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CTBUH

Journal
Tall buildings: design, construction and operation | 2008 Issue III

China Central Television Headquarters


The Vertical Farm
Partial Occupancies for Tall Buildings
CTBUH Working Group Update: Sustainability
Tall Buildings in Numbers
Moscow Gaining Height Conference
Australian CTBUH Seminars
Editor’s Message
The CTBUH Journal has undergone a major emerging trend. A number of very prominent cases
transformation in 2008, as its editorial board has are studied, and fundamental considerations for
sought to align its content with the core objectives each stakeholder in such a project are examined.
of the Council. Over the past several issues, the
journal editorial board has collaborated with some
of the most innovative minds within the field of tall The forward thinking perspectives of our authors in
building design and research to highlight new this issue are accompanied by a comprehensive
concepts and technologies that promise to reshape survey of the structural design approach behind the
the professional landscape for years to come. The new China Central Television (CCTV) Tower in Beijing,
Journal now contains a number of new features China. The paper, presented by the chief designers
intended to facilitate discourse amongst the behind the tower structure, explores the
membership on the subjects showcased in its pages. groundbreaking achievements of the entire design
And as we enter 2009, the publication is poised to team in such realms as computational analysis,
achieve even more as brilliant designers, researchers, optimization, interpretation and negotiation of local
builders and developers begin collaboration with us codes, and sophisticated construction
on papers that present yet-to-be unveiled concepts methodologies. Many of the considerations made
that change the way we think about tall buildings by the design team throughout design and
and the urban habitats that develop within, around, construction are thoroughly discussed, and paint a
and beneath them. vivid portrait of many modern challenges facing the
most geometrically complex towers of our time.

This current issue of the Journal follows suit, as it


showcases the research and work of researchers and These papers, presented here in this issue of the
designers who have envisioned the tall building CTBUH Journal, represent only a few of the many
typology as a vessel for social, cultural and economic groundbreaking subjects that are currently being
activities that have not as yet reached their true explored by contributors from every corner of the
potential for enhancing urban life, and in some cases industry, who are today working with our editorial
have not to date been implemented in large board to develop pieces that will be featured in our
measure anywhere in the world. The concept of future issues. As we continue to grow, we look to our
vertical farming for instance, presented in the membership to participate in this evolution, by
following pages by Eric Ellingsen and Dickson participating in the development of a paper on a
Despommier, holds promise to revitalize every stage topic of interest, or serving on the editorial board as
of food production by importing the entire complex an advisor or peer reviewer. If you would like to
system to the city and housing it within highly contribute to the Council through the authoring of a
specialized tall buildings adapted for this purpose. It paper or conducting peer reviews, please contact us
is a notion that is not without its pragmatic at journal@ctbuh.org. On behalf of the Council, I
quandaries, but one whose merits more than justify look forward to hearing from you.
in-depth exploration.
Best Regards,
Robert Lau explores a series of novel construction
projects involving post-occupancy construction,
which has facilitated early revenue generation for
© Arup Zak Kostura
developers who have been bold enough to join this
Zak Kostura, Editor

Published by CTBUH Chairman Copyright


the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat David Scott Copyright 2008 Council on Tall Buildings and Urban
© CTBUH 2008 Habitat. All rights reserved. No part of this publication
CTBUH Executive Director
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
Editor Antony Wood
means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in
Zak Kostura
Manager of Operations writing from the publisher.
t: +1 212 896 3240
Geri Kery
e: zkostura@ctbuh.org Image Copyright
t: +1 312 909 0253 CTBUH Journal has endeavored to determine the
Associate Editor
f: +1 610 419 0014 copyright holders of all images. Those uncredited have
Robert Lau
e: gkery@ctbuh.org been sourced from listed authors or from within CTBUH.
Design & Layout
Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat Print
Katharina Holzapfel
Illinois Institute of Technology CTBUH Journal is printed by Source4-Chicago.
e: kholzapfel@ctbuh.org
3360 South State Street www.source4.com
Design Consultant Chicago, IL 60616-3793
Front cover: CCTV Building © Frank P. Palmer
Thomas Graham www.ctbuh.org

2 | Editor's Message CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


Inside
News and Events Features
04 Message from the Chairman
David Scott, CTBUH Chairman
42 Tall Buildings in Numbers
An Overview of Historical
14 Case Study: CCTV Building - Headquarters & Cultural Center

Authors
Chris Carroll, Paul Cross, Xiaonian Duan, Craig
Gibbons, Goman Ho, Michael Kwok, Richard
Lawson, Alexis Lee, Ronald Li, Andrew Luong,
Rory McGowan, Chas Pope
Arup

Factors Affecting Tall Building Arup is a global firm of designers, engineers,


planners and business consultants providing a
diverse range of professional services to clients
around the world. The firm has over 10 000 staff

05 CTBUH News and Events Energy Consumption working in more than 90 offices in 37 countries.

Arup has three main global business areas –


buildings, infrastructure and consulting – although
their multi-disciplinary approach means that any

Antony Wood, CTBUH given project may involve people from any or all of
the sectors or regions in which they operate. Arup
has extensive experience in the field of tall
buildings, having provided core multidisciplinary
design services for such notable projects as 30 St.
Figure 1. Architect’s impression of the building
Figure 2. Uniform bracing pattern Figure 3. Unfolded’ view of final bracing pattern

Mary Axe in London, the International Commerce

Executive Director 50 Review Center (ICC) in Hong Kong, and the I.Q. Tower in
Doha, Qatar.

Arup
The new headquarters of China Central Television contains the entire television-making process
within a single building. The 234m tall tower redefines the form of the skyscraper, with the
primary system comprised of a continuous structural tube of columns, beams and braces
ng. In their architectural response, however,
OMA decided that by doing just this, it should
be possible to break down the ‘ghettoes’ that
tend to form in a complex and compartmen-
Development of the structural form
From the outset, it was determined that the
only way to deliver the desired architectural
form of the CCTV building was to engage the
two-storey module (see Figure 2). This was
chosen to coincide with the location of several
double-height studios within the Towers. A
stiff floor plate diaphragm is therefore only
around the entire skin of the building. In order to gain structural approval an Expert Panel

Skyscraper Museum Exhibit:


13 Fitzroy Street
London process was necessary, for which a performance-based analysis was carried out to justify the talized process like making TV programmes, entire façade structure, creating in essence an guaranteed on alternate storeys, hence lateral
W1T 4BQ design. This made extensive use of finite element analysis and advanced non-linear elasto- and create a building whose layout in three external continuous tube system. This would loads from intermediate levels are transferred
t: (+44) 020 7636 1531 plastic time history to evaluate the structural behaviour and ensure the building safety under dimensions would force all those involved to give the structure the largest available dimen- back to the principal diaphragm levels via the
www.arup.com different levels of seismic event. The leaning form and varied programme, including the need to mix and produce a better end-product more sions to resist the huge bending forces gener- internal core and the columns.
accommodate large studio spaces, posed additional challenges for the gravity structure, and

05 What’s on the Web Vertical Cities: Hong Kong I


efficiently. ated by the cranked, leaning form – as well as
resulted in the introduction of a large number of transfer trusses throughout the tower. Erecting
loads from wind and extreme earthquakes.
and connecting the two massive towers presented the structural engineers and contractors However, results of the preliminary analysis
with further design and construction challenges.
The winning design for the 473,000m², showed that the forces in the braces varied
234m tall, CCTV building (see Figure 1) thus The ‘tube’ is formed by fully bracing all sides of considerably around the structure, with

Featuring new content now New York Introduction


This article describes the structural design and
construction of the CCTV Building in Beijing,
including development of the structural con-
Architectural Concept
China Central Television (CCTV), the country’s
state broadcaster, plans to expand from 18
to 200 channels and compete globally in the
combines administration and offices, news
and broadcasting, programme production
and services – the entire TV-making process
– in a single loop of interconnected activities
the façade. The planes of bracing are continu-
ous through the building volume in order to
reinforce and stiffen the corners. The system
is ideally suited to deal with the nature and
particular concentrations near the roof of the
Overhang and at the connection to the Base.
This led to an optimization process in which
the brace pattern was modified by adding or
around the four elements of the building: the intensity of permanent and temporary loading removing diagonals (i.e. ‘doubling’ or ‘halving’

available on the CTBUH “Prior to connection, the two Towers would


cept, performance-based seismic design and
Expert Panel Review process.
coming years. To accommodate this expan-
sion, they organized an international design
competition early in 2002 to design a new
headquarters building. This was won by OMA
nine-storey ‘Base’, the two leaning Towers that
slope at 6° in each direction, and the nine to
13-storey ‘Overhang’, suspended 36 storeys in
on the building, and is a versatile, efficient
structure which can bridge in bending and
torsion between the Towers, provide enough
the pattern), depending on the strength and
stiffness requirements of the design, based on
a Level 1 earthquake analysis. This also enabled
the air. strength and stiffness in the Towers to deliver a degree of standardization of the brace ele-
(Office of Metropolitan Architecture) and Arup,

website 51 CTBUH Working Group: move independently of each other due to


environmental conditions, in particular wind and
which subsequently allied with the East China
Design Institute (ECADI) to act as the essential
local design institute (LDI) for both architecture
The public facilities are in a second building,
the Television Cultural Centre (TVCC), and both
loads to the ground, and stiffen up the Base
to reinforce the lower Tower levels and deliver
loads to the foundations in the most favour-
able possible distribution, given the geometry.
ment section sizes (see Figure 3).

This was an extremely iterative process due


thermal expansion and contraction. As soon as and engineering. are serviced from a third Service Building that to the high indeterminacy of the structure,

Update they were joined, therefore, the elements at the


link would have to be able to resist the stresses
The unusual brief, in television terms, was that
all the functions for production, management,
and administration would be contained on the
houses major plant as well as security. The
whole development will provide 599,000m²
gross floor area and covers 187,000m², includ-
ng a landscaped media park with external
The tube was originally envisaged as a regular
pattern of perimeter steel or steel-reinforced
concrete (SRC) columns, perimeter beams,
with each changing of the pattern altering the
dynamic behaviour of the structure and hence
the seismic forces that are attracted by each
element. It was carried out in close 
chosen site in the new Beijing Central Business

06 Global News Tall Buildings + Sustainability caused by these movements. ” District (CBD), but not necessarily in one build- features. and diagonal steel braces set out on a typically

Highlights from the CTBUH


global news archive 52 Diary

12 CTBUH Awards Dinner


What’s coming up?
26 The Vertical Farm - The origin of a 21 st
century Architectural Typology

mutates from the hospital and proliferated


into variations at every architectural scale, from
The Vertical Farm, as perceived by the public, is
choreography of food visibility. Food is the

2008 Winners of the ‘Best Tall


house to office, studio to indoor stadium. most dynamic and complex of systems in the
“While no one questions the value of farming in 21st century, requiring a web of

