💾 Archived View for gmi.noulin.net › mobileNews › 4876.gmi captured on 2021-12-05 at 23:47:19. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

View Raw

More Information

⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)

➡️ Next capture (2023-01-29)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Are we on the brink of the first mile-high building?

Skyscrapers are getting bigger, as cities race to break the record for the

tallest tower. But in the future, they may become cities themselves, helping

mitigate urban sprawl.

You have just closed the door behind you and your dog is already jumping up

your leg, demanding you take him for a walk. Normally this would mean a short

journey in the lift or a few flights of the stairs. Not so if your apartment is

in one of the world s new super-tall buildings, where you might be hundreds of

metres above ground. It s no walk in the park to take a walk in the park.

You might think today s skyscrapers are tall, but they are likely to be dwarfed

by concepts and future designs pushing human construction higher and higher. In

May this year, One World Trade Center was topped out and has become the world s

third-tallest building at 541m, restoring New York s skyline and placing it

back on the map of super tall buildings. The mantle of world s tallest building

is now held by Dubai s Burj Khalifa, completed in 2010 and which reaches the

lofty height of 829.8m. The presence of this enormous building and the fact

that even more buildings of comparable heights were under way made the Council

on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) introduce the so far latest

category of high-rises: the mega-talls, buildings exceeding 600m in height. And

this is likely to be just the beginning.

Obviously the quest for new heights is not at all new. What is different though

is that the competition for tallness turned global and consequently fiercer and

more extreme. Cities and regions compete against each other and require

buildings as landmarks that create identity, symbolise power and riches and

showcase sophistication way beyond their physical boundaries. At the moment the

race to build skyscraping towers is about prestige; but one day they may help

alleviate urban sprawl, allowing our megacities to curb their seemingly

unstoppable spread.

The title of the world s tallest building already has a new challenger; the

Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which is intended to be the first to

reach beyond the 1,000-metre mark. Originally, this project was aiming to

introduce yet another category following the super tall: the mile-high

building, but had to be scaled back because the soil would not take the weight.

Elevator revolution

Aside from the technical challenges, this category of buildings obviously also

faces financial challenges. With investments easily going beyond $1bn,

super-tall buildings aren t usually intended to be economically viable as

stand-alone buildings but are considered as part of a larger plan, where the

signature tower adds value to a surrounding entourage of smaller, more

efficient structures.

The challenges these super-tall buildings face are plentiful, requiring

enormous financial resources, sophisticated engineering skills, a consolidated

will amongst all parties involved to make it happen and finally people willing

to work, live, use and pay for them on a daily basis. The sheer size of such

projects calls for the right mix of functions that can be economically viable

within such a structure, while the overall efficiency of the building suffers

from a large core necessary to provide sufficient space for vertical

transportation. Traditionally, the elevators needed to whisk us to the top of

our towers require heavy cables to work properly; something which adds

considerably to the building s weight.

This summer, Finnish liftmaker Kone unveiled a new design the Kone Ultrarope

which will shave some 60% off the weight of the elevator infrastructure, such

as cables. Seeing as this has been one of the major factors standing in the way

of ultra-high towers, plans that were once considered unfeasible because of

weight issues may now see the light of day.

The sheer size of these projects, both in terms of floor space and the many

thousands of people using them each day, pushing them further away from being

seen as buildings and towards new territories; city within a city, a vertical

city.

The super-tall towers don t typically represent companies and are no longer

mono-functional. Instead, they are frequently named after the location they

represent and come closer to the idea of a vertical city where multitudes of

functions are combined under one roof . Super-tall building includes offices,

hotels, apartments, retail, entertainment and cultural venues. Hotels and

apartments at a high location within the building provide magnificent views,

but proximity to the ground has its logistic advantages too. Consequently

hotels and residential units can be found both at high and low segments. Subway

stations allow retail and other commercial elements to find their place in the

basement and first few levels above ground, typically within a podium

structure.

While this is a rather typical mix for super-tall towers to date, it s

reasonable to think ahead of what else might be part of the functions of towers

in the future. Given mankind s increasing urbanisation, the current division of

city and agricultural land is challenged and urban farming is becoming more

widespread. It is not a great leap to imagine the towers or tomorrow also being

used to grow food; the super-tall towers we see being built today are more

likely to have recreational green spaces at first. But the introduction of

vertical farms may not be far away.

Pyramid cities

In Japan, where urban density is an increasingly serious problem, two major

construction companies, Takenaka and Shimizu, designed concepts for such super

cities in the skies many years ago. Takenaka developed a design for Sky City

1000 as early as in 1989. This kilometre-tall structure subdivides the

high-rise into 14 horizontal segments, labeled space plateaus , comprising a

circular ring of apartments or offices surrounding a courtyard with a shared

public park in the sky. For ventilation and daylight the individual segments

are detached from each other, allowing for an exterior type of climate in the

internal courtyards, rain included. The project envisions space for 36,000

inhabitants and 100,000 workspaces within a building of 400m width and with

approximately and eight square kilometers of useable space.

Shimizu s approached the task of designing a building for a large population by

proposing a pyramidal structure rising up to approximately two kilometres.

Designed for 240,000 residential units and 2400 hectare of office space it can

house an estimated population of a million people. The pyramid is essentially a

mega truss providing both the structural and infrastructural backbone for a

cluster of smaller pyramid cities.

What matters in both projects is not their absolute height. It is the way both

deal with the challenge of very large floor area and population by subdividing

the design into almost independent units but very well connected amongst each

other. In the same time, they attempt to create a sense of human scale up in

the air, a relationship to the traditional city with streets and squares

in-between measurable built volumes. This urban quality is also claimed by the

Shanghai Tower, which refers back to the city s narrow streets and courtyards

by creating sky gardens between the outer and inner skin of the double facade.

It remains to be seen if the spatial quality of these spaces can live up to

their promise in the end.

Grey water recycling, smart shading and window coatings to reduce heat load

within the building, heat exchangers in air-conditioning systems, pre-warming

or cooling through ground pipes these are some of the ideas which could help

these new structures limit their effects on the environment. Too big and

dominant to become a failure and to be abandoned, the investment should aim for

designs that add a public and more urban level to it. These buildings should be

designed to be robust and flexible, and should create urban and human spaces at

high levels, ones that people could relate to and which can be used in the most

mundane ways like walking our dogs, hundreds of metres above the city

streets.