There is more than one way to create a tall building that can provide dwellers with access to the outdoor air or a garden, even if it happens to be on the 10th floor.

A high-rise building concept called the stairscraper was recently featured on the gizmag website. This design innovative skyscraper design comes from Barcelona-based firm Nabito Architects. With one of the best-known drawbacks to high-rise living being the lack of outdoor space, this firm solves the problem by using a corkscrew design that makes the roof of the unit below an outdoor space for the unit above.

Gizmag points out that the “Stairscraper” may not offer the housing density of traditional skyscrapers, “Nabito is looking to merge the urban with the suburban to provide the space-saving benefits of high-rise living with the added benefit of some private green space for individual units. In addition to the private outdoor spaces, the architects say some levels would also be set aside as public spaces.”

The Nabito Architects’ design being named the 2010 project winner of the Total Housing Competition at The Storefront For Art and Architecture, the Stairscraper will apparently be built in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Nabito uses some imaginative terms to help visualize how such a structure functions and the benefits it provides. The company refers to its stairscraper as a “horizontal skyscraper” – a gathering of “high density cottages.”

In a blog article, “Focusing on Individual Needs in a Collective Whole,” Nabito writes:

“The contemporary housing is spreading Into The more complex and (broad) concept of HABITAT. (A) Housing project is impossible today without thinking of something much more complex than simply the solution to meet a social need and right. The housing today, so also the motto “TOTAL HOUSING” of the call seems justified, it represents the idea of understanding a wider habitat, a system of complex social relationships with the environment in search of enjoyment of life, mixing different ambits, different uses.”

Approaches to design like this are important to consider as we move forward further into the 21st century.