Research
15 December 2021
Overcoming Carbon, Climate, and Societal Challenges in Cities
Daniel Safarik, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH)
The tall building, the city, and by extension, urban life, are all facing unprecedented challenges, in multiple aspects—carbon, climate, and societal. The planet’s rapid urbanization...
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...
01 March 2020
Modern Skyscrapers in the Late 19th Century
Gerard Peet, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences Nederlands
Skyscrapers are often seen as a typically American phenomenon. This paper aims at demonstrating that in terms of technology major developments are European and that,...
30 January 2020
Tall Building Predictions for 2020
CTBUH Research
The combined brains of the CTBUH editorial and database staff boldly predict what might happen across the global skyscraper industry in 2020. Check out our...
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31 January 2019
Creating Industry-Accepted Criteria for Measuring Tall Building Floor Area
William Miranda & Dario Trabucco, CTBUH
The entire tall building industry relies on floor-area measurements to serve as a precise, unambiguous calculation to guide decisions. This can range from architects using...
28 July 2018
A Vertical Transportation Analytical Tool For the Construction of Tall Buildings
Julien Grange & Oscar Savage, Multiplex Construction Europe
The construction phase of 22 Bishopsgate, London, presented many challenges, but one of the greatest issues to overcome was the requirement to ensure comfortable and...
28 July 2018
Out of Thin Air: The Potential for High-Rise Housing Over Rail Lines
Bill Price, WSP
Cities are facing a crisis in providing housing and managing population growth. The author’s team has identified sufficient land associated with railway infrastructure to yield...
30 April 2018
How to Protect High-Rise Egress Routes?
Grzegorz Sypek, SMAY Group
Recent, tragic high-rise fires have underscored a fundamental issue: the lack of protected escape routes in tall buildings. As we build a greater volume of...
30 April 2018
Planning for a Taller London
Jules Pipe, Greater London Authority
In the past decade, London has grappled with growing pains and critical questions about how its urban landscape should be developed. More than 200 buildings...
01 December 2017
The Impact of Supertall Density on City Systems
Bill Price, Andrew Bickerdyke & Meike Borchers, WSP; et al.
This paper discusses several topics associated with the densification caused by supertall buildings and their impact on city systems. The paper covers five key areas...
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30 October 2017
Rethinking CTBUH Height Criteria In the Context of Tall Timber
Robert M. Foster, University of Queensland; Michael H. Ramage, University of Cambridge; Thomas Reynolds, The University of Edinburgh
Recent developments in the design and construction of progressively taller buildings using engineered timber as a structural material raise important questions about the language that...
Colin and Kim Hansen.jpg)
28 July 2017
Debating Tall: A Skyline Commission for London?
Barbara Weiss, Barbara Weiss Architects; Karen Cook, PLP Architecture
As hundreds of buildings over 20 stories are set to rise in London over the next few years, the Skyline Campaign, a non-profit organization, has...
02 June 2017
A “Fabric-First” Approach to Sustainable Tall Building Design
Philip Oldfield, University of New South Wales
This research suggests the most effective way for improving energy efficiency in tall buildings is a “fabric-first” approach. This involves optimizing the performance of the...
20 April 2017
Bioclimatic Comfort Design for High-Rises
Jeroen Janssen, AKT II Ltd.
Building in an ever more urbanized world, with high-rise buildings increasing in both height and number, makes it essential to ensure we create comfortable urban...
01 February 2017
Reaching for the Sky: The Determinants of Tall Office Development in Global Gateway Cities
Richard Barkham & Dennis Schoenmaker, CBRE Global Research; Michiel Daams, University of Groningen
There are numerous hypotheses about the social and economic processes that lead to the development of skyscrapers, but empirical evidence is scarce. In this article,...
01 January 2017
20 Fenchurch Street, London, UK
20 Fenchurch Street, located in the financial district of the City of London, was designed by architect Rafael Viñoly. The building has been nicknamed the...
17 October 2016
1 Undershaft – The City of London’s New Skyscraper Where the Public Comes First
Eric Parry, Nick Jackson & Tanya Parkin, Eric Parry Architects
The paper will describe the aims underpinning the proposed development at 1 Undershaft in the City of London. The project will be exemplary in putting...
17 October 2016
21st Century Vertical Lifestyles - Intergenerational, Integrated Communities
Stephan Reinke, Stephan Reinke Architects Limited
How does the 21st Century youth culture of social media integrate and merge with an ever increasing tech savvy senior population? As our cities and...
17 October 2016
A “Fabric-First” Approach to Sustainable Tall Building Design
Philip Oldfield, University of New South Wales
This research suggests the most effective way for improving energy efficiency in tall buildings is a “fabric-first” approach. This involves optimizing the performance of the...
17 October 2016
City Hubs
Keith Griffiths, Aedas
Our lives are adapting to a convenient, vibrant, and connected live-work dynamic, and our cities must change and respond to those new requirements. Much of...
