The evolution of building height types in three-dimensional (3D) space is important for urban planning and urban atmospheric environment. This paper used the data of buildings’ 3D information which were extracted from high resolution satellite images (QuickBird) in Qingdao city from 2003 to 2012 based on ArcGIS to detect the spatio-temporal variation characteristic of building height types in the urban renewal process in China. The results indicated that mid-rise and mid-high-rise buildings were the main architectural landscape components, the buildings grown in vertical direction. Main roads, business districts and schools had a significant effect on the spatial layout of building height types within 700m, 1800m and 1000m from them, respectively. The closer to these infrastructures, the more mid-high-rise, high-rise and ultra-high-rise buildings were distributed, and this phenomenon was highlighted during the urban renewal process. The dominant topography for all buildings was the area below 60m of elevation and less than 5° of slope. And buildings decreased rapidly with the increasing elevation and slope. These findings are important for understanding the characteristics of architectural landscape, simulating the evolution of urban architectural landscape and researching the urban atmospheric environment.