Photo Credit: China Daily

China has developed a unique technique where they built four villas on top of a shopping mall in Zhuzhou, Hunan Province. These villas will be used as offices for the mall, but it provides an important experiment to see how these villas function and if it is a feasible solution for increasing living space within urban areas.

Zhuzhou Jiutian Real Estate developed these villas using modern designs and suburb-like landscape designs as well. This isn’t the first time that rooftop villas have been built in China. It actually became a legal issue prior to the shopping mall villas. Because of accessibility issues and the types of plants that are on the rooftop, it can create safety hazards. The city developed rules and guidelines for building rooftop villas and an approval process before construction. By the time these four villas were built, the regulations were in place and the developer got approval to build.

Source: China Daily Rooftop villas are legal, Officials say