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
High Intensity Urban Order
Patrik Schumacher, Zaha Hadid Architects
Density via high-rise structures remains a primary agenda in our era of urban concentration. It is crucial to understand the societal forces that drive concentration:...
17 October 2016
Jobsite Safety Management: Potential of Navigated Inspection
Pin-Chao Liao, Xiaoyun Wang & Xinlu Sun, Tsinghua University; Youssef Khalife, United Technologies Corporation
Unsafe behaviors are one of the most critical leading indicators of construction accidents; therefore, timely identification of unsafe behaviors, and understanding the rationale behind them,...
NasirKhanSaikat.jpg)
17 October 2016
Megacities: Setting the Scene
Daniel Safarik, Shawn Ursini & Antony Wood; Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
The rise of the megacity presents unprecedented opportunities to understand the human urbanization phenomenon, and to observe the effects of multicore, polycentric cities growing together...
17 October 2016
Remodel, Recycle or Rebuild? - Addressing the Fire Safety Challenges of Repurposing Skyscrapers
Simon Lay, Olsson Fire & Risk
Some of our established world cities are already facing the challenge of older tall building stock that is no longer relevant to the most commercially...
17 October 2016
The Integrated Smart Design Technologies for Tall Building Structural Design
Pamg Liu, YuCheng, Dorothee Citerne & Leo Zhang, Arup
A series of integrated smart design tools has been developed to satisfy different design requirements and to achieve an optimal balance between economics and safety....
17 October 2016
The New Super Skinny Skyscraper Trend: Some Wind Engineering Considerations
Stefano Cammelli, Sara Bisio & Yiqing Wang, BMT Fluid Mechanics Ltd.
A new and almost unprecedented model for skyscrapers is currently being explored within the Manhattan real estate market: these are the so-called super slender ultra-luxury...
17 October 2016
The Rejuvenation of a Tall Building
Albert Williamson-Taylor, AKT II Limited
The incredibly rapid urbanization observed in many of the larger cities in the world is forcing society, and the construction industry in particular, to think...
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04 February 2016
The Other Side of Tall Buildings: The Urban Habitat
Daniel Safarik, CTBUH
A growing number of tall buildings recognized by the CTBUH, through its international awards programs and research, are noteworthy not so much because of their...
26 October 2015
Capturing the Placemaking Potential of the New Skyscraper City
Stefan Krummeck & Benjamin MacLeod, Farrells
This paper is a comparative analysis between Qianhai and an earlier case with which Qianhai bears many similarities: Canary Wharf in London. Both were envisaged...
26 October 2015
Challenges and Benefits of Integrating Public Space into Tall Buildings
Rafael Viñoly, Charles Blomberg & Marcos Blanes, Rafael Viñoly Architects
The integration of publicly accessible amenities into tall buildings is a desirable approach to expand the use of a given building to ever-broader segments of...
26 October 2015
Context, Climate, Culture – Investigating Place in Tall Building Design
Robert Goodwin, Perkins + Will
Should a tower in Moscow look like one in Dubai? Once one entered a city and marveled at the unique magic of its architecture –...
26 October 2015
Developing an Icon – The Story of the Shard
Irvine Sellar, Sellar Property Group
London is considered one of the world’s safest harbors for investment capital. However, it has also been one of the lightning rods in the rapidly...
26 October 2015
How New Generations, Industries and Workplace Paradigms Are Redefining the Commercial High-Rise
Timothy Johnson, NBBJ
This paper will provide a data-driven analysis of building performance from three eras: the early 1900s, mid-twentieth century, and today. This longitudinal analysis will illustrate...
26 October 2015
It’s Not About the Skyline, It’s About the Base Condition
Terri Boake, University of Waterloo
The rapid densification of cities is a fairly recent phenomenon and seems in many cases to be progressing without regard to important already established urban...
26 October 2015
Making Cities – Examples of Urban Development in London
David Partridge, Argent
The paper uses the example of Argent’s work at King’s Cross to explore issues of density in mixed use city development, and the creation of...
26 October 2015
New Developments on Stainless Steel Façades with Regard to Reflectance, Corrosion and Aesthetics
Joern Teipel, Outokumpu
Stainless steel is a key material in modern skyscraper architecture, exploiting the material’s sustainability, functionality and aesthetics. After an outline on some general features of...
26 October 2015
The Network of Urban Spaces Surrounding Tall Buildings
James Parakh, City of Toronto Planning Department
This paper investigates the Network of Urban Spaces Surrounding Tall Buildings, the Tall Building as Place Makers how Tall Buildings meet the street. As contributing...
26 October 2015
The Promise of Public Realm: Urban Spaces in the Skyscraper City
Stephan Reinke, Stephan Reinke Architects
This paper will reveal the importance of integrating the Ground Plane, Mid-Level and Rooftop Urban Public Spaces in the City. We will explore the NYLON...
26 October 2015
The Vertical Master Plan
Temoor Ahmad & Neven Sidor, Grimshaw Architects; Steve Watts, Alinea Consulting; Adam Miller, Thornton Tomasetti
With over half of the world’s population now living in an urban environment, major world cities (especially) will always grow in population over time. To...