Building’ and 'Lifetime


CTBUH Eric C. Ellingsen
getting us to this point in our evolutionary
history, even our earliest efforts caused
The Vertical Farm is a correlate of the modern
city, offering stability while embracing the
change. Far from fantasy, the Vertical Farm
scoops up the available ducts and technologies
interrelationships. Yet we often forget, as
Wendell Berry states, that ”eating is an
agricultural act.” (Berry, 1990) Therefore, the first
thing the vertical Farm does is mediate the
visibility of the production of food. The Vertical
irreversible damage to the natural landscape, and at the opening of the 21st century, organizing Farm helps you realize that your engagement
and redistributing otherwise unrelated parts, with the world, particularly in terms of what
are so wide-spread now that it threatens to alter
Achievements' awards.
grafting together everything available, from you eat, has consequences.
NASA Biosphere control systems to
the rest of the course of our life on this planet.” Greenhouse technology. What is crucial to
understand at the outset is that the Vertical As you approach the Vertical Farm from a

44 Moscow Gaining Height Dickson Donald Despommier

Authors
Though often bandied about by architectural form chasers, the invention of typologies are
Farm is a complex system rather than a single
building. In other words, the Vertical Farm is not
merely a building where you grow tomatoes
and shortened corn situated in the milieu of an
distance, you witness transparent shelves of
color and texture cantilevered off the structural
core of the living system (see Figure 1). The
shelves are agricultural programmed boxes,
rare. The fortuitous resultant of social imperatives, cultural and economic necessity, intrac-

Conference: Review,
1
Eric C. Ellingsen
2 table environmental pressures and technological prodigality, architectural typologies, like urban setting; rather, the Vertical Farm is a each striated with modern fields of ripe Figure 1. The Vertical Farm model from above as seen in
Dickson Donald Despommier

25 Letters functional part of the urban system itself. The agricultural foliage: vegetation, fruits, etc. the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago.
real paradigm shifts, are mostly nothing more than UFO sightings: stories dreamt up in bars
1
College of Architecture and wishfully elaborated for credibility in digital manifestoes. Vertical Farm is not merely a skyscraper with (Note: the particular foods in each shelf would
Illinois Institute of Technology farm plots chopped up like strips of turf and be controlled to cancel the foods traveling the

22nd – 24th October 2008


S.R. Crown Hall, 3360 S. State St “The duct is one of the most monumental relationship between parts, rooms, program, rolled into FAR [foot to area ratio] rationed most miles to your now truly sustainable city,
Chicago, IL 60616
[innovations] in the history of environmental mechanical and natural systems of exchange floorplates. Indeed, the Vertical Farm is not and, be selected around the individual dietary

Feedback and Comments


e: ellingsen@iit.edu
engineering.” and circulation that allowed the hospital to merely about food, but about the unseen and cultural palette of the community). Also,
Reyner Banham (Banham, 1969) become a finely tuned and controlled circuits of energy and materials, labor and springing from the structural core, you notice
2
Department of Environmental Health Sciences
instrument of beauty, very literally an organon resources, capital and infrastructure, residential apartments set like seeds into the

The conference focused on


Mailman School of Public Health
Columbia University However, one such occurrence can be noted of change. (Organic has Greek roots from technology and politics upon which our cities more hermitically sealed laboratories in which
60 Haven Ave, Rm. 100 Organon: instrument, tool. (Rykwert, 1992)). At depend; food is only a single component of the the agricultural systems would be researched
at the opening of the 20th century, which did
New York, NY 10032
e: ddd1@columbia.edu not appear as visibly among all the that moment architecture evolved as a Vertical Farm, the most visible part, the market and initially cultivated for control purposes and
wonderful—indeed they are extraordinary!— modern enterprise, not merely a structural and marketable part (imagine the politically finally deployed, by way of the core, into the

information and cultural Eric C. Ellingsen


Eric C. Ellingsen holds a Masters of Architecture,
and a Master of Landscape from the University of
avant-garde manifestoes. It is the modern
hospital as a new architectural typology and
the untold (and not adequately told here)
revolution, but the material embodiment of a
networked, technical, spatial assemblage
where 19th century structural revolutions of
marketable ‘greenness’ of a 1000ft luscious
cornicopic living transparent zone of fertility
next to the black steel and glass skyscraper in
shelves. Apartments to both scientists and
students, the Vertical Farm also contains
program for private residences, and for those
Figure 2. The Vertical Farm Park at base of model

Case Study
Pennsylvania, (2005); a Masters in Classical history of the duct (think of the Vertical Farm as the steel frame could be enmeshed with your city); food, the only part of farming which residents, gardens and vertical parks linking
Philosophy, St. John’s College, Annapolis MD (2000).
Reyer Banham might, a history of the near mechanical technology, the individual, the consumers see while the rest of the industrial the outside of the shelves with the living and

exchange.
He is a Senior Lecturer at the College of
Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology, and future). microbe, the city. It was near this time that the process remaining invisible, unquestioned, the labs (see Figure 2). As you look closer you
serves as Assistant Director of the Graduate
Landscape Program. surgical suite replaces the anatomical theater, absolved by sheer ignorance. Essentially, the will notice that some of the programmatic
and the natural environment is linked together Vertical Farm allows us to address in one shelves contain grazing colors, which seem to
In 1906 the Royal Victoria Hospital, by Henman in a living mechanical architectural system, ambitious but realistic strategy, the precarious be in motion. Upon closer inspection (see
Dickson Donald Despommier
and Cooper, opened in Belfast, Ireland. which addressed social, societal, political, and tricky crisis of modernity between the Figure 3) you notice pigs and chickens, not the
Dickson Donald Despommier holds a Ph. D in
(Banham, 1969). It was the first modernized, biological, and individual needs. It was the individual and the city, which French sour image via noisome smell of the factory
Biology from University of Notre Dame (1967), a
Masters in Science in Medical Parasitology from air-conditioned building in the world, and duct which permitted the reinvention of the philosopher Paul Ricour stated so poignantly, it farm hidden out of site and attempting to
Columbia University (1964). He is a Professor of launched the hospital as an apparatus that hospital, which had been in existence since allows us to participate in the local place and evade the eye, but rather sterile and proud
Public Health and Microbiology at Columbia
simultaneously reached across multiple scales

48 Australian CTBUH Seminars:


4000BC. Thus a mechanism of exchange and global flow at the same time, to embrace public animal production. Finally, you will

14 China Central Television


University, NYC, 1982-present. Associate Professor
of Public Health and Microbiology, Columbia of engagement. It addressed and organized environmental controls becomes the impetus modernity and simultaneously return to our notice two systems of tanks; one system
University, NYC,1975-1982. the internal needs of a person and the internal for both new typologies, and a new breed of roots.” (Ricour, 1965) Those roots simply exist comprised of smaller pools filled with fish and
control of a building environment, to the architecturally mediated and controlled 1000 feet above the ground. (A ground which shrimp, the other much larger tank linked into
mediation of an external population of environmental possibilities, pressures, and would be better served by forests than by a waste water and bio-solid treatment facility, Figure 3. A vertical Farm in Dubai. Design by Eric Ellingsen

(CCTV) Headquarters Report individuals and the external conditions of the


natural environment. It was the functional
constraints, possibilities which leaps and feed-stock, as it turns out.) looking much like active industrial 
and Dickson Despommier. Image by Eric Ellingsen, Homero
Rios, and Mo Phala.

Building & Cultural Centre, Green or Grey - The Aesthetics


Beijing of Tall Building Sustainability

Research
53 Alan Jalil 36 Partial Occupancies for Phased and
Multi-Use Tall Buildings
"What if parts of a building could be occupied
Profile - CTBUH Country before the entire building is completed?"

Representative, France Robert Lau

Author
Robert Lau
In the Spring 2004 issue of the CTBUH journal I wrote an article ‘Multiple Phase Construction
for a Multi-Use Tall Building’. This article noted the financial risk that multi-use buildings can be
exposed to because they can be constructed without becoming fully occupied upon

26 Eric Ellingsen & Dickson


Roosevelt University
430 S. Michigan Avenue completion. Another issue has been the long time-frame required for constructing large multi-
Chicago, IL 60605-1394, USA use high-rise buildings. What if parts of a building could be occupied before the entire building
e: laurobe@iit.edu
is completed? What if a large high-rise project could be constructed in phases, so that only the Figure 1. Hotel entry at Trump Tower on upper Wabash Figure 2. North elevation of Trump Tower over Figure 3. Blue Cross Blue Shield at start of vertical expansion
spaces that the current market can support will be constructed? hotel entry
Robert M. Lau received his Bachelor of Architecture

Despommier 53 Dr. Peyman Askari Nejad


degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology
(host institution for the CTBUH) and his Master of
Business Administration at the Chicago School of
Real Estate at Roosevelt University.
He has worked with Myron Goldsmith and Lucien
While any construction project involves risks,
to construct above an occupied space has
inherently more risks. Planning can remedy
spaces can open as independent entities
before the office and/or residential
components are completed above. In some
tower. Building the first, then the second or
third can be described as Vertical Expansion.
While the concepts are the same as other
An advantage of Partial Occupancy projects is
their ability for some tenants to open for
business as soon as possible, without waiting
The financial advantage is occupying as each
use is completed instead of at tower
completion. In the case of multi-use Tall
Lagrange at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (Chicago master planned projects, the construction for the completion of the tower. An advantage Buildings, the time-frame for construction can

The Vertical Farm - The origin


some of these risks. Each stakeholder has cases, this time lag could be months to over a

Profile - CTBUH Country


office) and with Helmut Jahn and Jim Goettsch at takes place within one structure as opposed to of Phased Construction Vertical Expansion, as be years. Developers that can complete a
Murphy/Jahn in Chicago. He is an advocate of the differing attitudes regarding the execution of year. Some examples include:
Chicago School of Architecture, beginning with many structures within the same site. Some in other master planned projects, is their ability space for occupancy by retail or offices, on the
William LeBaron Jenny, John Root, and Louis the construction. City building departments 1. One Rincon Hill in San Francisco by examples include: to minimize the risks of constructing large- lower floors, have a financial advantage over
Sullivan and continuing through Fazlur Khan and are skeptical about issuing a permit for only Solomon Cordwell Buenz (Post 2008)
Myron Goldsmith.
1. Bentall 5 in Vancouver by the Musson scale space at one time period and not those who must wait until total tower
occupying part of the building instead of the

of a 21st century Architectural Representative, Iran


He has written several articles for the CTBUH
Journal. He presented the paper ‘A Platonistic
Program for Block 37 in Chicago’s Loop’ at the
December 2001 CTBUH conference Building for the
21st Century in London and the paper ‘Financial
Aspects That Drive Design Decisions’ at the October
entire structure. How the remainder is
constructed, while tenants occupy the spaces
below, is a concern to all involved. This paper
will discuss Partial Occupancy issues from the
a. Floors 8-27 occupied in Jan. 2008
b. Floors 28-35 occupied in Feb. 2008
c. Residences to floor 60 occupied in
Cattell Mackey Partnership (bentall5)
a. Phase I office floors to 22 occupied in
Sept. 2002
flooding the market at what could be a
vulnerable time. By being able to adjust to the
current market, Vertical Expansions can
minimize the financial risks inherent in
completion. Securing financing may be easier
in these scenarios.

