Plans show that the 5,577 feet-high Sky Mile Tower will stand in Tokyo Bay with a cluster of islands at its feet, dwarfing everything else on the city's already soaring skyline.

The tower will feature a hexagonal design, which was found to be the most wind-resistant shape, with six interconnected “building legs” forming a slotted, tapered structure that should withstand imposing winds.

The tower will be surrounded by islands forming part of the Next Tokyo development Photo: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates

Up to 55,000 residents will be housed, with lifts running vertically between the top and bottom of each of the building's five “residential zones” and horizontally within each zone, forming a looping lift system, providing service to and from the different sky lobbies.

A rendering of the tower's open-air sky lobbies Photo: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates

The eco-friendly complex will be designed to utilise waste heat from one part of the building to another for increased energy efficiency. Water will be "centrally collected, treated and stored at various levels" and distributed using gravity, eliminating the need for water to be pumped upwards from the ground level.

• Skyscrapers of the future

The Sky Mile Tower will be surrounded by an archipalego of islands, forming part of Next Tokyo, a “high density ecodistrict" designed to "adapt to climate change". The hexagonally shaped islands are designed to protect the city from flooding and other waterborne risks including “rising sea levels, seismic and increased typhoon risk”. Proposed by the NY-based architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates in collaboration with the NY-based engineering firm Leslie E. Robertson Associates, the development aims to accommodate half a million residents.

If the proposed plans are approved, the Sky Mile Tower is expected to be to completed by 2045 and will also surpass Saudia Arabia’s 3,280 ft-high Jeddah Tower, which is slated for completion in 2020. Funding for the last phase of the $1.2billion (£800million) development was secured late last year.

The Jeddah Tower

The Kingdom Tower, as it is also known, will accommodate the world’s highest observatory and be a mixed-use building with a gross floor area of 245,000 square metres. This will include offices, a 200-room Four Seasons Hotel, 121 serviced apartments and 360 residential apartments.