Saffron City

The commercial capital, a dense grid of tall towers and hard shadow. Buildings rise in sheer slabs of glass and pale concrete, twenty storeys and more, their facades gridded with identical windows. The tallest is a cylindrical tower of blue-green mirrored glass that reflects the whole skyline back distorted. Streets run dead straight in a rigid grid, wide and paved in dark grey slab, canyoned between the blocks. Raised pedestrian walkways cross above the roads on slender concrete piers. Street trees stand in square grilles at regular spacing, small against the buildings. Four heavy gatehouses of white concrete mark the compass points where the city wall meets the approach roads. Ventilation grilles and service ducts run along the base of the towers. Sunlight reaches street level only in narrow bright bands. The scale is vertical and the palette is glass, concrete and sky.