Aug. 2008 b. Phase II office floors 23-34 occupied in large-scale construction projects. Both Partial While current requirements are sometimes

Typology
2005 conference in New York City. He was also a
member of the NY conference’s committee that views of designers, contractors, building difficult to assess, planning for future
2. Trump Tower Chicago by Skidmore, April 2007 Occupancy and Phased Construction projects
reviewed the papers to be presented. owners, the city government that the project is requirements can be even more difficult. It is
Owings, and Merrill (Bergen 2008) can benefit the financial bottom-line for
In addition to practicing architecture in Chicago, he constructed in, and the current tenants while 2. Blue Cross Blue Shield in Chicago by critical that the developer is aware of the risks
is a Construction Committee member with the investors by their advantages.
the construction is taking place. While there a. Hotel floors 14–27 occupied in Jan. Goettsch Partners (Corning 2008) involved for predicting the future. As
Windy City Habitat for Humanity (local affiliate).
are several examples of partial high-rise 2008 construction material costs have risen in the
a. Phase I office floors to 32 occupied in

54 CTBUH Organizational occupancy, identifying and addressing these


special concerns will be important for issuing
future permits.
b. Residence floor 92 topped out in
August 2008
c. Completion to be in 2009
1997, daytime worker population of 4,400
b. Phase II office floors 33-57 to be
completed in 2009, anticipated daytime
MAJOR STAKEHOLDERS OF THE PROJECT
Designers and Developers
While planning is required for the design of
United States in 2008, convincing an owner to
invest in materials, knowing that they will not
be used for years to come, could be a ‘tough
sell’. Setting aside certain assets today, to be

36 Robert Lau
worker population of 8,000 total for both any project, advanced planning is required in

Structure + Member Listings INTRODUCTION


Partial Occupancy
In most construction projects, an Occupancy
Phased Construction (Vertical Expansion)
In master planned projects, components are
planned but not designed or intended for
phases

Incentives for Partial Occupancy or Phased


projects that include either Partial Occupancy
or Vertical Expansion. In a designer’s mind, the
project is considered a combination of
separate buildings. Each can be designed and
used in a future addition in the coming years,
could be difficult to persuade to a stockholder
looking at the balance sheets.

Partial Occupancies for


Permit is secured after the construction has
construction for years or even decades to Construction Projects constructed on its own, as part of a complete
been completed. The city issuing this permit A total planning package needs to be
come. Master plan projects may (for example) Large-scale multi-use Tall Buildings are whole. This approach will include inherent
defines the project as safe and complete for developed at the outset of the project by the
build an office tower first, then a retail mall, complicated structures involving an army of redundancies. By planning for elevators and
human habitation in which it was intended. A designers and the developer. Andrew Weiss of
and then a residential tower lastly, when the stakeholders. They require vast resources, utility shafts for the entire project, each
Partial Occupancy permit allows only a portion the Trump Organization says,” We planned the

Phased and Multi-Use Tall


neighborhood has established this market multi-year planning and multi-year occupied phase will sustain itself within the
of the completed project to be open for entire project so that the different uses within
over the past several years. This can be construction scheduling. Besides the large context of the whole. Planning this
occupancy. The remainder of the construction the Trump Tower Chicago could open at
especially true in former industrial areas that quantities of materials required for infrastructure for the tower creates the
can continue until its completion. This type of different times.” Tom Corning of Walsh
are being converted to other zoning uses by construction, financing a project of this possibility of constructing each use
arrangement will benefit multi-use towers Construction has been working on the Vertical
the city. It is now possible to construct these magnitude is a major accomplishment. Many individually and over time, if required.

Buildings Expansion of the Blue Cross Blue Shield in 


since the lower-floor commercial and retail
independent components as one complete risks are inherent in any construction project.

“What is crucial to understand at the outset is that the Vertical Farm is a complex
system rather than a single building. In other words, the Vertical Farm is not
merely a building where you grow tomatoes and corn situated in the milieu of an
urban setting; rather, the Vertical Farm is a functional part of the urban system
itself.”
Visit www.ctbuh.org for more on the global tall building
Eric Ellingsen and Dickson Despommier, page 26 industry and the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Content | 3


CTBUH Chairman’s Message
Unfortunately the recent drop in oil prices has
reinforced the view that we are still in the era
of cheap and plentiful fuel, and some
companies/countries are even talking about
putting their sustainable agenda on hold. This
would be a mistake; as we will eventually have
to understand that we have already passed
Congratulations to Zak Kostura, Katharina Structural Engineers of the Year 2007
Peak Oil, and when the world economy
Holzapfel and the production team for the
returns, energy prices have the potential to September, 2008, The Structural Design of Tall & Special
CTBUH Journal: we have now managed to Buildings, Volume 17, No. 3
skyrocket. The short term fall in energy costs
achieve our goal of printing three editions per
presents a false sense of security, however it is
year, and with each edition we have had a Ron Klemencic, CTBUH Vice-Chair and
also an opportunity for some developers to
notable increase in both quantity and quality. President of Magnusson Klemencic Associates
make their building profile more sustainable
The Journal is fast becoming recognized as the
which will have long term benefits.. and Robert McNamara, Principal at McNamara/
best multi-disciplinary publication whose focus
Salvia have been selected as Structural
is on the technical issues associated with tall
Engineers of the Year 2007 in the journal The
buildings and their place in the urban habitat. The Council’s is very pleased that the members
Structural Design of Tall and Special Buildings,
of our Sustainability Working Group, under the
published by John Wiley and Sons. Ron and
leadership of Sadhu Johnson and Antony
To reflect the Council's increasing focus on Robert received their accolades in recognition
Wood, are making significant progress in their
sustainability we plan to feature articles on the of both their career contributions and
objective of describing the issues of tall
sustainable refurbishment of tall buildings in independently their major impact on building
buildings and sustainability. Also in line with
future issues of the Journal and all members design. In recognition of their achievements,
the Council’s sustainable objectives, we are
are invited to participate. It is sobering to The Structural Design of Tall and Special
planning for our next affiliate conference to
consider that buildings consume some Buildings has published papers presenting a
focus on the issues of sustainable urban
30~40% of the world’s energy. While new summary of each of their careers.
planning and issues of sustainability that are
buildings tend to be increasingly sustainable
best considered on a city or mega-project
and energy efficient, one of the big challenges
that the world faces is to improve the
scale. This conference is scheduled for May CTBUH in the Media
2009 and will be located in Mumbai.
performance of its existing building stock. Even The Future of the
on buildings completed within the last 10 Skyscraper
years, diligent operators have managed to At this time of year the Council recognizes October 14th, 2008,
create energy savings of 30~50%, by several exceptional tall building projects and BusinessWeek Online
improving operations and systems. We have a tall building designers through our annual
lot to learn from such examples. Awards program. This year the Council has Antony Wood, CTBUH Executive Director,
expanded its awards program to reflect the discusses the evolution of the world’s
growing interest in tall buildings in all regions skyscrapers in a video interview for
Towards the middle of this year it looked like
of the world. I would like to congratulate all BusinessWeek Online. “We’re seeing a major
the continuous climb of energy prices was emphasis change both in who are building tall
the winners and all the runners up in our 2008
finally going to get people focused on buildings and why they are being built” said
annual tall building awards. I would particularly
improving, monitoring and comparing energy Wood. “If you look at the title of the world's
like to congratulate architect Cesar Pelli and
efficiency in buildings. Tall buildings, in tallest buildings historically, they had names
engineer Bill Baker for their overall and
particular, are major users of energy, simply like the Chrysler Building, the Tribune Tower
individual achievements in the tall building
because of the concentration of people within - the buildings were all about projecting the
industry. The Council is also pleased to
a given volume, and there is a real need for the corporation behind the building that was
congratulate Sabah Al Rayes and Jim Forbes
users, operators and designers of these being built. But that’s changed. In the past five
who have been elected as Fellows of the or ten years the titles of these supertall
buildings to understand how much energy
Council, in recognition of the hard work that buildings include: the Chicago Spire, Taipei 101
they use. Unfortunately actual energy data on
they have given to the Council and the many or the Burj Dubai and it’s like they have been
buildings is still very difficult to obtain,
years of support. adopted by the city or the country to project
although legislation in places such as Europe is
the status of these cities and countries –
forcing building operators to declare their
especially developing countries – on the world
energy usage. This is leading to increased All the best. stage.”
competition between operators to improve
energy efficiency set and new performance
For more CTBUH in the Media articles, go to
standards.
www.ctbuh.org/media.htm
David Scott, CTBUH Chairman

4 | CTBUH Chairman's Message CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


CTBUH News and Events
Elsevier, which will be the first in a series CTBUH Headquarter. The final members of the
produced each year. Also taking place on the new team will be joining us at the start of 2009
day was the work underpinning our new so look out for an introduction to them in the
‘Podcast’ initiative, with interviews with Shaun first journal edition of 2009. In the meantime, if
Killa of Atkins Dubai, Larry Ng from Pelli Clark you haven’t done so already, please visit the
Pelli, and Eugene Kohn and Bill Pedersen of Council website: www.ctbuh.org to enjoy the
KPF speaking together. Watch for the footage fruits of our labors over the past 12 months – a
This third Journal issue of the year comes hot
from this which will be hitting your computer new free-to-download image database, ‘tallest’
on the heels of the 7th Annual Awards Dinner
screens in the New Year. lists from around the world, a video library,
(see report, pages 12-13). In line with other
This quarter has also been busy with other design research projects, international tall
outputs of the Council in recent years –
initiatives, such as an affiliate conference held buildings news features updated every day,
publications, website, databases, this journal –
in Moscow (see pages 44-47), significant and the wealth of technical papers etc which
the awards dinner just keeps getting bigger
moves forward from our sustainability group have been the stock trade of CTBUH for many
and better. This year we had a record
(see page 51) and an excellent trip to Brisbane years. We will be celebrating our 40th
attendance – 240 people – who joined the
and Sydney to speak to the Australian CTBUH Anniversary next year, since our founding in
winning teams that had flown in from
for me (see pages 48-49). 1969. Please watch this space for an even-
Shanghai, Bahrain, London and New York to
more impressive line-up of outputs and events
celebrate the ‘Best Tall Building Awards’, and to For a year which began in event terms with
from the world’s leading multi-disciplinary
honor the considerable lifetime achievements our 8th World Congress Dubai in early March
body in the field of tall buildings!
of Cesar Pelli and and has finished with the 7th Annual Awards
William F. Baker. Also a dinner, 2008 will be marked as a fantastic year All the best for 2009.
first was the inaugural for the Council. Although, of course, the
‘ Best Tall Buildings worldwide economic crisis now puts
2008’ book produced continued growth under threat, the tripling of
by CTBUH in our membership base in the past two years Antony Wood
conjunction with has allowed a significant expansion of staff at CTBUH Executive Director

What’s on the Web: Highlights of the CTBUH website


Image Database images to this effort, please contact info@ Most watched CTBUH Videos, Oct 08
ctbuh.org Wanted: Tall Buildings Less
The latest exciting feature added to the
Iconic, More Specific
expanding CTBUH website is the Tall Building www.ctbuh.org/imagedatabase.htm Jeanne Gang, Studio Gang
Image Database. The medium-resolution Architects
images contained in this database have been CTBUH 8th World Congress,
The CTBUH Global Tall Building
Dubai, March 3 – 5, 2008
provided by CTBUH members and others News is now also available as an
interested in tall buildings and are free for RSS feed. To subscribe to this feed, Recommendations for the
download and usage. and keep up with the latest world news on tall Seismic Design of High-Rise
The CTBUH are also looking for individuals buildings, urban development and sustainable Buildings
construction please visit: Andrew Whittaker, Earthquake
willing to donate tall building images to the Engineering Research Institute
database. If you are interested in donating www.ctbuh.org/rss.htm Breakfast Seminar, Brisbane,
August 1, 2008

