Tall buildings challenge stirs rivalry

The question of which is going to be the world's tallest building by the end of this decade is generating a great deal of interest and excitement.

With the rebuilding process well under way in Lower Manhattan, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat based at the Illinois Institute of Technology is working on a program of presentations and visits for an international conference on 'renewing the urban landscape', to be held fittingly this year in New York City.

According to reports quoted in the most recent issue of Tall Building News, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center has become further mired in delay and controversy.

As reported in the foregoing commentary, the flagship Freedom Tower conceived by Daniel Libeskind and taken over by David Childs, is going through further design changes and may have to be repositioned on the site due to security concerns.

These controversial issues could well be settled by the time the tall buildings conference opens in New York.

Whatever happens over the next four months, there will be plenty to see and much to discuss during those few days based at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square.

Though the New York Times and other papers are reporting in terms of disarray and errors of judgment at Ground Zero, there is also the sense of a great opportunity provided by the design review and the decision to send the original concept back to the drawing board.

Which will be the tallest building?.

Currently, the question of which is going to be the world's tallest building by the end of this decade is generating a great deal of interest and excitement.

Officially, according to the CTBUH authoritative height committee, that designation belongs to Taiwan's Taipei 101.

Measured to its architectural top, this tower rises to 508m, which puts it well above Malaysia's twin Petronas Towers at 452m.

Chicago's Sears Tower is next at 442 m, followed by the Jin Mao Building in Shanghai at 421m.

In the Freedom Tower original design, the height was set at 540m.

Both the New York State and City authorities are determined to hold it at that, whatever other modifications are conceded in the design review now in progress.

There are however two fresh contenders for the height record: the Burj Tower in Dubai and a record breaking skyscraper in New Delhi.

The first is under construction, the second still at the design stage.

The architect for the New Delhi tower is Hafeez Contractor and if this 50-storey hotel with 40-storey atrium is ever built, it will presumably be undertaken by an Indian firm of property developers.

The New Delhi building will, its promoters claim, top 700 m; the Burj Dubai developers declare that their tower will the tallest in the world when completed but refuse to disclose the height.

A recent release on Burj Dubai development following completion of the tower's foundation work described the placing of 192 piles constructed to depths of more than 50 m.

These are bound together by a 3.7 m concrete raft across an area of 8,000 sq m.

encompassing the tower's entire footprint.

Created by Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the design is said to be inspired by the geometrics of desert flowers and the patterning systems employed in Islamic architecture.

These influences are combined with cutting edge technology to achieve a high performance building.

When completed, the developers claim, Burj Dubai will hold the record in all four categories recognised by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat - tallest structure, highest roof and antenna and greatest slenderness.

Design innovations at Taipei.

The latest CTBUH review describes Taipei 101 as distinct from other skyscrapers not only as the world's tallest building but as standing in an area where the incidence of earthquakes and high winds call for major design innovations.

The building features the world's largest and heaviest tuned mass damper from the 87th to the 92nd floor and incorporates two of the fastest elevators in the world, rising at 1,010 m/min from the ground floor to the 89th in 39 seconds.

Though Donald Trump's proposal for replacement of the Freedom Tower was spurned by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the Manhattan Trump World Tower gets an admiring appraisal from Dr Ahmad Rahimian, president of the Cantor Seinuk Group and chairman of the CTBUH stability committee, with the help of Kenneth A.

Hiller, senior vice-president of Bovis Lend Lease.

Trump's Manhattan residential tower rises to a height of 262 m with a concrete frame cast in place from bottom to top as a 23.5 x 43.9 m constant rectangle derived from the building's footprint.

Pioneering features of the building contract were introduction of 844 kg/sq.

cm high strength concrete, 63 mm rebar and the lateral force resisting system, created by a combination of central shear walls acting as the spine, connected to the perimeter columns via perimeter 'belt' and 'hat' systems.

The 70 storey tower has a slenderness ratio of 11:1.

Tall buildings - a new approach.

A fresh approach to the design of tall buildings is suggested by the research project being carried out at the University of Nottingham by Antony Wood in association with Kohn Pedersen Fox of New York.

Antony Wood, an architect and recently appointed vice-chairman for research at the Council for Tall Buildings and Editor of its tall buildings newsletter, says that public opinion seems to be warming to the idea of tall buildings in the City of London and elsewhere in the capital - something unthinkable only a decade or two before.

"Not everyone is convinced, though".

"The heritage lobby and in particular English Heritage are concerned about the impact that tall buildings will have on the historic fabric of London".

"For every report that is issued in support of tall buildings in the UK (CABE 2001) there seems to be a contradictory report condemning them (USAC 2002)".

In a comment on the Canary Wharf docklands development, he says: "The whole project stands as a testimony to commercialism with little high rise design of quality".

"It seems to be a piece of downtown America adrift in the east end of London." Even with notable high rise examples such as Norman Foster's Swiss Re tower and Renzo Piano's Shard of Glass, he says, "one is left with the feeling that these tall buildings could be situated in any city of the world".

On the other hand, new research based on the 37-floor Heron building at 110 Bishopsgate in the heart of the City offers an example of exciting theoretical design approaches that could serve as a model or paradigm for future tall buildings.

Speaking of the concept of high-rise buildings acting as a set of interconnected billboards for example, Antony Wood says: "The building comes into its own during the night-time when huge liquid crystal screens on the facade of the building, and within the atria for the occupants, pulse out over the city".

Such flashes and pulses between high towers might make for more excitement and colour in our cities, but the direction being taken by these 'new paradigms in high rise design' enables one better to appreciate the conservatism of the heritage lobby in the face of new trends in modern architecture.

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