17 August 2015
Fire Safety Strategies for Penthouse Designs
Hadrien Fruton & Karl Wallasch, Hoare Lea
Penthouses, with their luxurious amenities and uninterrupted 360-degree views over the city skyline, tend to be larger than normal apartments and often have unique design...
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28 July 2015
Debating Tall: Has Tall Social Housing Been a Failure?
Shi-Ming Yu, National University of Singapore; Reinier de Graaf, Office for Metropolitan Architecture
The world’s rapid urbanization and densification of its cities will need to include its legions of economically disadvantaged people. Yet in many countries, the “obvious”...
31 December 2014
Interactive Study on Year in Review: Tall Trends of 2014
Daniel Safarik, Antony Wood, Marty Carver & Marshall Gerometta, CTBUH
An All-Time Record 97 Buildings of 200 Meters or Higher Completed in 2014 and 2014 showed further shifts towards Asia, and also surprising developments in...
06 November 2014
From Block to Blob and Back Again
Ben van Berkel, UNStudio
United Network Studio (UN Studio) is a Dutch architecture firm founded in 1988 by Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, which in the 2000s established...
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...
01 June 2014
High Life in the Sky? Mortality Rates in Swiss High-rises
Radoslaw Panczak, University of Bern; Bruna Galobardes, Bristol University; Adrian Spörri et al., ISPM
High-rise housing continues to attract criticism in many countries as an unhealthy and unpleasant habitat that isolates people and attracts crime. Nearly one in six...
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26 February 2014
The New Context of Tall
Rem Koolhaas & David Gianotten, OMA
On the occasion of receiving the Best Tall Building Worldwide award at the 12th Annual CTBUH Awards Symposium and Dinner for CCTV Headquarters, Beijing, Rem...
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31 December 2013
Year in Review: Tall Trends of 2013
Daniel Safarik, Antony Wood, Marty Carver & Marshall Gerometta, CTBUH
By all appearances, the small increase in the total number of tall-building completions from 2012 into 2013 is indicative of a return to the prevalent...
13 June 2013
The History of the European Skyscraper
Nathaniel Hollister, CTBUH
Due to the compact and historic nature of its cities, some unpopular designs, and an unfortunate association with public housing, Europe had historically been slow...
12 June 2013
Case Study: The Leadenhall Building, London
Andy Young, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners; Nigel Annereau, Arup; Andy Butler, Laing O’Rourke; Brian Smith, Davis Langdon
The Leadenhall Building leans back to make way for views to St. Paul’s Cathedral and other historic sites in a crowded section of the City...
12 June 2013
From “Dry and Safe” to “Tall and Sharp” / Owning an Icon
Kent Gardner, Evans Randall
The owners of two of London’s most significant skyscrapers, Irvine Sellar of the Shard and Kent Gardner of the Gherkin, spoke with CTBUH about the...
11 June 2013
Debating Tall: Limit Tall Buildings to the Outskirts of Historic Cities?
Phillippe Chaix, EPADESA; Sir Stuart Lipton, Chelsfield Partners
Tall building construction is on the rise in historic European cities. As economic pressures mount to build taller in the central city, we ask, should...
11 June 2013
The Special Nature of the European Skyscraper
Viewpoints: The London Conference
European architecture is at a crossroads. Its commercial and environmental realities are driving buildings ever-higher, but not all are convinced. In this article – contributed...
01 June 2013
The Past, Present and Future of the European Skyscraper
CTBUH Research
There are currently 109 skyscrapers over 150 meters in Europe. This number is set to jump to 161 by the end of 2015, meaning that...
01 May 2013
Engineering Tall in Historic Cities: The Shard
Kamran Moazami & Ron Slade, WSP
Can historic cities preserve their character and identity while embracing the modern tall building phenomenon? Two engineering-team leaders behind the Shard discuss the creative solutions...
01 May 2013
Office vs. Residential:The Economics of Building Tall
James Barton & Steve Watts, Davis Langdon
When it comes to tall buildings in London, the sky’s the limit, and not necessary in terms of height. With rents among the highest in...
01 March 2013
Performance Based Fire Engineering in the UK
Roger Plank, University of Sheffield
This paper reviews the recent developments in fire engineering and the design approaches which are being used in the UK, compared with traditional prescriptive solutions....
13 January 2013
The Shard, London, UK
As the tallest skyscraper in Western Europe, The Shard takes its name from the four shards of the doubleglazed glass façade set at various angles,...
21 September 2012
How Tall Buildings Meet the Ground is as Important as How They Meet the Sky
James Goettsch, Goettsch Partners
If you are concerned about the urban habitat, you have to be concerned about whether or not buildings provide a positive experience at the ground...
19 September 2012
Embodied Carbon and High-Rise
Philip Oldfield, University of Nottingham
This paper examines the significance of embodied energy and carbon in tall buildings. It presents the life-cycle carbon analysis (including both operational and embodied emissions)...
