Tag Archives: skyscrapers

When a major city’s tallest structure is a roller coaster

Posted on by

Perhaps this could only happen in Orlando: the city’s tallest structure will soon be a roller coaster.

The Skyscraper aims to live up to its name. When construction of the roller coaster is completed in 2106, it will dominate Orlando’s skyline. At 570 feet, the Skyscraper will loom over the next tallest structure, the Suntrust Center—which is itself only a few dozen feet taller than the Orlando Eye, a 400-foot-tall Ferris wheel opening this spring.

Orlando appears to be one-upping other cities in the global race to build soaring structures that aren’t buildings. Where plenty of cities have built observation wheels (Orlando included), the Theme Park Capital of the World is looking to distinguish itself through a different kind of roller coaster, one whose footprint and height resemble, well, a skyscraper’s.

Developers released new plans last week for the Skyplex, a $300 million entertainment center that will anchored by the Skyscraper. The expanded plans include the Skyfall, a 450-foot tall drop ride (built into the Skyscraper structure) that will itself be taller than the tallest building in downtown Orlando.

Tall buildings may be functional but they are also intended to say something about the city: that it is has a certain level of success and sophistication. A skyline is meant to stand out and provide a lasting and permanent (though it is open to change, people don’t really consider losing major buildings from the skyline) image of a city. So, Orlando seems to be staking its claim to entertainment and amusement, to lasting screams and high speeds. And once you have this tall ride, how do you top it?

Trying to revive wood skyscrapers

Posted on by

The idea of constructing high-rises out of wood and other sustainable materials may just be gathering steam:

This week, an ambitious proposal for the world’s tallest wooden skyscraper was unveiled in Vienna, Austria. The 275-foot, €60M timber building will be built next year, and follows in the low-carbon footsteps of recent timber structures in Canada, Australia, and England. The idea of fashioning tall towers from the earth’s natural materials, and not concrete or steel, first began gaining traction in 2013, when the Canadian architect Michael Green introduced the concept to the wider world via a TED talk that has now been viewed more than a million times. “I believe that wood is the most technologically advanced material I can build with,” Green said in his talk. “It just happens to be that Mother Nature holds the patent.”…

Unlike concrete and steel, synthetic materials that together represent eight percent of man’s greenhouse gas emissions, wood has the opposite effect: it takes in massive amounts of carbon dioxide, an obvious upside when cities are growing ever denser. “One cubic meter of wood will store one tonne of carbon dioxide,” Green explained in his TED talk…

At the time when Green gave his talk, the world was home to at least two existing timber structures that could have been considered towers: the Stadthaus residential building by Waugh Thistleton Architects in London, which has nine stories, and the Forté apartment complex in Melbourne, Australia, designed by Lend Lease developers with ten floors. Both buildings were made from panels of cross-laminated timber, which is a form of engineered wood that was originally developed as an alternative to stone and masonry. Unlike typical 2-by-4s, these panels made from many pieces of wood glued together are enormous, around eight feet wide and 64 feet long…It’s also fairly difficult to get cross-laminated timber to catch fire, which appears to be the main concern of supervisory bodies in cities where architects are attempting to use the material in their buildings. Vienna, which will soon have the tallest structure of this sort, has instructed its fire service to conduct special tests on the new building, which will already be required to install more sensitive sprinkler system than those required for other towers.

As the article notes, the main feature appears to be the reduction of carbon use compared to construction with cement and concrete. But, this might also draw the attention of architects less interested in the sustainability but intrigued by another medium with which to innovate. It could be fascinating to see the mix of mediums within a single skyline – imagine the glass skyscrapers of today next to wooden structures that have a entirely different feel.

