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East Asian urbanization is characterized by complex processes of extensive densification. Fuelled by rapid economic growth, Asian cities’ size, scale, and physical dimensions remain incomparable to any Western setting. During the past thirty years alone, various concepts have attempted to define hyperdensity, layering, and intensity as core principles of Asian urban development. Although these concepts explore the physical properties of development, few examples provide insights into the behavioural and social dimensions of such complex morphological settings. This paper examines the effects of urban compaction and volumetric urbanism on liveability in East Asian cities. Hong Kong exemplifies an extreme scale and rate of densification. Podium developments – commercial plinths elevated above street level that connect large residential towers to commercial complexes – are one of the city’s most common development types. The hypothesis is that the combination of different types of podium development results in the interiorization of the urban realm, which compresses public services, social engagements, and behavioural conditions into diverse privatized and fragmented ‘public interiors’. To explore these conditions, this paper first outlines the conceptual premise of reading urban sett ings through the lens of volumetric urban compaction. This framework combines urban compaction and volumetric urbanism. Second, the paper discusses theories that deal with the links between spatial settings and behavioural traits. Privatization is of particular interest here, including those processes in which the private and the public become interchangeable conditions or where the temporary occupation of functions occurs. The different concepts – volumetric urban compaction and interiority – are studied within Olympian City, a podium development in Kowloon (Hong Kong). Through fieldwork, the case is investigated in terms of the elements that make up Olympian City’s spatial configuration and how different groups use space at different times of the day and week. The case study shows that Hong Kong’s development follows an economically driven model of volumetric urban compaction; it supports a larger privatization strategy that depends on the interiorization of the city to the extent that makes the overall structure highly exclusive, static, and controlled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]