27 April 2012
Debating Tall: Is UNESCO Going Too Far?
Paul Finch, Architectural Review and UK Design Council; Marie-Noel Tournoux & Patricia Alberth, UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Controversy has erupted over development proposals in London and Liverpool in the UK, which UNESCO says will damage views of World Heritage sites. Critics counter...
01 November 2011
Integrating Wind Turbines in Tall Buildings
Ian Bogle, Bogle Flanagan Lawrence Silver
The world is constantly changing. Our energy demands are increasing daily and global population is expected to increase by another 50% to 9 billion people...
11 May 2011
So You Want a Tall Building?
John Worthington, DEGW
Having devised tall building strategies for Rotterdam, Dublin and London, he is the kind of guy who is called in as cities start to think...
01 May 2011
The Importance of Real Life Data to Support Environmental Claims for Tall Buildings
Joana Gonçalves, Universidade de São Paulo (FAUUSP); Klaus Bode, BDSP Partnership
One of the main causes of energy efficiency failures is LEED rewarding projects for their predictions, but not for proving the savings. The operation of...
13 April 2011
Tall and Urban: An Analysis of Global Population and Tall Buildings
CTBUH Research
Tall buildings are spreading across the globe at an ever-increasing rate. This study demonstrates the relationship between population and tall buildings across those countries and...
15 December 2010
Dormitowers
Richard Simpson, UNITE Group, Plc.
This past decade, “student skyscrapers” have re-emerged at or near university campuses and city centers. As such, the vertical dorm is making a comeback after...
09 October 2010
The Economics of High-rise
Steve Watts, Davis Langdon
Includes comparative studies of high-rise construction costs based on location and building function. Key high-rise cost drivers = shape & geometry, size & regularity of...
01 February 2009
The Skycourt - A Comparison of Four Case Studies
Jason Pomeroy, Broadway Malyan
The effects of industrial capitalism and secularism have not only seen the fall of public man (Sennett 1976) but the slow disintegration of the public...
03 March 2008
It’s Not What You Build, But the Place Where You Build It: Urban Sustainability in London
Peter Rees, City of London Corporation
This paper argues that a wise property developer who wishes to avoid leaving a clumsy trail of carbon footprints across the planet will therefore choose...
03 March 2008
Steel-Concrete-Steel: Unique Hybrids at London Tallest
Kamran Moazami, John Parker & Rodolfo Giannini, WSP Cantor Seinuk
This paper presents the structural engineering design approach used to create the iconic tower named the ‘Shard at London Bridge’ (Architect: Renzo Piano Building Workshop)....
03 March 2008
The Tall Building, Reconsidered.....
Simon Allford, Paul Monaghan & Jeremy Melvin, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris LLP
This paper examines the surprising revival of tall buildings in the UK since the late 1990s, through the work of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. Founded...
03 March 2008
Towards More Sustainable Tall Buildings
Ken Dalton & Richard John, AECOM
The paper covers with the view that sustainability outcomes will only be fully successful if sustainability priorities are shared by the planners, investors, developers, landlords,...
05 November 2007
The Economics of Supertall Towers
Watts, Steve; Kalita, Neal & Maclean, Michael, Davis Langdon
This paper addresses global economic factors infl uencing the decisions leading to the development of super-tall towers, including population growth and urbanization, economic cycles and...
06 December 2005
Mixed-Use High Rise in the UK: An Urban Renaissance?
Antony Wood, CTBUH Executive Director
In many cities around the world, inner-city living is seen as a vital factor in the success of an urban centre. In recent decades in...
10 October 2004
Fire Engineering the Tallest Building in the Historic City of Manchester, UK
Dean Kevin McGrail & Simon Francis Lay, WSP Fire Engineering; W.K. Chow, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
This paper addresses the fire engineered design of the means of escape provisions from the residential areas of the New Landmark Beetham Tower in the...
10 October 2004
New Paradigms in High Rise Design
Antony Wood, University of Nottingham
Tall Buildings are perhaps the most keenly debated building typology currently in existence. Opinion on their contribution to the urban agenda is usually clearly divided;...
10 October 2004
The EnTrak System: Supporting Energy Action Planning via the Internet
J. Kim & J.A. Clarke, University of Strathclyde
The aim of this paper is to provide decision-makers with information on energy demands, supplies and impacts by sector, time, fuel type and so on,...
01 August 2004
New Paradigms in High Rise Design
Antony Wood, University of Nottingham
Tall Buildings are perhaps the most keenly debated building typology currently in existence. By relating this to recent tall buildings internationally, the paper concludes by...
20 October 2003
Cost Comparison Between North American Codes and British Collapse Measures
Barry Charnish, Halcrow Yolles
This paper will provide a review of the specific code clauses an estimate of the structural cost premium, based on a normalized design, with costs...
26 February 2001
Birmingham: Inventing a New Life for the 21st Century
Rod Duncan; JM Architects
In 1998-99 Rod Duncan participated in an international professional exchange to Birmingham. Duncan writes on the valuable lessons from Birmingham, identifying the factors influencing its...
