Sydney - The Skyscraper Center

22 December 2023

Skyscrapers in Bloom: Evaluating the Artistry of “Painting with Trees”

Katarzyna Wodzisz

Incorporating greenery in skyscrapers prompts sustainability debates. This study questions the assumption that green features ensure sustainability, as designers often adopt them carelessly, leading to...

22 December 2023

Unraveling the Complexities of Integrated Infrastructure at Sydney Metro Pitt Street

Bill Mason & Emily Lau

This paper aims to unravel complexities faced by the designers and engineers on the Pitt Street Integrated Station Development (PSISD), also known as Gadigal Station,...

22 December 2023

Repositioning: Transformation for the Social, Urban, and Environmental Realms

Fred Holt

Addressing the dual challenges facing contemporary architecture: the imperative to minimize the industry’s carbon footprint and the pursuit of enhanced well-being and collaboration, the transformative...

16 October 2023

Interactive Study - Sea-Level Rise Susceptibility

S. Isaac Work & Shea Anthony, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

This interactive data study builds off the work conducted by the Université de Montréal, supported by the 2019 CTBUH Student Research Competition, kindly sponsored by...

03 April 2023

Year in Review: Tall Trends of 2022: World Surpasses 2,000 Buildings of 200 Meters or Greater Height

CTBUH Staff

This report shows that 147 buildings of 200 meters’ height or greater were completed in 2022, a 25 percent increase from 2021, when 118 such...

04 April 2022

Making Tall Timber Financially Viable: the Design-Build Approach

Lisa Thom, Lendlease

As the tall building industry increasingly becomes interested in using engineered mass timber to construct high-rise buildings, the economical and construction-efficiency advantages need to be...

17 September 2021

Sustainable Tall Building Design Exemplars

Will Miranda & Daniel Safarik, CTBUH

Some 97 cities worldwide, including most of the world’s megacities with a population of 10 million or more, have signed onto the C40 Cities Climate...

17 September 2021

Tall Buildings And Life Cycle Approaches: A Debate That Must Be Started

Dario Trabucco & Martina Belmonte, CTBUH

By means of life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) analyses, the authors assess the environmental and economic impact occurring during the life...

01 August 2020

On the Fast Track to “Better Placed”

Abbie Galvin, Government Architect Department of Planning, Industry, and Environment New South Wales

Abbie Galvin is the 24th Government Architect of New South Wales (NSW) state in Australia, which incorporates the Sydney metropolitan area, joining the role after...

28 October 2019

Sydney 2070: Visions of a Future City

Philip Vivian, Bates Smart

Sydney’s population is predicted to increase from 4.6 million to nearly nine million by 2061. Even without this growth, the city has already surpassed the...

28 October 2019

Transport to Vertical Schools

Rebecca Lehman, Frank Turquoise Group

New South Wales (NSW), Australia is experiencing population growth and rising property values. To meet the community’s educational needs, this means vertical public schools— intensifying...

01 July 2018

A Human-Scaled Future for Dense Development

Ivan Harbour, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

Critics of height argue that it de-humanizes our cities. Yet a critical mass is a necessity for vibrant city life, and height is a key...

30 October 2017

Shaping Australia’s Tall Tower Design And High Livability Standards

Guy Lake, Katie Rathbone, Philip Vivian & Kristen Whittle, Bates Smart

With nearly 90% of its population expected to live in its state-capital cities by 2053, Australia is on track to become one of the world’s...

30 October 2017

Humanizing the High-Rise

Kim H. Nielsen, 3XN Architects

The under-design Quay Quarter Tower will create a stunning new building on the Sydney skyline that sets new benchmarks in office tower design globally and...

30 October 2017

Empirically Evaluating the Livability Of Local Neighborhoods and Global Cities

Christian Derix, Lucy Helme, Fabio Galicia & Alexander Kachkaev, Woods Bagot

CIVITAS is a search engine for urban conditions, developed to allow stakeholders to identify qualities of livability and urban experiences that suit their tacit desires...

30 October 2017

The Role of Design Competitions In Shaping Sydney’s Public Realm

Helen Lochhead & Philip Oldfield, University of New South Wales

Since 2000, through the City of Sydney’s Competitive Design Policy (CDP), the quality of major projects in the city has been improved significantly, mediating the...

30 October 2017

Connecting the City: People, Density & Infrastructure

CTBUH 2017 Conference Speakers

The future of humanity on this planet relies on the collective benefits of urban density; reducing both land consumption and the energy needed to construct...

30 October 2017

Debating Tall: Is Australian High-Rise Housing On the Right Track?