Global Environmental
Your tall Contextualism
Gordon Gill & Robert Forest,
building
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill
image Architecture
here! CTBUH 8th World Congress,
Dubai, March 3 – 5, 2008
© Photographer

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III News and Events | 5


The CTBUH Global News Archive is an online resource for all the latest news on tall buildings, urban development

Global News and sustainable construction from around the world. Each issue, the CTBUH Journal publishes selected feeds from
the online archive. For comprehensive industry news, visit the Global news Archive at: www.ctbuh.org/news.htm

© Nakheel © KlingStubbins © CTBUH / Marshall Gerometta

Nakheel Harbour & Tower: World’s Songdo City Gateway Center to be Economic Crisis Slows Chicago’s
Tallest Building Under Construction designed by KlingStubbins High-rise Boom
The initiation of foundation works by Nakheel The 3.4 million square foot Gateway Business The tall building boom that has seen 32 of the
on the new Harbour and Tower development Center that will form the entrance to Songdo tallest 100 skyscrapers in Chicago completed
in Dubai has bestowed upon the developer City – the new 1,500 Acre international or under construction in the last 8 years, has
possession of the speculative title of “Tallest business district in Incheon, South Korea – is to been dealt a blow by the news that
Building Under Construction in the World”. be designed by Philadelphia firm construction on two of the city’s future
While the final height for the signature tower KlingStubbins. The Center will consist of five supertall towers has been put on hold. The
has not been announced, the developer has undulating glazed office towers, sitting atop a Chicago Spire - set to be the tallest building in
asserted that the structure will reach “more multi-level retail base with underground North America at 610 meters upon
than a kilometer in height”, and contain more parking facilities. Each of the towers will have a completion – and the 319 meter tall
than 200 occupiable floors. rooftop garden sheltered by 12-meter-high Waterview Tower (pictured) have both halted
Designed by architect Woods Bagot and glazed walls and a trellis of photovoltaic construction in recent weeks, with little
engineered by WSP in conjunction with Leslie panels. The gardens will offer building indication as to when they may resume.
E. Robertson Associates, the Nakheel tower occupants sweeping views of the dramatic Shelbourne, the Chicago Spire developers, say
bears marks of aesthetic influence from the Songdo skyline, Central Park and the Yellow they will start working on the superstructure
surrounding Islamic architecture, and Sea. In terms of sustainability, the designers are again when the market stabilizes and are in
integrates an innovative structural design striving to achieve LEED Silver certification for
strategy employing a series of individual
towers linked at critical floors to create a rigid
the building.
...density


bundled tube system.
The developer has announced its goal of Architects have to really embrace density… Policy makers
need to put their futurist hat on and understand that density is coming.


achieving the highest LEED rating possible for
a building of this size. The megaproject Instead of fighting it, they need to find ways of making it work.
includes another 40 towers of substantial, if
comparatively modest size, ranging from 20 to Stephan Reinke, European managing director of Woods Bagot, discusses how further tall building
90 stories. In all the complex is expected to construction is inevitable, following a report from the British Property Federation arguing that tall
reach completion in ten years, with various buildings reap significant productivity gains as people work more closely together through
phases (including the signature tower) coming competition, networking and economies of scale. From ‘Towers will aid growth, says BPF’, Building
online at earlier stages. Design, September 9th, 2008

6 | Global News CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


talks with a general contractor to build it. The all residents with access to planting and the designers have asserted that the added
building foundations and underground amenity spaces all year round. In addition all cost of inclining the structure is relatively
car-park have been already completed. flats will benefit from glazed winter-garden- modest. Addressing the impact of the inclined
However, construction on some of the city’s style balconies. In terms of sustainability, the towers, Kim Herforth Nielsen, Principal
other tall buildings is continuing with vigour; project plans to utilize a photovoltaic array Architect at 3XN asserts, “construction costs
in October construction workers reached the located on the roof of the tower and a – only went up 5 per cent.“
59th floor of the 82-storey Aqua tower, which gas-fired combined heating and power unit.
upon completion next year will be the 12th
tallest building in Chicago at 251 meters tall.
Meanwhile, November will likely see the
installation by helicopter of the 69 meter-tall
spire atop the Trump International Hotel &
Tower, bringing the building up to its full
height of 415 meters. Upon final completion in
2009, it will become the second tallest
building in America.

© 3XN Architects

Tour T1 becomes second tallest


Leaning towers of Copenhagen building in France
The completion of the 185 meter-tall Tour T1 in
The foundation stone for the new four-star
the La Défense region of Paris has seen the
Bella Hotel was laid in Copenhagen in
building become the second tallest in France,
September. Comprised of 814 rooms, 32
behind the 209 meter-tall Tour de
conference facilities and 3 restaurants split
Montparnasse. Designed by French
© Amin Taha Associates / Carey Jones / Fraser Property between two dramatically leaning towers, the
architectural firm Valode and Pistre the
Development new complex is already being boasted as the
70,000m² office tower is conceived as a folded
premiere international event venue in what
glass plate, cut by an arc on its north face.
Sky Garden Tower planned for was recently deemed “the best city in the
According to the Valode and Pistre, its
London world to live in” by Monocle.
distinctive profile changes according to one’s
Architects Amin Taha Associates and Carey Designed by 3XN Architects, the adjacent vantage point and assures the tower’s place
Jones in conjunction with developer Fraser towers of the Bella Hotel incline in opposite within the surrounding context. Seen from the
Property Development have released plans for directions as they rise, permitting dramatic south, the tower appears as a ship’s bow, a
a new 120 meter-tall skyscraper at Vauxhall in views of the surrounding landscape from both vertical element and a complement to the
London. The scheme – known as the ‘Vauxhall sides of each tower. The modest twist in the skyline of the La Défense business district.
Sky Gardens’ – consists of a 35-storey tower wing of each cantilevered tower was included Seen from the east and west, T1 is perceived as
with over 9000m² of office and retail space on to improve the towers’ dynamic performance a large sail, its curving form providing
the lower storeys and 178 residential under the steady winds that persist on the site. transition to the lower scale of the adjoining
apartments above. The design includes two The Bella’s towers rise to a height of 76.5m, neighbourhood. The view given by the north
significant communal skygardens; one on the joined at their adjacent faces by a central, façade is one of a tall staircase, climbing to the
eighth floor and the second at the top of the low-rise foyer. Motivated by the desire to sky and disappearing as the façade curves out
tower. These triple-height spaces will provide maiximize views on all faces of the two towers, of view.

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Global News | 7


form, oriented so as to be in alignment with tower boasts an incredible 33.98 to 1 height to
solar angles on the site, a design technique width ratio at its narrowest point. Despite its
intrinsic in the indigenous cultures that have narrow lot, the tower’s floorplates are
pervaded Central America for centuries. maximized by cantilevering out on the south
side, taking advantage of air rights over an
The complementary but unique forms of the
adjacent site. The fully glazed tower – 172.6
two towers are intended to evoke the rich
meters in height - is designed by Ismael Leyva
history of two distinct societies, the Aztecs
Architects, engineered by Ysrael A. Seinuk, P.C.,
(Xochimilco) and Mayans (Tezozomoc), which
and houses 122 apartments with commercial
formerly thrived in pre-colonialized Mexico. In
space, a business center and conference
technological terms, the form of the towers is
facilities set within its base.
intended to convey their function as “air filters”
for the respective parks at their base.
The development of these landscaped areas is
a monumental shift in urban development in
Mexico City, which has one of the smallest
proportions of landscaped parkland to
developed area of any city in the world. The
towers are expected to reach completion in
© Copyright Vasquez & Wedeles Architects time for bicentennial celebrations in 2010.

Bicentenary Towers celebrate 200


years of Mexican Independence
Mexico City will commemorate the 200th
anniversary of the country’s independence
with the addition of two visually and
locationally disparate towers to its modest
skyline. Designed by Gregorio Vasquez and
Manuel Wedeles the two towers – named
Tezozomoc and Xochimilco respectively – will
each rise 83 stories above an independent
landscaped site within the metropolis.
The voluptuous Tezozomoc tower bears a
curved diagrid façade marked by two Sears Tower set for sustainable
elongated ellipses warped by the tower’s renovation
exterior form in a display of geometric The tallest building in North America, the
submissiveness evocative of Dali’s The iconic Sears Tower in Chicago, is set to be
Persistence of Memory. The separation of the renovated in a bid to reduce its energy
exterior shell from the interior space of the consumption by ten percent. The proposals
© Ismael Leyva Architects
tower yields a vertical void that promotes – which are being overseen by Chicago
natural ventilation and provides the practice Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill
opportunity for interior visual connection One of New York’s Skinniest Nears Architecture – will involve the integration of a
between floors. Completion variety of sustainable systems into the 452
Xochimilco is in many ways a complement to meter-tall building, which was originally
One of the world’s most slender towers, 785
Tezozomoc, with a sharply panelized face and completed in 1974. These will include green
Eighth Avenue, is now nearing completion in
warped form. The rectangular footprint of the roofs, building mounted wind turbines,
New York City with residents set to move in
tower is influenced by four extruded squares photovoltaic panels, sustainable lighting
during the first half of 2009. With a frontage of
that twist about their vertical axis. At its systems and additional insulation. The retrofit,
just over seven meters on Eighth Avenue, and
pinnacle the tower returns to a rectangular which is currently at the planning stage, is
little over five meters on West 48th Street, the
expected to cost $150 million.

8 | Global News CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


© Saudi Guy / Skyscrapercity.com’ © The Buchan Group

King Abdullah inaugurates Work suspended on Brisbane’s INDEX, the 80 storey skyscraper by
1000m+ tall ‘Kingdom Tower’ in tallest Union Properties Tops Out
Jeddah Construction on the 79-storey Vision Tower INDEX, the 80-storey tower designed by Foster
King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy project in Brisbane has been suspended after & Partners, reached a developmental
Mosques, has unveiled and inaugurated two months of speculation. Although excavation is milestone recently when the structure was
colossal projects in Jeddah; Kingdom City and already underway on the scheme’s topped out at 328 meters. The tower project
the Kingdom Tower. The unveiling of the underground car-park, further construction has been developed by Union Properties, a
designs was held at the opening of a major has been halted because financial Dubai-based property investment company.
international architectural exhibition “Towards arrangements for the project have not been Within the extruded, rectilinear form of INDEX
the First World” in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on 11th finalized. The mixed-use tower, designed by are 25 floors of premium office space, 40 floors
October, 2008. It was the first time the designs architects The Buchan Group, would be one of of residential units, 7 penthouse levels and 3
for Kingdom City and the Kingdom Tower the tallest buildings in Australia if complete. retail levels. Floor plates have been sized and
were revealed publicly. The 7.1 square However, despite this setback, project oriented to minimize heat gain during the
kilometer Kingdom City development will be developer Austcorp remains confident that the hottest hours of the day and exterior fins
one of the largest and most comprehensive tower will be built when market conditions provide additional shading to interior
projects to be built in Saudi Arabia and is improve. The Vision Tower is the second tall perimeter spaces.
located at Obhur, North of the creek of Jeddah. building in Brisbane to suffer at the hands of
The centerpiece of the development will be the recent global economic situation. INDEX is by far the largest development by
the landmark Kingdom Tower, which will rise Proposals for the Empire Square Tower (250m) Union Properties to date. It is expected to
from a large retail and conference centre have been cancelled due to ‘uncertainties and open in 2009.
podium to a height of 1,000+ meters. The constraints in financial markets’, according to
tower will include five-star hotel project developer Metacap. ...green buildings
accommodations,


office space and
From now on, not one more building should be rated as green or environmentally


luxury residences
that encompass friendly without its utility bills first proving that it is energy efficient.
dramatic, sweeping
views of the Red Sea, Henry Gifford, Engineer at EastSideEnergyCompany with 25+ years experience making buildings energy efficient, using
Obhur Creek and the common sense approaches, explaining why LEED buildings use more energy than comparable buildings, and how to
mountains to the avoid the same results. From ‘A Better Way to Rate Green Buildings’, www.henrygifford.com
east.

