Luxury Villa Built on Beijjing Rooftop To Be Demolished

As architects, it’s often difficult for us to accept that the users who inhabit our buildings will modify the design in ways we never intended (or wanted). Of course, one can usually reasonably suspect that, at the very least, an inhabitant will never do this: a Professor Zhang has spent the last six years building a two-story luxury villa (complete with surrounding rocks and trees) on the roof of a Beijing apartment building. Unfortunately for Zhang, however, who legally bought the penthouse apartment, but never requested the planning permission to subsequently doze it and re-build another structure entirely, the Authorities will demolish the villa in the next 15 days, claiming that it places a dangerous amount of extra weight upon the building and increases “the susceptibility of the construction to earthquakes or lightning strikes.” Story via the Shanghaiist.