Chris Johnson, Urban Taskforce; Elizabeth Farrelly, Australian Graduate School of Urbanism

Australia is at a critical decision point about how to manage projected growth. Historically, the response has been to build suburban sprawl, but this is...

17 October 2016

Exploring Geometry and Form in Tall Buildings

Chris Wilkinson, Wilkinson Eyre Architects

Using four tower designs on four continents – the Guangzhou International Finance Center in China, the Crown Sydney Resort Hotel in Australia, 45 Bay Street...

17 October 2016

What’s Next?: How Do We Make Vertical Urban Design?

Winy Mass, MVRDV

It seems sometimes as if the further away from the ground we rise, the more architectonic and less urban our buildings become. Skyscrapers have always...

17 October 2016

Crown Sydney: An Engineered Response to Sculptural Form

Simon Cloherty & Brad Nichols, Robert Bird Group

Crown Sydney will be located within Barangaroo South – one of three precincts on the foreshore of Darling Harbour – on the western edge of...

28 January 2016

Debating Tall: Modular as Homogenizing Force?

Shonn Mills, Ramboll; Philip Oldfield, University of New South Wales

The persistent interest in prefabricated modular construction has now turned into high-rise reality, though the results have been inconsistent. Earlier experiments with the approach resulted...

26 October 2015

Sydney 2050: A Sustainable City Vision for Greater Height, Public Benefit & Tall Building Resurgence

Philip Vivian, Bates Smart

Sydney 2050 investigates how an increased height limit in Central Sydney can allow for both sustainable population growth and also benefit the public The vision...

26 October 2015

Successful Sky Life

Paul Scott, Make

There is no doubt more tall buildings are required to accommodate global population growth. However, the taller a building, the greater the disconnect between occupants...

26 October 2015

8 Chifley – Sustainable Structural and Fire Engineering

Andrew Johnson, Arup

8 Chifley’s unique aesthetic has attracted much of the attention, however the 34 storey 150m tall building’s overall quality, sustainable performance, and structural efficiency, both...

06 November 2014

Case Study: One Central Park, Sydney

Jean Nouvel & Bertram Beissel, Ateliers Jean Nouvel

One Central Park was developed as a response to growing demand for residential accommodation in downtown Sydney. Its developers and designers used the opportunity to...

06 November 2014

Achieving a Six-Star Rated Tall Building in Sydney’s Central Business District

Lester Partridge, AECOM Building Engineering

The ANZ Tower in central Sydney not only represents the commercial office sector’s recovery from the 2008 financial crisis; it is also a strong example...

16 September 2014

Green Walls in High-Rise Buildings

CTBUH Research

The latest CTBUH technical guide, Green Walls in High-Rise Buildings, provides a thorough investigation of the methods used around the world for implementation of vertical...

16 September 2014

Innovative Designs for Natural Ventilation in High-Rise Buildings

Kevin Peddie & Tony Rofail, Windtech Consultants

Consideration of energy efficient design strategies has become one of the primary considerations by leading architectural firms during the conceptual design phases and is an...

01 May 2010

The Vertical Garden City: Towards a New Urban Topology

Chris Abel, University of Sydney

The author reviews recent innovations in high-rise architecture in search of relevant solutions but finds them still limited by conventional urban typologies. The work of...

16 October 2007

Advances in the Structural Design of High-Rise Residential Buildings in Australia

Owen Martin, Connell Mott MacDonald

This paper examines developments in the structural design of high rise concrete residential buildings in Australia’s two major cities, Sydney and Melbourne. Reference is made...

16 October 2005

126 Phillip Street, Sydney

Rocco Bressi, Bovis Lend Lease

126 Phillip Street is a super premium office tower containing 31 commercial levels, newly completed on the corner of Phillip and Hunter streets in Sydney....

10 October 2004

Structural Design of the 84 Storey World Tower in Sydney

Owen Martin & Nalean Lal, Connell Mott MacDonald

Completed in June 2003, Sydney's 84 storey 260m high World Tower is the tallest building in Australia. The structural engineering design represents an example of...

20 October 2003

An Assessment of Australian Preparedness for Tall Building Usage in a New Risk Regime

Alan P. Jeary, University of Western Sydney

This paper is an assessment of the current state of readiness of Australia to combat terrorist attacks on large occupancy buildings has been assessed in...

26 February 2001

Tall Building Design Innovations in Australia

Brian Dean, Owen Martin, David Emery & Peter Chancellor

This paper describes three examples of innovative tall building designs undertaken by the authors' firm in Australasia. These involve the design of building structures up...

26 February 2001

Aurora Place Commercial Office Tower – 88 Phillip Street, Sydney

Rocco Bressi, Bovis Lend Lease

This paper deals primarily with the structural design aspects of the commercial office tower.