Roughly 40% of St. Louis high-rises don’t have a 13th floor

Posted on by

Triskaidekaphobia is built into a number of St. Louis high-rises:

An informal survey by St. Louis Public Radio of 68 skyscrapers in the St. Louis area finds about 41 percent skip over 13 in counting their floors. Not surprisingly, most of them are hotels or residential properties where people pay to stay…

Oftentimes, architects have solved the problem by putting mechanical components for elevators, and heating and cooling systems on the floor, rather than offices or living spaces, she said…

By far the simplest solution is just renaming it the 14th floor, she said…

As irrational as it is to purposefully mislabel floor numbers, there may be some value in the superstition as well. According to Kathryn Kuhn, an associate professor of sociology at St. Louis University, commonly shared superstitions can lend to individuals a sense control and significance…

Ye explained that in Chinese, the characters for 4 and 14 share a similar pronunciation with the word for death or dying. Thus many high-rises in China leave out the 4th and 14th floors. In some regions, 13 is actually considered a lucky number, he said.

This is a fairly common architectural feature. It highlights the importance of meanings and values for humans, even as they push past natural limits of getting off the ground by building high into the sky. Buildings don’t just have meaning because they are there; they have meanings because humans give them meaning. And, of course, this can differ widely across societies and culture even if they have buildings that look and function similarly.

I’m not sure I like the idea that this is an issue of rational vs. irrational thinking. Such a dichotomy often depends on somebody getting to label one side rational or irrational. What is necessarily irrational about fears and emotions, things that all human beings have? I suppose it is irrational only if most fears can be argued away using scientific explanations.

Keep scrolling for the chart that shows how deep in the ocean MH370’s may be

Posted on by

Richard Deitsch highlights this chart showing the possible depth of MH370’s black box. I’m not copying it here because it is one long chart.

Two things the chart does well:

1. On the way down to 15,000 feet, it shows relative heights and depths of other objects. Buildings don’t even come close and animal life is limited.

2. The effect of continued scrolling highlights just how deep the black box may be. The chart could have shrunk to fit the screen or a typical newspaper page but it would then lose the interactive element of going down more and more.

Fund the Squeezable Skyline toy

Posted on by

Plush toys often involve animals but one set of guys have embarked on a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to make Squeezable Skyline toys:

Instead of creating an Etsy store to sell their adorable plush-sized versions of famous skyscrapers, these dudes are going the Kickstarter route and attempting to raise $25,000 to fund the production of its Squeezable Skyline toys. As a part of its first lineup, the Chicago-based company wants to sell plush versions of the Willis Sears Tower and the Empire State Building. Up next (if enough funding is raised) will be the John Hancock Center. The toys are definitely cute, and any architecture nerd would love to gift one to their toddler, but is this an idea worth $25,000? The team has nearly a month left and have already raised about $4,000 from 67 backers, so it’s looking like they’ll definitely have a shot.

It would be interesting to watch kids interact with these toys. Would they quickly anthropomorphize a building? What would they have the building do? Are buildings huggable (or is this more related to the softness than the form)?

The design also does some interesting things with the straight lines that often mark the tallest skyscrapers. As a plush toy, the buildings now have slightly skewed bearing, like they were drawn in a cartoon style.

Building large buildings over the Hudson Yards in Brooklyn

Posted on by

How are large skyscrapers and buildings constructed on top of a railroad yard? See the example of Hudson Yards in Brooklyn:

Hudson Yards is the largest private development project in U.S. history, and it’s being built without footings or foundations. Instead, the project is going to sit atop 300 concrete-sleeved, steel caissons jammed deep into the underlying bedrock. Work on the platform broke ground last week, and will take roughly two and a half years to complete. In that time, there’s a lot of engineering to do.

Caissons are a technology borrowed from bridge building, and they are what makes this project possible. The engineers will drill them anywhere from 40 to 80 feet into the Manhattan schist (the dense, metamorphic bedrock that supports the city’s soaring skyline). The caissons are meticulously arranged in the narrow spaces between the tracks. Above, the they will connect to deep-girdle trusses – some up to 8 stories tall – that control and redirect the towering weight overhead. Finally, the slab. “The total punishment is somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 tons of steel and 50,000 cubic yards of concrete,” says Jim White, the lead platform engineer. And that’s before they start loading buildings on top.

Building an elevated platform over an active train yard requires clockwork scheduling. White used computer models to coordinate the tempo of his drilling and truss-laying around the rhythm of the rails. “We look at the area of the yard and model in the train traffic, when it moves on an hourly basis and actually design the connections so we can install these 100 foot long trusses when have a window of opportunity,” says White. For the two and a half years it will take to complete the platform, there are only four scheduled track closures.

