A railway built into the building’s plan
At Liziba station in Chongqing, a monorail line passes through a purpose-built section of an apartment tower. The striking arrangement works because the station and building were planned as one project—not because a train was squeezed into an existing block. The railway has its own space within the structure, while homes remain separate from the station and track.
That distinction matters: the train does not run through anyone’s living room. The station occupies dedicated floors, and the apartments are arranged around the infrastructure. In a crowded, hilly city, combining the two uses lets a transit route pass through a dense neighborhood without requiring a separate strip of land at ground level.
Keeping the ride from becoming a nuisance
A passing train can transmit both sound through the air and vibration through the structure. The building’s sound insulation and vibration-control measures help limit those paths, keeping the railway’s operation from carrying directly into residents’ homes. These are not cosmetic extras: they are part of what makes the unusual shared footprint livable.
The design makes a familiar urban tradeoff visible. Rail needs a continuous route, while housing needs quiet, private space; here, the solution is to stack and separate those functions rather than force one aside. From the street, the train appears to vanish into an apartment block. In practice, it is following a route that the building was designed to accommodate from the start.