15 December 2021
Overcoming Carbon, Climate, and Societal Challenges in Cities
Daniel Safarik, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH)
The tall building, the city, and by extension, urban life, are all facing unprecedented challenges, in multiple aspects—carbon, climate, and societal. The planet’s rapid urbanization...
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...
01 March 2020
Modern Skyscrapers in the Late 19th Century
Gerard Peet, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences Nederlands
Skyscrapers are often seen as a typically American phenomenon. This paper aims at demonstrating that in terms of technology major developments are European and that,...
30 January 2020
Tall Building Predictions for 2020
CTBUH Research
The combined brains of the CTBUH editorial and database staff boldly predict what might happen across the global skyscraper industry in 2020. Check out our...
31 January 2019
Creating Industry-Accepted Criteria for Measuring Tall Building Floor Area
William Miranda & Dario Trabucco, CTBUH
The entire tall building industry relies on floor-area measurements to serve as a precise, unambiguous calculation to guide decisions. This can range from architects using...
28 July 2018
A Vertical Transportation Analytical Tool For the Construction of Tall Buildings
Julien Grange & Oscar Savage, Multiplex Construction Europe
The construction phase of 22 Bishopsgate, London, presented many challenges, but one of the greatest issues to overcome was the requirement to ensure comfortable and...
28 July 2018
Out of Thin Air: The Potential for High-Rise Housing Over Rail Lines
Bill Price, WSP
Cities are facing a crisis in providing housing and managing population growth. The author’s team has identified sufficient land associated with railway infrastructure to yield...
30 April 2018
How to Protect High-Rise Egress Routes?
Grzegorz Sypek, SMAY Group
Recent, tragic high-rise fires have underscored a fundamental issue: the lack of protected escape routes in tall buildings. As we build a greater volume of...
30 April 2018
Planning for a Taller London
Jules Pipe, Greater London Authority
In the past decade, London has grappled with growing pains and critical questions about how its urban landscape should be developed. More than 200 buildings...
01 December 2017
The Impact of Supertall Density on City Systems
Bill Price, Andrew Bickerdyke & Meike Borchers, WSP; et al.
This paper discusses several topics associated with the densification caused by supertall buildings and their impact on city systems. The paper covers five key areas...
30 October 2017
Rethinking CTBUH Height Criteria In the Context of Tall Timber
Robert M. Foster, University of Queensland; Michael H. Ramage, University of Cambridge; Thomas Reynolds, The University of Edinburgh
Recent developments in the design and construction of progressively taller buildings using engineered timber as a structural material raise important questions about the language that...
28 July 2017
Debating Tall: A Skyline Commission for London?
Barbara Weiss, Barbara Weiss Architects; Karen Cook, PLP Architecture
As hundreds of buildings over 20 stories are set to rise in London over the next few years, the Skyline Campaign, a non-profit organization, has...
02 June 2017
A “Fabric-First” Approach to Sustainable Tall Building Design
Philip Oldfield, University of New South Wales
This research suggests the most effective way for improving energy efficiency in tall buildings is a “fabric-first” approach. This involves optimizing the performance of the...
20 April 2017
Bioclimatic Comfort Design for High-Rises
Jeroen Janssen, AKT II Ltd.
Building in an ever more urbanized world, with high-rise buildings increasing in both height and number, makes it essential to ensure we create comfortable urban...
01 February 2017
Reaching for the Sky: The Determinants of Tall Office Development in Global Gateway Cities
Richard Barkham & Dennis Schoenmaker, CBRE Global Research; Michiel Daams, University of Groningen
There are numerous hypotheses about the social and economic processes that lead to the development of skyscrapers, but empirical evidence is scarce. In this article,...
01 January 2017
20 Fenchurch Street, London, UK
20 Fenchurch Street, located in the financial district of the City of London, was designed by architect Rafael Viñoly. The building has been nicknamed the...
17 October 2016
1 Undershaft – The City of London’s New Skyscraper Where the Public Comes First
Eric Parry, Nick Jackson & Tanya Parkin, Eric Parry Architects
The paper will describe the aims underpinning the proposed development at 1 Undershaft in the City of London. The project will be exemplary in putting...
17 October 2016
21st Century Vertical Lifestyles - Intergenerational, Integrated Communities
Stephan Reinke, Stephan Reinke Architects Limited
How does the 21st Century youth culture of social media integrate and merge with an ever increasing tech savvy senior population? As our cities and...
17 October 2016
A “Fabric-First” Approach to Sustainable Tall Building Design
Philip Oldfield, University of New South Wales
This research suggests the most effective way for improving energy efficiency in tall buildings is a “fabric-first” approach. This involves optimizing the performance of the...
17 October 2016
City Hubs
Keith Griffiths, Aedas
Our lives are adapting to a convenient, vibrant, and connected live-work dynamic, and our cities must change and respond to those new requirements. Much of...
