rise architecture that still makes up most of the inner city. The only thing that, after some time, annoyed me: Always seeing the Gherkin (which, as far as I know, is not even profitable). The picture on WP illustrates that pretty well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_St_Mary_Axe
> [The places where space is at a premium] are also the areas where people want to live.
And here one should ask what made those places so desirable in the first place. Would San Francisco still be hip without the parks and cafes but with skyscraper next to skyscraper? I would doubt that.
Once upon a time one could actually impress people by building skyscrapers, but that time is over. Now we all know that it is possible, the novelty wore off.
And the argument about saving resources: There are only very few places in the world where space is at a premium.
I wonder what Christopher Alexander would say about that article - while his "Timeless Way of Building" did resonate with me because it was all about "humans first", this article is just the other way around.