So much architecture porn lovingly dwells on the structure itself that it’s beyond refreshing to see a film that focuses entirely on the people—and cats and dogs—that actually live in these places.

Then again, the residents have always been at the heart of starchitect Bjarks Ingel’s mindblowing 8 House, a crazy, eight-shaped apartment complex in Copenhagen  that functions like a highrise village. In Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine’s whimsical vignettes, you’ll spend time with an inventor in the complex’s workshop, with a unicyclist who can pedal from the tenth floor to the bottom without ever stopping on the building’s outdoor, black-and-white mosaic ramps, and with a gaggle of preschoolers sent on a Halloween scavenger hunt.

Throughout, the eclectic community of urbanites of every age gathers for coffee or wine on the open terraces, taking in the fresh air and marvelling at the crazy luck they have living in such a fun place. And don’t worry: interspersed are plenty of loving pans of the zig-zagging structure, with its grass roof, its wood-panelled picnic area,  and its breathtaking views of the marshlands.

One of the best sequences is the final montage of different homes, all decorated with an impossible sense of Danish design—including one mid-century-styled living room that seems to perch right on the surface of the site’s river. The overwhelming effect for Vancouverites who watch it? Sadly, faced with the prospect of an ever-growing skyline of cookie-cutter condos, they’ll be left to drool at the thought of densification that prioritizes quality of life, family harmony, and artful pursuits over the bottom line. And then they’ll go home to their isolated little box in the sky.