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
High Intensity Urban Order
Patrik Schumacher, Zaha Hadid Architects
Density via high-rise structures remains a primary agenda in our era of urban concentration. It is crucial to understand the societal forces that drive concentration:...
17 October 2016
Jobsite Safety Management: Potential of Navigated Inspection
Pin-Chao Liao, Xiaoyun Wang & Xinlu Sun, Tsinghua University; Youssef Khalife, United Technologies Corporation
Unsafe behaviors are one of the most critical leading indicators of construction accidents; therefore, timely identification of unsafe behaviors, and understanding the rationale behind them,...
17 October 2016
Megacities: Setting the Scene
Daniel Safarik, Shawn Ursini & Antony Wood; Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
The rise of the megacity presents unprecedented opportunities to understand the human urbanization phenomenon, and to observe the effects of multicore, polycentric cities growing together...
17 October 2016
Remodel, Recycle or Rebuild? - Addressing the Fire Safety Challenges of Repurposing Skyscrapers
Simon Lay, Olsson Fire & Risk
Some of our established world cities are already facing the challenge of older tall building stock that is no longer relevant to the most commercially...
17 October 2016
The Integrated Smart Design Technologies for Tall Building Structural Design
Pamg Liu, YuCheng, Dorothee Citerne & Leo Zhang, Arup
A series of integrated smart design tools has been developed to satisfy different design requirements and to achieve an optimal balance between economics and safety....
17 October 2016
The New Super Skinny Skyscraper Trend: Some Wind Engineering Considerations
Stefano Cammelli, Sara Bisio & Yiqing Wang, BMT Fluid Mechanics Ltd.
A new and almost unprecedented model for skyscrapers is currently being explored within the Manhattan real estate market: these are the so-called super slender ultra-luxury...
17 October 2016
The Rejuvenation of a Tall Building
Albert Williamson-Taylor, AKT II Limited
The incredibly rapid urbanization observed in many of the larger cities in the world is forcing society, and the construction industry in particular, to think...
04 February 2016
The Other Side of Tall Buildings: The Urban Habitat
Daniel Safarik, CTBUH
A growing number of tall buildings recognized by the CTBUH, through its international awards programs and research, are noteworthy not so much because of their...
26 October 2015
Capturing the Placemaking Potential of the New Skyscraper City
Stefan Krummeck & Benjamin MacLeod, Farrells
This paper is a comparative analysis between Qianhai and an earlier case with which Qianhai bears many similarities: Canary Wharf in London. Both were envisaged...
26 October 2015
Challenges and Benefits of Integrating Public Space into Tall Buildings
Rafael Viñoly, Charles Blomberg & Marcos Blanes, Rafael Viñoly Architects
The integration of publicly accessible amenities into tall buildings is a desirable approach to expand the use of a given building to ever-broader segments of...
26 October 2015
Context, Climate, Culture – Investigating Place in Tall Building Design
Robert Goodwin, Perkins + Will
Should a tower in Moscow look like one in Dubai? Once one entered a city and marveled at the unique magic of its architecture –...
26 October 2015
Developing an Icon – The Story of the Shard
Irvine Sellar, Sellar Property Group
London is considered one of the world’s safest harbors for investment capital. However, it has also been one of the lightning rods in the rapidly...
26 October 2015
How New Generations, Industries and Workplace Paradigms Are Redefining the Commercial High-Rise
Timothy Johnson, NBBJ
This paper will provide a data-driven analysis of building performance from three eras: the early 1900s, mid-twentieth century, and today. This longitudinal analysis will illustrate...
26 October 2015
It’s Not About the Skyline, It’s About the Base Condition
Terri Boake, University of Waterloo
The rapid densification of cities is a fairly recent phenomenon and seems in many cases to be progressing without regard to important already established urban...
26 October 2015
Making Cities – Examples of Urban Development in London
David Partridge, Argent
The paper uses the example of Argent’s work at King’s Cross to explore issues of density in mixed use city development, and the creation of...
26 October 2015
New Developments on Stainless Steel Façades with Regard to Reflectance, Corrosion and Aesthetics
Joern Teipel, Outokumpu
Stainless steel is a key material in modern skyscraper architecture, exploiting the material’s sustainability, functionality and aesthetics. After an outline on some general features of...
26 October 2015
The Network of Urban Spaces Surrounding Tall Buildings
James Parakh, City of Toronto Planning Department
This paper investigates the Network of Urban Spaces Surrounding Tall Buildings, the Tall Building as Place Makers how Tall Buildings meet the street. As contributing...
26 October 2015
The Promise of Public Realm: Urban Spaces in the Skyscraper City
Stephan Reinke, Stephan Reinke Architects
This paper will reveal the importance of integrating the Ground Plane, Mid-Level and Rooftop Urban Public Spaces in the City. We will explore the NYLON...
26 October 2015
The Vertical Master Plan
Temoor Ahmad & Neven Sidor, Grimshaw Architects; Steve Watts, Alinea Consulting; Adam Miller, Thornton Tomasetti
With over half of the world’s population now living in an urban environment, major world cities (especially) will always grow in population over time. To...