That is quite a lot of weight over a rail yard. However, such projects are not unknown in large cities where people look to maximize both space above and below ground. Space is at a premium so construction projects need to get creative and allow for a multitude of uses.

The negative space, inverted skyline of New York City

Posted on by

A photographer decided to look not at the buildings in New York City but rather at the negative space between the buildings:

Wegner is referring to a city made of sky. In the space between the iconic buildings we pass everyday is another type of structure, one that’s totally made of blue and clouds. In his Buildings Made of Sky series, Wegner transforms a city’s negative space into ephemeral structures that look like inverted skyscrapers…

Looking at one of Wegner’s photographs is like looking at a mirage; you’re not sure if what you’re seeing actually exists. In fact, even he wasn’t sure of what he was seeing when he first began noticing inverted buildings suspended between steel and glass. “It was a serial epiphany,” he recalls. “I kept seeing it, but I almost didn’t register what I was looking at.”

To get his shots, Wegner stands in the middle of the street, focuses on the infinity and snaps the picture. “I just look all the way to the horizon, and the streets have conveniently arranged themselves to give you this image,” he says. “People will sometimes stop me and ask what I’m taking a picture of, and I tell them, ‘nothing.’” It takes little doctoring to get the desired effect: “It’s just a matter of flipping the image upside down,” he explains.

Of course, you can’t just stroll around Manhattan or any other big city and assume you’ll bump into a photo-worthy building made of sky. There are factors to be considered, like time of day (he likes early morning and evening because of the glow) location (Midtown’s gridded streets are optimal) and weather (blue skies are better than grey). Still, Wegner says, there’s an element of exploration that is central to his process. “I wander around in fugue state and hope I don’t get hit by a truck,” he says. “I’ve had more conversations with irate cabbies than you can imagine.”

Interesting flip of the script. He manages to take spaces that are not always revered – think of the references to the concrete canyons of New York City – and notes something worthwhile. Plus, this might get people to think about spaces between buildings differently. While some of this happens when people in current buildings complain about new buildings blocking their sunlight or views, large buildings are partly what they are because of their surroundings.

Plans for the first skyscraper that can disappear

Posted on by

Construction is expected to begin soon on a South Korean skyscraper that could hide itself:

[T]he world’s first disappearing skyscraper has just been approved for construction for the Incheon International Airport area outside Seoul, South Korea. No date is given as the projected completion yet, but according to Architizer, Tower Infinity, designed by GDS Architects, will rise 450 meters (1476.38 feet) in the air and feature “a cutting-edge LED façade system that allows visual information behind the skyscraper to be captured and simultaneously projected from the tower’s surface.” The building, in turn, will “blend into the background like an enormous, crystalline chameleon.”

Tower Infinity, which will be filled not with residences but with “entertainment and leisure purposes,” will have the third highest observation deck in the world, and its the exterior can also be used as a giant screen to project photos or movies. Despite its massive, thunderous stature—the architects believe that the primary function of the skyscraper, which they’ve nicknamed the “Anti-Landmark,” is to “celebrate the global community rather than focus on itself.” They write: “Instead of symbolizing prominence as another of the world’s tallest and best towers, our solution aims to provide the World’s first invisible tower, showcasing innovative Korean technology while encouraging a more Global narrative in the process.”

Whether Tower Infinity is “a magical piece of technological ingenuity, or a cynical new branch of architectural exhibitionism,” as Architizer puts it, one thing’s for sure: the $28B “Dream Hub,” a minicity of architectural experimentation composed of buildings by Daniel Libekind, Foster + Partners, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, among others, as well as a rather controversial number by MVRDV, probably won’t happen in Seoul.

It will be interesting to see how this type of facade will be deployed. Imagine a regular show where the building lights up and then suddenly disappears. In a less urban area or if the backdrop is conducive, the building could disappear to be replaced by a scene of nature. Or, the LCD facade might be used as a giant advertising screen. Perhaps new regulations and codes have to be developed by urban municipalities to limit what the building might do.