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Global News | 9


voiced aspirations to produce an
environmentally sustainable design that
incorporates comprehensive water reuse and
alternative energy generation.
The project was unveiled at Cityscape Dubai in
2008. Tameer expects Anara’s doors to open
by the end of the third quarter of 2011.

© Herzog and de Meuron © Atkins

Paris Triangle: beyond the shadows Tameer unveils design of ‘Anara’


of doubt after intensive global design
The City of Lights is set to receive a tower that competition
will rob none from its neighbors. Designed by Dubai Developer Tameer Holding has unveiled
Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, the chosen design for Anara, a 600 meter
the 50 storey tower bears the form of a nearly signature tower to be situated at the entrance
© TriGranit Development Corporation
equilateral triangle on its broad side. to Dubai Media City. The design competition,
According to a spokesperson for the designer, which attracted the attention of numerous
the angles of the inclined faces were found prestigious design firms from around the HOK And Murphy Jahn Team Up In
using site-specific solar angle data, in order to world and pitted multiple teams from Atkins Slovenia
establish a form that casts reduced shadows against each other, was ultimately won by the
The Emonika City Centre, which is currently
on its neighboring buildings or the global design firm’s Dubai office.
under construction in Ljubljana, Slovenia,
surrounding site.
When complete, the tower will incorporate a involves a new 100-meter tower bathed in a
The tower is one of six new projects proposed mixed-use layout, with residential and hotel sleek glass curtain wall façade beset in the
for Paris, where outgoing socialist mayor apartments, boutique retail and restaurants heart of the growing metropolis. But the
Bertrand Delanoë recently repealed a strict 37 dispersed throughout the tower and biggest news for locals is not about the vertical
meter height limitation in strategic zones of surrounding base complex. According to the rise of the tower; rather it is its horizontal
the city. The city-wide law was originally developer, the form of the tower was inspired expanse – or what it connects at ground level
enacted in 1972 following negative public by the Minaret, but incorporates aesthetic – that has the city talking.
reaction to the Tour Montparnasse, a 210 influence from modern skyscraper design. For more than a century, Slovenia’s capital city
meter commercial tower that was completed
The rounded top of the sleek, monolithic has been virtually bisected by a rail network
that same year.
tower includes a giant circular void that recalls carved as an impassable rut through the heart
The Pritzker-Prize winning architecture firm is the early concept for the Shanghai World of the urban landscape. The new Emonika City
known widely for the design of the Beijing Financial Center in China. Set within the Centre project, designed by HOK International
Olympic Stadium, known publicly as the “Bird’s circular void is an oblong glass pod tethered to and Murphy Jahn, promises to reunite the
Nest”. The designers have asserted that the the tower by three rigid arms, recalling the disparate urban halves by capitalizing on air
form of the tower in Paris, known as “The form of a giant wind turbine. A spokesperson rights above the railway. The new tower
Triangle”, allows for “optimum solar and wind for Atkins, the firm that recently completed the complex will open up more than 230,000
power generation”. The project is due to be turbine-equipped Bahrain World Trade Center, square meters of public, retail, residential and
completed in 2012.

10 | Global News CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


commercial space, including 22,000 square City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee
meters of leasable space within the office Member for Economic, Social Development
tower alone. and Tourism says future developments will
A smaller residential tower, rising 60 meters have to be “higher and not wider” to make
and containing 90 apartments, will accompany optimal use of what little space is available in
the office tower. The larger tower will be the Central Business District.
topped with a massive green roof that will be
sufficient in size to serve as public recreational
space.
Ground has recently been broken for the 250
million Euro Emonika City Centre project,
which will tentatively open in full by 2010, with
an initial phase coming online next year.

© MAD Ltd.

MAD Design for Tianjin


Construction is underway on one of China’s
tallest and most striking tall buildings –
Sinosteel International Plaza in Tianjin.
© MVRDV / ADEPT Designed by MAD Ltd, the scheme consists of
two towers – an 88 meter-tall hotel and a 358
meter-tall office tower which if completed
MVRDV and ADEPT win now would be the 13th tallest building in the
Copenhagen skyscraper world. However, it is the tower’s honeycomb
competition facade design that is its most eye-catching
MVRDV and co-architect ADEPT have beaten feature. This is made up of five different sizes of
BIG, Behnisch Architects and MAD Ltd, to win hexagonal windows - a traditional element in
the competition for the design of a skyscraper Chinese architecture - which flow across the
in the Rødovre region of Copenhagen. The building in an irregular, naturally occurring
New green high-rise for Cape Town scheme – known as the ‘Sky Village’ – consists pattern, like cells multiplying. Although the
Cape Town has approved plans for a new 150 of a 116 meter tall tower accommodating façade pattern at first appears random, it
meter-tall mixed-use tower that will become apartments, a hotel, retail areas and office actually responds to patterns of sun and wind
the city’s joint tallest building, equal in height space. Responding to unstable markets the on the building. By mapping the different air
with the Metlife Centre. Known as the Portside building’s design is based on the idea of a flows and solar direction across the site, and
Development, the building will contain 24 flexible grid, with ‘pixels’ of accommodation positioning the windows accordingly, it is
office levels above a 10-storey hotel and retail organized around a central core. This possible to minimize heat loss in the winter
component and is set to be completed by arrangement allows for the building’s program and heat gain in the summer. The honeycomb
2011. The project is also being touted as an to change with market forces by simply façade also provides the building’s structure,
environmentally friendly scheme; developers re-designating the function of the pixels. The removing the need for internal columns and
Old Mutual Investment Group Property lower section of the building consists of office freeing up the building to a much more
Investments will benchmark the tower space with residential areas above, leaning flexible use.
according to the Green Building Council of north to create terraced sky gardens along the
South Africa’s Green Star rating system. Cape south side. The top of the building will be For all the latest news on tall buildings,
Town is also likely to see an increase in tall occupied by a hotel enjoying views towards urban development and sustainable
buildings in the future. Simon Grindrod, the Copenhagen city centre. construction from around the world, go to:
www.ctbuh.org/news.htm

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Global News | 11


CTBUH 7th Awards Dinner, 2008
The Shanghai World Financial Center was
Shanghai World Financial Center chosen from four Regional Tall Building Win-
ners awarded on the night –The New York
named ‘Best Tall Building Overall’ Times Building won the award for Best Tall
at the CTBUH Awards Dinner on Building Americas, which was accepted by
November 20th, 2008 Glenn Hughes of the New York Times. Erik
Volz of Renzo Piano Building Workshop and
structural engineers Thornton Tomasetti. 51
Lime Street in London won the award for Best
Tall Building Europe, which was accepted by
Ian Whitby of Foster & Partners. The Bahrain
World Trade Center in Manama was awarded
Best Tall Building Middle East / Africa, which
was accepted by Shaun Killa of Atkins. The
Shanghai World Financial Center was also
awarded the title of Best Tall Building Asia /
Australasia.
CTBUH Best Tall Building Awards 2008
Bill Baker receiving the Fazlur Rahman Khan Medal
Lifetime Achievement Awards were present-
The CTBUH have named the Shanghai World ed to Cesar Pelli of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects The dinner itself was a huge success. Held
Financial Center as the 2008 Best Tall Building and William F. Baker of Skidmore, Owings & in the atmospheric setting of Mies van der
Overall at the 7th Annual Awards Dinner, Merrill LLP. Cesar Pelli was awarded the Lynn Rohe’s iconic Crown Hall at the Illinois Insti-
held at Crown Hall in Chicago, on the 20th S. Beedle Award for his dramatic influence tute of Technology, it was attended by some
November 2008. The building has become an on the profession of architecture in creating 240 individuals from around the globe. Table
icon of Shanghai and China, with its clear and buildings that are innovative, unique and sponsors included Atkins in conjunction with
elegant form dramatic at all scales through a advance the art and science of tall building the Bahrain World Trade Center, Kohn Peder-
connection metaphorically of the earth and design. William F. Baker was awarded the sen Fox in conjunction with the Mori Building
sky, whilst its structural design is revolution- Fazlur Rahman Khan Medal because of his Corporation, Thornton Tomasetti in conjunc-
ary. extraordinary creativity in structural design tion with the New York Times, Skidmore, Ow-
and his integrated approach, which has re- ings & Merrill LLP, Arup, CS Associates, Gensler,

“ One of the tallest buildings in the


world, it speaks to where tall building
sulted in buildings that simultaneously mesh
engineering and architecture to create the
building form.
Goettsch Partners, Halvorson and Partners,
Illinois Institute of Technology / College of Ar-
design is now....the building’s structure chitecture, KONE, Murphy Jahn, Perkins & Will,
is nothing short of genius.

Tim Johnson, CTBUH Awards Committee
The Rise Group and Schirmer Engineering.

Chairman, outlines the significant achieve-


ments of the Shanghai World Financial Center

The award was accepted by Akio Yoshimura,


President of the Mori Building Company in
Shanghai, owners of the building, and the
consultants who made the project hap-
pen – Eugene Kohn and William Pedersen of
architects Kohn Pedersen Fox and Sawteen
See of structural engineers Leslie E. Robertson
Associates.

Antony Wood and Tim Johnson awarding the ‘Best Tall Building Overall’ Award to Akiko Yoshiura, President of the Mori
Building Company; Eugene Kohn and William Pedersen of architects KPF and Sawteen See of structural engineers LERA.