17 August 2015
Fire Safety Strategies for Penthouse Designs
Hadrien Fruton & Karl Wallasch, Hoare Lea
Penthouses, with their luxurious amenities and uninterrupted 360-degree views over the city skyline, tend to be larger than normal apartments and often have unique design...
28 July 2015
Debating Tall: Has Tall Social Housing Been a Failure?
Shi-Ming Yu, National University of Singapore; Reinier de Graaf, Office for Metropolitan Architecture
The world’s rapid urbanization and densification of its cities will need to include its legions of economically disadvantaged people. Yet in many countries, the “obvious”...
31 December 2014
Interactive Study on Year in Review: Tall Trends of 2014
Daniel Safarik, Antony Wood, Marty Carver & Marshall Gerometta, CTBUH
An All-Time Record 97 Buildings of 200 Meters or Higher Completed in 2014 and 2014 showed further shifts towards Asia, and also surprising developments in...
06 November 2014
From Block to Blob and Back Again
Ben van Berkel, UNStudio
United Network Studio (UN Studio) is a Dutch architecture firm founded in 1988 by Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, which in the 2000s established...
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...
01 June 2014
High Life in the Sky? Mortality Rates in Swiss High-rises
Radoslaw Panczak, University of Bern; Bruna Galobardes, Bristol University; Adrian Spörri et al., ISPM
High-rise housing continues to attract criticism in many countries as an unhealthy and unpleasant habitat that isolates people and attracts crime. Nearly one in six...
26 February 2014
The New Context of Tall
Rem Koolhaas & David Gianotten, OMA
On the occasion of receiving the Best Tall Building Worldwide award at the 12th Annual CTBUH Awards Symposium and Dinner for CCTV Headquarters, Beijing, Rem...
31 December 2013
Year in Review: Tall Trends of 2013
Daniel Safarik, Antony Wood, Marty Carver & Marshall Gerometta, CTBUH
By all appearances, the small increase in the total number of tall-building completions from 2012 into 2013 is indicative of a return to the prevalent...
13 June 2013
The History of the European Skyscraper
Nathaniel Hollister, CTBUH
Due to the compact and historic nature of its cities, some unpopular designs, and an unfortunate association with public housing, Europe had historically been slow...
12 June 2013
Case Study: The Leadenhall Building, London
Andy Young, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners; Nigel Annereau, Arup; Andy Butler, Laing O’Rourke; Brian Smith, Davis Langdon
The Leadenhall Building leans back to make way for views to St. Paul’s Cathedral and other historic sites in a crowded section of the City...
12 June 2013
From “Dry and Safe” to “Tall and Sharp” / Owning an Icon
Kent Gardner, Evans Randall
The owners of two of London’s most significant skyscrapers, Irvine Sellar of the Shard and Kent Gardner of the Gherkin, spoke with CTBUH about the...
11 June 2013
Debating Tall: Limit Tall Buildings to the Outskirts of Historic Cities?
Phillippe Chaix, EPADESA; Sir Stuart Lipton, Chelsfield Partners
Tall building construction is on the rise in historic European cities. As economic pressures mount to build taller in the central city, we ask, should...
11 June 2013
The Special Nature of the European Skyscraper
Viewpoints: The London Conference
European architecture is at a crossroads. Its commercial and environmental realities are driving buildings ever-higher, but not all are convinced. In this article – contributed...
01 June 2013
The Past, Present and Future of the European Skyscraper
CTBUH Research
There are currently 109 skyscrapers over 150 meters in Europe. This number is set to jump to 161 by the end of 2015, meaning that...
01 May 2013
Engineering Tall in Historic Cities: The Shard
Kamran Moazami & Ron Slade, WSP
Can historic cities preserve their character and identity while embracing the modern tall building phenomenon? Two engineering-team leaders behind the Shard discuss the creative solutions...
01 May 2013
Office vs. Residential:The Economics of Building Tall
James Barton & Steve Watts, Davis Langdon
When it comes to tall buildings in London, the sky’s the limit, and not necessary in terms of height. With rents among the highest in...
01 March 2013
Performance Based Fire Engineering in the UK
Roger Plank, University of Sheffield
This paper reviews the recent developments in fire engineering and the design approaches which are being used in the UK, compared with traditional prescriptive solutions....
13 January 2013
The Shard, London, UK
As the tallest skyscraper in Western Europe, The Shard takes its name from the four shards of the doubleglazed glass façade set at various angles,...
21 September 2012
How Tall Buildings Meet the Ground is as Important as How They Meet the Sky
James Goettsch, Goettsch Partners
If you are concerned about the urban habitat, you have to be concerned about whether or not buildings provide a positive experience at the ground...
19 September 2012
Embodied Carbon and High-Rise
Philip Oldfield, University of Nottingham
This paper examines the significance of embodied energy and carbon in tall buildings. It presents the life-cycle carbon analysis (including both operational and embodied emissions)...
27 April 2012
Debating Tall: Is UNESCO Going Too Far?