But, I can’t help thinking the building has a future in action movies, perhaps the James Bond or Mission: Impossible series, as the centerpiece in some bizarre plot.

Destroying city buildings with no debris

Posted on by

The New York Times highlights new techniques for “stealth demolition” so that large urban buildings can be demolished with little mess:

At times the techniques seem to defy gravity, or at least common sense, for although the buildings appear intact, they slowly shrink. The methods, which make for a cleaner and quieter work site, may eventually find favor in New York and other cities as aging skyscrapers become obsolete and the best solution is to take them down and rebuild.

The latest Tokyo high-rise to get the stealth treatment is the Akasaka Prince Hotel, a 40-story tower with a distinctive saw-toothed facade overlooking one of the city’s bustling commercial districts. Since last fall, its steel and concrete innards have been torn apart, floor by floor, starting near the top, by hydraulic shears and other heavy equipment. The building has been shrinking by about two floors every 10 days; this month it will be gone, to be replaced by two new towers…

The cap helps keep noise and dust down compared with more conventional methods of demolishing tall buildings, which involve erecting a scaffold all the way up and around the structure but leaving the top exposed. “All the work is inside the covered area,” Mr. Ichihara said. “The noise level is 20 decibels lower than the conventional way, and there’s 90 percent less dust leaving the area.”…

It is unclear whether demolition contractors in the United States will adopt any of the Japanese methods; even in Tokyo many buildings are demolished in more conventional ways. (With the new techniques, setting up the project can be more expensive, but the demolition often takes less time than with conventional methods.)

We put a lot of effort into thinking about how buildings are constructed but less effort in thinking about how to effectively repurpose them or tear them down. Perhaps the owners of many new buildings aren’t terribly concerned with the long-term prospects of a building but the buildings aren’t just about the initial occupants and become part of a community.

Just a quick thought: with the relatively slow pace of demolition, how many people who see these large buildings day-to-day notice the demolition? I suspect for some that the building will disappear and they won’t notice until the end.

Arguing over whether spires and antennas at top of skyscrapers count for a building’s height

Posted on by

There is an ongoing argument, including this opinion piece from a “Chicago partisan,” about what at the top of a skyscraper should count toward the building’s official height. The latest round of argument involves the new World Trade Center building:

So far, nothing is official: the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the international organization of skyscraper engineers, designers and builders that certifies a building’s height, will weigh in only when One World Trade Center is completed. At an expected, historically symbolic 1,776 feet, the New York tower seems to have a solid claim.

But Chicagoans who live in the shadow of the 1,451-foot tall Willis Tower, which has held the title of nation’s tallest for some 40 years, should cry foul — because deciding just how tall a building is turns out to be more complicated than it might seem…

The council has three categories for measuring the heights of tall buildings: height to “architectural top,” “highest occupied floor” and “height to tip.” This may seem like splitting hairs, but the differences can be considerable.

The meanings of “height to tip” and “highest occupied floor” are self-evident. But “architectural top,” the category the council uses to officially crown the tallest building, is less clear; it includes “spires,” but not “antennas, signage, flag poles or other functional-technical equipment.” This wording deliberately makes the short, pointy tops of the Petronas Towers count, but leaves out the much taller antennas that crown the Willis Tower.

The way this argument is going, it seems like city partisans want to change the definition of building heights in a way that best advantages their tallest structure. Why? This is more about status and prestige than anything else. The city with the official tallest building can claim something about themselves. Certain cities, like Chicago and New York, are known for their skylines and have historically dominated this international race.

I’m not sure why exactly this matters for certain cities. On the one hand, these tallest buildings can dominate a skyline. Being at the top of the record books can bring some attention, though it is unclear what exactly it leads to. On the other hand, the square footage of residential or commercial space that one building can add doesn’t make or break a business district (unless, perhaps, it is the only really tall building). Also, the tallest building can be built nearly anywhere, whether in New York, Chicago, Kuala Lumpur, or Dubai. Does the tallest building really signal architectural or engineering competence? Doesn’t it tell us something that not every major or global city is chasing this record?

In other words, this might be a record that only a few cities and boosters really care about.