12 | CTBUH 7th Awards Dinner, 2008 CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III
Best Tall Building Overall + Best Tall Best Tall Building Award Best Tall Building Award Best Tall Building Award
Building Award Africa & Middle East Americas Europe
Asia & Australasia Bahrain World Trade Center New York Times Building 51 Lime Street
Shanghai World Financial Center Bahrain New York London
Shanghai Atkins Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Foster + Partners
Kohn Pederson Fox FXFOWLE Architects

To celebrate this year’s winners, the CTBUH


has published a book entitled “Best Tall Build-
lining the winning buildings and individuals,
the book includes profiles of all projects that “ The Shanghai World Financial Center
now completes the two-decade dialogue
ings 2008: CTBUH International Award Win- were nominated for this year’s awards. To find with its Jin Mao neighbor, both differ-
ning Projects” in conjunction with Elsevier / out more about this publication, see below ent but confident interpretations of the
Architectural Press Publications. As well as out- and www.ctbuh.org/awardsbook2008.htm Chinese skyscraper.
Antony Wood, CTBUH Executive Director

Best Tall Buildings 2008: CTBUH International Award Winning Projects
This book features the 2008 winning projects Sample Pages:
alongside other honorable nominees from
SHANGHAI WORLD FINANCIAL CENTER
each region, profiling each in writing, photo- SHANGHAI, CHINA
dimensions were both increased from the
original design. Reinforcing the existing
piles to accommodate these changes

graphs and drawings. would have been possible but costly. The
new, taller structure would not only have
to be made lighter, but would need to
resist higher wind loads, which increase
exponentially with height.
Structural diagram showing how the various components of structure work together

The project’s structural engineer developed


a new system, employing composite mega-
columns, diagonal mega-braces, steel out-
riggers, belt trusses, and core wall trusses
(see right), the pile loads were redistributed

Additionally the book profiles the two annual


to accept increased lateral loads from wind
and earthquake. The stiffness of the lateral
force-resisting system of the perimeter wall
was increased, and as such, the original
design for the perimeter framing was
abandoned in favor of a diagonal-braced

lifetime achievement awards, the Lynn S. frame with added outrigger trusses coupled
to the columns of the mega-structure. This
enabled the weight of the building to be
reduced by more than 10% and resulted in
a reduced cost for the structure, provided

Beedle Award and the Fazlur Rahman Khan


for speedier construction, and significantly
reduced the material that went into the
building and thus made the building even
more environmentally friendly.
Construction photo showing exposed structural elements before cladding Model showing the building’s structure system of mega-columns, diagonals and
Viewed from the southeast belt trusses along with concrete core walls and outrigger trusses

Medal.
36 WINNER | ASIA & AUSTRALASIA 37

The book also features the official list of the 2008 BEST TALL BUILDING
MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA PROJECT DETAILS

Edited by: Antony Wood Completion Date


MANAMA, KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN
BAHRAIN WORLD TRADE CENTER

The Bahrain World Trade Center is the of the existing shopping mall towards the April 2008
world’s first building to integrate large- sea and creating a secondary axis from the
scale wind turbines; and together with Hotel, “Retail Streets” were established. The
Height
240 meters/787 feet

‘100 Tallest Buildings in the World’ and the


numerous energy reducing and recovery twin towers’ natural location was therefore
systems, this development shows an positioned on the main axis, facing the Total Area
120,000 square meters/

Published by: CTBUH in conjunction with


unequivocal commitment to raising global Arabian Gulf and creating the entrance for 1,291,669 square feet
awareness for sustainable design. This the development.
Use
building is pioneering a new direction
Commercial, Retail
for designers and owners acting as a The inspiration for the 42-story twin towers

Illinois Institute of Technology and Elsevier / height criteria upon which tall buildings are
technological precedent. The BWTC has originated from regional “Wind Towers” Owner / Developer
Confidential
shown that commercial developments can and their ability to funnel wind, and the
be created with a strong environmental vast sails of the traditional Arabian Dhow Architect
WS Atkins & Partners
agenda and addresses the needs of our as they harness the breeze in driving them
future generations. The BWTC encapsulates forward. After careful Computational Fluid Structural Engineer

measured.
WS Atkins & Partners

Architectural Press, Chicago, 2008


the essence of a sustainable philosophy Dynamics (CFD) modeling and extensive
engaging all of the social, economic and wind tunnel testing, the towers’ shape was
Contractor
environmental impacts of the project. literally carved out by the wind to create Nass, Murray & Roberts (JV)
As well as making significant strides in optimum airflow around the buildings. The
environmentally balanced architecture, elliptical plan forms act as aerofoils (see
the building is now considered a source of plans on page 91), funneling the onshore
AWARDS JURY / EDITOR STATEMENT

national pride for Bahrain residents, and breeze between them, creating a negative
“The Bahrain World Trade
ISBN: 978-1-85617-674-3 Center, with its three
massive turbines, gives
a very strong visual nod
is attributed with generating economic
prosperity within the capital of Manama.

The BWTC forms the focal point of a master


pressure behind, thus accelerating wind
velocity between the two towers. Vertically,
the sculpting of the towers is also a function
of airflow dynamics.
plan to rejuvenate the 30-year-old existing

Price: $50 S&H Go to www.ctbuh.org/awardsbook2008. toward sustainability.”


-James Forbes, Hyder Consulting Pty. Ltd.
hotel and shopping mall on the site. The
planning of the site became constrained by
the existing buildings and the road network
around the site. By extending the main axis
As they taper skywards, the aerofoil
sections reduce (see elevations on page 90).
This effect, combined with the increasing
onshore wind velocity at higher altitudes
Looking up from the main entrance at the wind turbines

86 WINNER | MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA 87

htm to download a preview of the book


Hard cover with jacket:128 pp.
and to order.
CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III CTBUH 7th Awards Dinner, 2008 | 13
Case Study: CCTV Building - Headquarters & Cultural Center

Authors
Chris Carroll, Paul Cross, Xiaonian Duan, Craig
Gibbons, Goman Ho, Michael Kwok, Richard
Lawson, Alexis Lee, Ronald Li, Andrew Luong,
Rory McGowan, Chas Pope
Arup

Arup is a global firm of designers, engineers,


planners and business consultants providing a
diverse range of professional services to clients
around the world. The firm has over 10 000 staff
working in more than 90 offices in 37 countries.

Arup has three main global business areas –


buildings, infrastructure and consulting – although
their multi-disciplinary approach means that any
given project may involve people from any or all of
the sectors or regions in which they operate. Arup
has extensive experience in the field of tall
buildings, having provided core multidisciplinary Figure 1. Architect’s impression of the building
design services for such notable projects as 30 St.
Mary Axe in London, the International Commerce
Center (ICC) in Hong Kong, and the I.Q. Tower in
Doha, Qatar. The new headquarters of China Central Television contains the entire television-making process
within a single building. The 234m tall tower redefines the form of the skyscraper, with the
primary system comprised of a continuous structural tube of columns, beams and braces
Arup
13 Fitzroy Street
around the entire skin of the building. In order to gain structural approval an Expert Panel
London process was necessary, for which a performance-based analysis was carried out to justify the
W1T 4BQ design. This made extensive use of finite element analysis and advanced non-linear elasto-
t: (+44) 020 7636 1531 plastic time history to evaluate the structural behaviour and ensure the building safety under
www.arup.com different levels of seismic event. The leaning form and varied programme, including the need to
accommodate large studio spaces, posed additional challenges for the gravity structure, and
resulted in the introduction of a large number of transfer trusses throughout the tower. Erecting
and connecting the two massive towers presented the structural engineers and contractors
with further design and construction challenges.

Introduction Architectural Concept


This article describes the structural design and China Central Television (CCTV), the country’s
construction of the CCTV Building in Beijing, state broadcaster, plans to expand from 18
including development of the structural con- to 200 channels and compete globally in the
cept, performance-based seismic design and coming years. To accommodate this expan-
Expert Panel Review process. sion, they organized an international design
competition early in 2002 to design a new
“Prior to connection, the two Towers would headquarters building. This was won by OMA
(Office of Metropolitan Architecture) and Arup,
move independently of each other due to which subsequently allied with the East China
Design Institute (ECADI) to act as the essential
environmental conditions, in particular wind and local design institute (LDI) for both architecture
and engineering.
thermal expansion and contraction. As soon as
The unusual brief, in television terms, was that
they were joined, therefore, the elements at the all the functions for production, management,
and administration would be contained on the
link would have to be able to resist the stresses chosen site in the new Beijing Central Business
District (CBD), but not necessarily in one build-
caused by these movements. ”

14 | CCTV Building CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


Figure 2. Uniform bracing pattern Figure 3. Unfolded’ view of final bracing pattern

ing. In their architectural response, however, Development of the structural form two-storey module (see Figure 2). This was
OMA decided that by doing just this, it should From the outset, it was determined that the chosen to coincide with the location of several
be possible to break down the ‘ghettoes’ that only way to deliver the desired architectural double-height studios within the Towers. A
tend to form in a complex and compartmen- form of the CCTV building was to engage the stiff floor plate diaphragm is therefore only
talized process like making TV programmes, entire façade structure, creating in essence an guaranteed on alternate storeys, hence lateral
and create a building whose layout in three external continuous tube system. This would loads from intermediate levels are transferred
dimensions would force all those involved to give the structure the largest available dimen- back to the principal diaphragm levels via the
mix and produce a better end-product more sions to resist the huge bending forces gener- internal core and the columns.
efficiently. ated by the cranked, leaning form – as well as
loads from wind and extreme earthquakes.
However, results of the preliminary analysis
The winning design for the 473,000m², showed that the forces in the braces varied
234m tall, CCTV building (see Figure 1) thus The ‘tube’ is formed by fully bracing all sides of considerably around the structure, with
combines administration and offices, news the façade. The planes of bracing are continu- particular concentrations near the roof of the
and broadcasting, programme production ous through the building volume in order to Overhang and at the connection to the Base.
and services – the entire TV-making process reinforce and stiffen the corners. The system This led to an optimization process in which
– in a single loop of interconnected activities is ideally suited to deal with the nature and the brace pattern was modified by adding or
around the four elements of the building: the intensity of permanent and temporary loading removing diagonals (i.e. ‘doubling’ or ‘halving’
nine-storey ‘Base’, the two leaning Towers that on the building, and is a versatile, efficient the pattern), depending on the strength and
slope at 6° in each direction, and the nine to structure which can bridge in bending and stiffness requirements of the design, based on
13-storey ‘Overhang’, suspended 36 storeys in torsion between the Towers, provide enough a Level 1 earthquake analysis. This also enabled
the air. strength and stiffness in the Towers to deliver a degree of standardization of the brace ele-
loads to the ground, and stiffen up the Base ment section sizes (see Figure 3).
to reinforce the lower Tower levels and deliver
The public facilities are in a second building, loads to the foundations in the most favour-
the Television Cultural Centre (TVCC), and both able possible distribution, given the geometry. This was an extremely iterative process due
are serviced from a third Service Building that to the high indeterminacy of the structure,
houses major plant as well as security. The with each changing of the pattern altering the
whole development will provide 599,000m² The tube was originally envisaged as a regular dynamic behaviour of the structure and hence
gross floor area and covers 187,000m², includ- pattern of perimeter steel or steel-reinforced the seismic forces that are attracted by each
ing a landscaped media park with external concrete (SRC) columns, perimeter beams, element. It was carried out in close 
features. and diagonal steel braces set out on a typically

