Multidimensional system approach to high-rise buildings in urban areas as integral-active ecosystems

The proliferation of new urban and smart areas has become a dominant development strategy in the Global South, including Vietnam, where rapidly expanding residential districts intensify urban density, strain infrastructure, and contribute to urban-heat-island formation. This dissertation proposes an alternative paradigm: to conceptualise cities, districts, and particularly high-rise buildings as multidimensional, metabolically active organisms rather than static, resource-consuming constructions. Building on this premise, the research employs a multidimensional systems approach to examine the distributive high-rise as an interactive node within a complex urban mega-system. High-rise buildings are investigated not as isolated architectural objects but as adaptive, biophilic, and technologically mediated systems capable of managing and redistributing resource flows - energy, water, and data - while contributing actively to district-level resilience. The study integrates principles from construction material ecology, green infrastructure, decentralised water management, and digital monitoring. Particular emphasis is placed on the ecological performance of vegetated building envelopes, the potential of decentralised water treatment, and the role of digital shadows and sensor networks in enabling localised feedback loops. These dimensions are explored through a mixed-methods case study of high-rise development in the metropolitan region of Hanoi, where controlled experimental conditions (TestBed 02) and real-scale observations (Tonkin 2) allowed for cross-scalar evaluation across nano-, micro-, and meso-urban levels. The findings demonstrate that environmental performance in tropical high-rise districts emerges not from singular technologies but from the interaction of ecological, material, and digital subsystems functioning as interdependent metabolic units. Vegetation proved to deliver the most stable long-term performance, while decentralised water systems and sensor infrastructures require substantial adaptation to operate robustly under tropical conditions. The study synthesises these insights into the conceptual model of Adaptive Node Urbanism, positioning high-rise buildings as active contributors to urban resilience rather than passive consumers of resources. Ultimately, this dissertation advances future-oriented planning approaches by illustrating how distributive high-rises and adaptive urban nodes can strengthen local resource cycles, mitigate climatic stresses, and foster more sustainable, resilient, and liveable metropolitan environments.