Paul Finch, Architectural Review and UK Design Council; Marie-Noel Tournoux & Patricia Alberth, UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Controversy has erupted over development proposals in London and Liverpool in the UK, which UNESCO says will damage views of World Heritage sites. Critics counter...
01 November 2011
Integrating Wind Turbines in Tall Buildings
Ian Bogle, Bogle Flanagan Lawrence Silver
The world is constantly changing. Our energy demands are increasing daily and global population is expected to increase by another 50% to 9 billion people...
11 May 2011
So You Want a Tall Building?
John Worthington, DEGW
Having devised tall building strategies for Rotterdam, Dublin and London, he is the kind of guy who is called in as cities start to think...
01 May 2011
The Importance of Real Life Data to Support Environmental Claims for Tall Buildings
Joana Gonçalves, Universidade de São Paulo (FAUUSP); Klaus Bode, BDSP Partnership
One of the main causes of energy efficiency failures is LEED rewarding projects for their predictions, but not for proving the savings. The operation of...
13 April 2011
Tall and Urban: An Analysis of Global Population and Tall Buildings
CTBUH Research
Tall buildings are spreading across the globe at an ever-increasing rate. This study demonstrates the relationship between population and tall buildings across those countries and...
15 December 2010
Dormitowers
Richard Simpson, UNITE Group, Plc.
This past decade, “student skyscrapers” have re-emerged at or near university campuses and city centers. As such, the vertical dorm is making a comeback after...
09 October 2010
The Economics of High-rise
Steve Watts, Davis Langdon
Includes comparative studies of high-rise construction costs based on location and building function. Key high-rise cost drivers = shape & geometry, size & regularity of...
01 February 2009
The Skycourt - A Comparison of Four Case Studies
Jason Pomeroy, Broadway Malyan
The effects of industrial capitalism and secularism have not only seen the fall of public man (Sennett 1976) but the slow disintegration of the public...
03 March 2008
It’s Not What You Build, But the Place Where You Build It: Urban Sustainability in London
Peter Rees, City of London Corporation
This paper argues that a wise property developer who wishes to avoid leaving a clumsy trail of carbon footprints across the planet will therefore choose...
03 March 2008
Steel-Concrete-Steel: Unique Hybrids at London Tallest
Kamran Moazami, John Parker & Rodolfo Giannini, WSP Cantor Seinuk
This paper presents the structural engineering design approach used to create the iconic tower named the ‘Shard at London Bridge’ (Architect: Renzo Piano Building Workshop)....
03 March 2008
The Tall Building, Reconsidered.....
Simon Allford, Paul Monaghan & Jeremy Melvin, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris LLP
This paper examines the surprising revival of tall buildings in the UK since the late 1990s, through the work of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. Founded...
03 March 2008
Towards More Sustainable Tall Buildings
Ken Dalton & Richard John, AECOM
The paper covers with the view that sustainability outcomes will only be fully successful if sustainability priorities are shared by the planners, investors, developers, landlords,...
05 November 2007
The Economics of Supertall Towers
Watts, Steve; Kalita, Neal & Maclean, Michael, Davis Langdon
This paper addresses global economic factors infl uencing the decisions leading to the development of super-tall towers, including population growth and urbanization, economic cycles and...
06 December 2005
Mixed-Use High Rise in the UK: An Urban Renaissance?
Antony Wood, CTBUH Executive Director
In many cities around the world, inner-city living is seen as a vital factor in the success of an urban centre. In recent decades in...
10 October 2004
Fire Engineering the Tallest Building in the Historic City of Manchester, UK
Dean Kevin McGrail & Simon Francis Lay, WSP Fire Engineering; W.K. Chow, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
This paper addresses the fire engineered design of the means of escape provisions from the residential areas of the New Landmark Beetham Tower in the...
10 October 2004
New Paradigms in High Rise Design
Antony Wood, University of Nottingham
Tall Buildings are perhaps the most keenly debated building typology currently in existence. Opinion on their contribution to the urban agenda is usually clearly divided;...
10 October 2004
The EnTrak System: Supporting Energy Action Planning via the Internet
J. Kim & J.A. Clarke, University of Strathclyde
The aim of this paper is to provide decision-makers with information on energy demands, supplies and impacts by sector, time, fuel type and so on,...
01 August 2004
New Paradigms in High Rise Design
Antony Wood, University of Nottingham
Tall Buildings are perhaps the most keenly debated building typology currently in existence. By relating this to recent tall buildings internationally, the paper concludes by...
20 October 2003
Cost Comparison Between North American Codes and British Collapse Measures
Barry Charnish, Halcrow Yolles
This paper will provide a review of the specific code clauses an estimate of the structural cost premium, based on a normalized design, with costs...
26 February 2001
Birmingham: Inventing a New Life for the 21st Century
Rod Duncan; JM Architects
In 1998-99 Rod Duncan participated in an international professional exchange to Birmingham. Duncan writes on the valuable lessons from Birmingham, identifying the factors influencing its...
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