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III CCTV Building | 15


collaboration with the architect, since the pat- design engineers who are relieved of any legal Seismic Fortifi- Level 1 Level 2 Level 3
tern of visually expressed diagonals was a key responsibilities by virtue of compliance. The cation Level
aesthetic aspect of the cladding system. Chinese code for seismic design of buildings Description Minor Moderate Severe
(GB50011 – 2001), sets out its own scope of
Peak ground 0.07g 0.20g 0.40g
applicability, limiting the height of various acceleration
The braced tube structure gives the leaning systems and the degree of plan and vertical
Towers ample stiffness during construction, Average Return 1 in 50 1 in 475 1 in 2475
irregularities. Design of buildings exceeding Period years years years
allowing them to be built safely within tight the code must go through a project-specific
tolerances before they are connected and Probability of 63% in 50 10% in 50 2% in 50
seismic design expert panel review (EPR) and exceedance years years years
propped off each other. The tube system also approval process as set out by the Ministry of
suits the construction of the Overhang, allow- Fortification No Repair- No col-
Construction. Criteria damage able lapse
ing its two halves to cantilever temporarily (remain damage
from the Towers. elastic)
Although the 234m height of the CCTV build- Table1. Seismic performance objectives
ing is within the code’s height limit of 260m
The continuous tube has a high degree of for steel tubular structural systems (framed-
inherent robustness and redundancy, and of- tube, tube-in-tube, truss-tube, etc) in Beijing, Elastic superstructure design
fers the potential for adopting alternative load its geometry is noncompliant. The Seismic A full set of linear elastic verification analyses
paths in the unlikely event that key elements Administration Office of the Beijing Municipal were performed, covering all loading com-
are removed. Government appointed an expert panel of 12 binations including Level 1 seismic loading,
eminent Chinese engineers and academics to for which modal response spectrum analy-
closely examine the structural design, focusing ses were used. All individual elements were
Gravity loads are also carried by vertical
on its seismic resistance, seismic structural extensively checked and the building’s global
columns around the building’s central service
damage control, and life safety aspects. In performance verified. Selected elements were
cores, whilst a number of steel transfer trusses
order to engage the expert panel early in the also assessed under a Level 2 earthquake by
are introduced to support the floors in the
design process, three informal meetings were elastic analysis, thus ensuring key elements
Overhang, at high levels in the sloping towers,
held to solicit feedback and gain trust before such as columns remained elastic.
and over large studios in the Podium area.
the final formal presentation and approval in
January 2004.
The elastic analysis and design was principally
Each tower sits on a piled raft foundation. The
performed using SAP2000, a computer-based
rafts vary in thickness up to 7metres, and ex-
As the seismic design lay outside the scope nonlinear structural analysis program, and a
tend beyond the footprint of the Towers to act
of the prescriptive Chinese codes of practice, custom-written Chinese steelwork code post-
as a ‘toe’, distributing forces more favourably
Arup proposed a performance-based design processor in Excel. This automatically took the
into the ground. The foundation system is ar-
approach from the outset, adopting first individual load cases applied to the building
ranged so that the centre of the raft is close to
principles and state-of-the-art methods and and combined them for the limit state design.
the centre of load at the bottom of each tower,
guidelines to achieve set performance targets Capacity ratios were then visually displayed, al-
and no permanent tension is allowed in the
at different levels of seismic event. Explicit and lowing detailed inspection of the critical cases
33m long piles. Limited tensions in some piles
quantitative design checks using appropriate for each member. Due to the vast number of
are only permitted in major seismic events.
linear and non-linear seismic analysis were elements in the model (10,060 primary ele-
made to verify the performance for all three ments) and the multitude of load cases, four
Performance-based design approach levels of design earthquake. post-processors were run in parallel for each of
The legal framework in China governing build- the four types of element in the external tube
ing design practice is similar to those of Japan (steel columns, SRC columns, steel braces, and
The criteria for this performance-based design steel edge beams respectively).
and some continental European countries
are beyond those usually applied to such
where the design codes are legal documents
buildings in China, and were set by the design
published and enforced by the state govern-
team in consultation with the expert panel to The post-processor provided a revised element
ment. Design engineers must comply with
reflect the importance of the building both to list which was imported back into SAP2000,
the codes when designing buildings and
the client and to the Chinese Government. The and the analysis and post-processing repeated
structures covered by their scope, but equally
basic qualitative performance objectives were until all the design criteria were met. As the
the codes provide legal protection to the
as follows: structure is highly indeterminate and the load

16 | CCTV Building CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


...structure CCTV

“ Maybe we could best describe it as a tube


folded in space… All the outer surfaces are
covered in a diagonal steel mesh and this mesh is
folded and allows the weight to flow around the
building until it finds the ideal path to the
ground.

Ole Scheeren, Partner at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, and
architect of the CCTV Building discusses the building’s unique
structural system. From ‘CCTV, the new state television headquarters,
will broadcast China’s rise’, The Times, August 9th, 2008. Figure 4. Foundation settlement analysis

paths are heavily influenced by stiffness, each Inelastic deformation acceptance limits for the tory analysis method were used to determine
small change in element property moves load key structural brace members in the con- the seismic deformation demands in terms of
around locally. Optimizing the elements only tinuous tube were determined by non-linear the maximum inelastic inter-storey drifts and
for capacity would result in the entire load numerical simulation of the post-buckling be- the maximum inelastic member deformation.
gradually being attracted to the inside corner haviour. LS-DYNA, commonly used to simulate These deformation demands were compared
columns, making them prohibitively large, so car crash behaviour, was used for this work. against the structure’s deformation capacities
careful control had to be made of when an The braces are critical to both the lateral as storey-by-storey and member-by-member to
element’s section size could be reduced and well as the gravity systems of the building and verify the seismic performance of the entire
when there was a minimum size required to are also the primary sources of ductility and building. All global and local seismic deforma-
maintain the stiffness of the tube at the back seismic energy dissipation. Non-linear numeri- tion demands were shown to be within their
face. cal simulation of the braces was needed to respective acceptance limits.
establish the post-buckling axial force/axial de-
formation degradation relationship to be used
To further validate the multi-directional modal in the global 3-D non-linear simulation model. Foundation design
response spectrum analyses, Level 1 time- It was also used to determine the inelastic de- The design of the foundations required that
history checks were also made using real and formation (axial shortening) acceptance limit the applied superstructure loads be redistribut-
artificially-generated seismic records. in relation to the stated performance criteria. ed across the raft so as to engage enough piles
Post-buckling inelastic degradation relation- to provide adequate strength and stiffness. To
ship curves illustrate the strength degradation validate the load spread to the pile group, an
Non-linear superstructure seismic design iterative analysis process was used adopting a
as the axial shortening increases under cyclic
For the performance-based design, a set of non-linear soil model coupled with a discrete
axial displacement time history loading. The
project-specific ‘design rules’ were proposed by model of the piled raft system (see Figure 4).
acceptable inelastic deformation was then
the design team and reviewed and approved Several hundred directional load case com-
determined from the strength degradation
by the expert panel, for example allowable binations were automated in a spreadsheet
‘backbone’ curve to ensure that there was suf-
post-yield strains in each type of element. controlling the GSRaft soil-structure interaction
ficient residual strength to support the gravity
Appropriate linear and non-linear seismic solver.
loads after a severe earthquake event.
response simulation methods were selected
to verify the performance of the building
under all three levels of design earthquake. Having established the inelastic global The analysis iteratively modelled the redistri-
Seismic force and deformation demands were structure and local member deformation bution of load between piles when their safe
compared with the acceptance limits estab- acceptance limits, the next step was to carry working load was reached. The analysis was
lished earlier to rigorously demonstrate that all out non-linear numerical seismic response repeated for each load case until the results
three qualitative performance objectives were simulation of the entire 3-D building subjected converged and all piles were within the allow-
achieved. to Level 2 and Level 3 design earthquakes. able capacities. Finally, the envelope of these
Both the non-linear static pushover analysis analyses was then used to design the raft
method and the non-linear dynamic time his- reinforcement. 

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III CCTV Building | 17


Figure 5. Connection analysis Figure 6. Transfer trusses

Connection Design before the braces buckle or yield - assuming columns, spanning between the internal
The force from the braces and edge-beams the maximum probable material properties - core and the external tube structure. They
must be transferred through and into the to evaluate the stress magnitude and degree are typically two storeys deep and located in
column sections with minimal disruption to of stress concentration in the joints. The shape plant floors so as to be hidden from view and
the stresses already present in the column. The of the butterfly plate was then adjusted by to minimize the impact on floor planning. The
connection is formed by replacing the flanges smoothing out corners and notches until po- sizes of the transfer trusses mean that they
of the steel column with large ‘butterfly’ plates, tential regions of yielding were minimized and could potentially act as outriggers linking
which pass through the face of the column the degree of stress concentration reduced to the external tube to the internal steel cores -
and then connect with the braces and the levels typically permitted in civil and me- undesirable as this would introduce seismic
edge-beams. No connection is made to the chanical engineering practice. CAD files of the forces into the relatively slender internal cores.
web of the column to simplify the detailing resulting geometry of the joints were exported The transfer trusses are thus connected to the
and construction. from the finite element models and used for internal cores and the external columns at
further drawing production. singular ‘pin-joint’ locations only.

The joints are required to behave with the


braces, beams, and columns as ‘strong joint/ Gravity Structure and Transfer Trusses Further transfer trusses are introduced to sup-
weak component’. The connections must Whilst the external tube structure slopes port internal columns within the Overhang,
resist the maximum probable load delivered to give the unique geometry, the internal and to support floors above the large studios
to them from the braces with minimal yielding steel columns and cores are kept straight for in the Base (see Figure 6). As with the ‘butterfly’
and a relatively low degree of stress concentra- functional layout and to house lift and services plates, forces in the truss diagonals are carried
tion. High stress concentrations could lead to shafts. This resulted in a different configuration only by the flanges at connections, with the
brittle fracture at the welds under cyclic seis- for every floor - the spans from core to façade, webs stopping short of the chords to simplify
mic loading, a common cause of failure in con- and internal column to façade, change on construction.
nections observed after the 1994 Northridge each level.
earthquake in Los Angeles. Two connections,
representing the typical and the largest cases, Physical Testing
were modelled using powerful finite element Sloping cores were considered, to allow As part of the expert panel approval process,
analysis software such as MSC/NASTRAN (see consistency of floor plate layout, but ruled there was a requirement for three physical
Figure 5). out due to constraints on the procurement of tests to be carried out, in order to verify the
the lift systems. Therefore, additional columns analytical calculations:
are needed on upper storeys where the floor 1. Joint Test (‘butterfly plate’): Beijing’s
The models were analyzed, subjected to the spans increase significantly on one side of the Tsinghua University tested a 1:5 scale
full range of forces that can be developed core. Transfer trusses support these additional model of the column-brace joint to confirm

18 | CCTV Building CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


its performance under cyclical loading, in the 150mm thick composite floor slabs. In all The PTS outlined specific measures to address
particular the requirement that failure takes cases, the physical tests correlated closely with key issues in the construction of the building
place by yielding of the element rather the analysis. including:
than at the connection. 1. Construction sequencing and its effect
2. Composite column: Tongji University in Handover and Tender on the final stress in the structural elements
Shanghai tested 1:5 scale models of the In August 2004, after receiving approval for the 2. Ensuring the building and elements are
project’s non-standard steel reinforced col- structural design from the Chinese Ministry of constructed to the designed setting out
umns. These tests resulted from concerns Construction, Arup handed over the extended and positions, within allowed construction
that the high structural steel ratio might preliminary design (EPD) documents to ECADI, tolerance
lead to reduced ductility. which then began to produce the Con- 3. Construction and linking of the overhang
3. Shaking table test: A 7m tall 1:35 scale struction Documents (CDs). Arup, however,
model of the entire building was con- maintained an extensive involvement on
structed to test the structural performance completion of the EPD design phase, includ- Further requirements were contained in
under several seismic events including a ing production of tender documentation for separate Construction Stages and Movement
severe Level 3 earthquake. The tests were the main structure and interaction with the reports, complementary to the PTS.
undertaken by the China Academy of Build- tenderers for the works, as well as being part of
ing Research (CABR) in Beijing, using the the tender review process. Together with the
largest shaking table outside America or architects OMA, Arup also had a continuous Some of the detailed issues identified in the
Japan (see Figure 7). site presence during construction, working PTS included:
with the contractor in implementing the 1. Weight audits – placing the onus on the
design. contractor to convey the weight added to
This large-scale shaking table test was of
the building at stages during the construc-
particular interest. In China it is the norm for
tion. The contractor would then use this
buildings that fall outside the code to be thus Particular Technical Specification
information in the prediction of deforma-
studied, and the CCTV model was the largest One of the key tender documents was the
tion and movements, which would then
and most complex tested to date. The nature Particular Technical Specification (PTS), which
enable calibration and presetting of the
of the testing required the primary structural placed several requirements on the contractor
building during construction.
elements to be made from copper (to replicate that were specific to the design of CCTV.
as much as possible in a scale sense the ductil- 2. Specific monitoring of the tower defor-
ity of steel). The model also included concrete mation.
floors (approximately 8mm thick) to represent 3. Specific monitoring of deformations of
the foundations.
4. Presetting of the structure.
5. Monitoring of daily variation in the dif-
ference between the position of connec-
tion points as the Overhang construction
advanced prior to linking.
6. The requirement to connect when the
relative movement between the connec-
tion points of the Overhang would be
manageable.
7. A means of showing that the extent of
connection was commensurate with the
daily movement measurement, so as to
prevent the connection ripping apart once
it had been firmly made.
8. A requirement for post-installing certain
key structural elements. 

Figure 7. Shake table test model

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III CCTV Building | 19


Figure 8. Alternative methods of constructing the Overhang

Construction sequencing the lower part of the Overhang at ground level sis and is one of China’s foremost universities.
The final stresses in the building are linked and strand jack the assembly into position; The independent site supervisor was Yuanda
to its construction sequence. In addition to and constructing incremental cantilevers from International.
regular gravity and lateral forces acting on the each Tower until the two met and connected
structure, there are significant additional con- at the centre of the Overhang (see Figure 8).
struction stage forces due to the fact that the The latter approach was as described in Arup’s Excavation and foundations
building comprises two separate leaning Tow- documentation, though any construction The ground-breaking ceremony took place
ers with cantilever up until the point at which approach was deemed acceptable provided it on 22 September 2004, and the excavation of
they are joined to become one structure. The could satisfy the locked-in stress limits defined 870 000m3 of earth began the following
additional bending and overturning stresses in the Particular Specification. month under an advance contract. Strict
that get “locked” into the Towers and founda- construction regulations in Beijing meant
tions prior to joining depend on the amount that spoil could only be removed at night:
of structure and façade completed at the time China State Construction Engineering Corpo- nonetheless, up to 12 000m3 of soil was re-
of connection. ration (CSCEC) was awarded the main contract moved each day, the entire excavation taking
in April 2005. CSCEC tendered on this third 190 days. Dewatering wells were also installed,
approach. since the groundwater level was above the
In essence, the greater the construction load maximum excavation depth of 27.4m below
applied to the building prior to connecting existing ground level.
the two Towers, the more this would manifest Construction team
itself as increased locked-in base moments in CSCEC, a state-owned enterprise under the
the Towers. After the connection was made, administration of the central government, The two Towers are supported on separate
any added weight would result in a thrust was established in 1982 and is China’s largest piled raft foundations with up to 370 rein-
between the two Towers via the Overhang. construction and engineering group. CSCEC forced concrete bored piles beneath each,
now enjoys an international reputation, having typically 33m long and up to 1.2m in diameter.
completed an increasing number of projects In total, 1242 piles were installed during the
As part of the Particular Specification, the abroad including the Middle East, South spring and summer of 2005.
Construction Sequence report defined an America and Africa. The steelwork fabricators
upper and lower bound range of permissible were Grand Tower, part of the Bao Steel group
locked-in stress, allowing the contractor some based in Shanghai (China’s largest steel manu- The Tower rafts were constructed over Christ-
flexibility in choosing his final construction facturer), and Jiangsu Huning Steel, based in mas 2005. The 7m thick reinforced concrete
sequence. Jixing, Jiangsu Province. slabs each contain up to 39 000m³ of concrete
and 5000 tonnes of reinforcement. Each raft
was constructed in a single continuous pour
A number of construction methods were Other members of the team were Turner Con- lasting up to 54 hours. At one stage, 720m3
proposed for the Overhang. These included struction (USA), providing support to CSCEC of concrete was being delivered every hour,
constructing of a temporary tower the full on construction logistics, China Academy of using a relay of 160 concrete trucks from three
162m height to the underside of the Over- Building Research (CABR), one of the major suppliers. Chilled water pipes were embed-
hang, providing a working platform to build design institutes in Beijing, and Tsinghua Uni- ded inside the pour and temperatures were
the Overhang connection in situ; constructing versity, which carried out the presetting analy- monitored for more than two weeks to ensure

20 | CCTV Building CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


Figure 10. Typical baseplate

that the concrete did not experience too high The elements were lifted into place by two being lifted a short distance off the ground,
a temperature gradient during curing. The two tower cranes working inside each Tower, using a chain block. This simplified the erec-
rafts, poured within days of each other, were including M1280D cranes imported from tion process at height.
the largest single continuous concrete pours Australia – the largest ever used in China’s
ever undertaken by China’s building industry. building industry.
In total, 133 343m³ of concrete went into the The vertical core structure was generally
foundations of the Towers and podium. erected three storeys ahead of the perimeter
Each crane not only had to be raised up to frame. This meant that the perimeter columns
14 times during construction, but also skewed could be initially bolted in place and braced to
The seismic analysis indicated that some col- sideways up to four times when it reached the core columns with temporary stays, then
umns and their foundation piles could experi- the upper levels, to maintain position relative released from the tower crane before final
ence tension during a severe design earth- to the edges of the progressively shifting surveying and positioning. The welders could
quake. Some of the perimeter columns and floorplate. then start the full-penetration butt welds re-
their baseplates were therefore embedded 6m quired at every connection: a time-consuming
into the rafts to enhance their anchorage (see task requiring shift work to achieve a continu-
Figure 9). Certain piles were also designed for Due to the 6° slope of the Towers, the perim- ous 24-hour process.
tension. eter elements needed to be adjusted to ap-
proximately the correct installation angle after
The maximum plate thickness of the columns
Steelwork construction is 110mm and the volume of weld sometimes
The first column element was placed on reaches as much as 15% of the total con-
13 February 2006. In total, 41 882 steel ele- nection weight. At the extreme case, a few
ments with a combined weight of 125 000 connection plates near the base of the Tower
tonnes, including connections, were erected required a 15m long site splice of 100mm thick
over the next 26 months, at a peak rate of 8000 plate, each taking a week to complete. The
tonnes per month. plate thickness of some elements exceeded
the maximum assumed in design, which had
been determined by likely steel availability.
During the design it was thought that some Onerous material specifications were laid
high-grade steel elements would need to be out for thick sections to ensure satisfactory
imported, but in the end all the steel came performance.
from China, reflecting the rapid advances of
the country’s steelwork industry. Steel sections
were fabricated at the yards of Grand Tower The geometrical complexity made construc-
in Shanghai and Huning in Jiangsu, and then tion slower than for other steel-framed build-
delivered to site by road (see Figure 10), with ings. Although the rate of erection increased
a size limit of either the tower crane capacity as the contractor became more familiar with
(80 tonnes) or the maximum physical dimen- the process, CCTV has no “typical floors”.
sions that could be transported (18m length). Nevertheless, up to six storeys per month
Figure 9. Column embedded in raft
was achieved for the relatively uniform 

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III CCTV Building | 21


(a) Tower deflects under its own (b) Preset upwards and backwards. (c) Resultant: no deflection under
weight. self-weight.

Figure 11. Basic concept of presetting

levels at Tower mid-height. Concreting the The presetting process was further com- The contractor commissioned CABR to
composite columns and floor slabs took plicated by the fact that when completed, carry out the movement monitoring, while
place several storeys behind steel erection, off almost all the columns have different stresses, Tsinghua University performed the building
the critical path. depending on the ratio of gravity to seismic movement prediction and presetting analysis
loads, unlike in a conventional building as required by the Arup specification. This
where all perimeter elements will be similarly required a more detailed time history analysis
Movements and presets stressed. As a result, different presets were of the final construction sequence, dividing
Arup’s calculations included a “construction required on different sides of the Towers, the process into 53 assumed stages based
time history” analysis to take account of the the exact values also depending on the final on estimated progress for the perimeter
effects of the predicted construction method construction sequence. In practical terms, tube, core, slab concreting, façade, services,
and sequence on the completed building’s this meant fabricating the columns longer on and interior fit-out. This was compared with
deflections and built-in forces. This indicated one side of each Tower, so that they would the results of the movement monitoring,
that the corner of the Overhang would move eventually shorten to the correct geometry and checks and adjustments were made as
downwards by approximately 300mm under under load. necessary.
the building’s dead weight. For there to be no
overall downward deflection under this load
case, the whole structure needed to be pre- Presetting was in two stages: at the fabrica- The studies found that the movements
set upwards and backwards to compensate tion yard, based on the results of the ana- during Overhang construction would be
(see Figure 11). The contractor continuously lytical modelling, and then at installation, if far more significant than those at the earlier
monitored construction to ensure that the required, to suit the actual building deforma- stages caused by the Towers’ lean only. Due
actual movements corresponded to analysis tion as monitored during the course of con- to the large number of variables needed for
assumptions and predictions. struction. Progress of floor plate concreting the presetting calculation (variable axial stiff-
(a) Tower deflects under its own weight was also controlled to suit the assumptions ness, final construction sequence, foundation
made in the presetting estimation. settlement, thermal movements, etc), the
(b) Preset upward and backward main focus of the analysis was on the critical
(c) Resultant: no deflection under self-weight Overhang construction stage. By the time

...safety vs. cost

“ It does not take a NIST report or a rocket scientist to figure out that requiring additional exit stairs
will improve overall occupant evacuation times… The bigger question that needs to be answered is at
what economic cost to society?

David Frable, a General Services Administration fire safety engineer, asks the International Code Council to repeal stronger safety requirements for new
skyscrapers that were added to the country’s most widely used building code last year, arguing that they would be too expensive to meet. From
‘Agency Fights Building Code Born of 9/11’, The New York Times, September 7th, 2008.

22 | CCTV Building CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


Figure 12. The Overhang before connection Figure 13. The seven initial connection elements

Overhang erection commenced, there was al- Fabrication accuracy was therefore crucial so that final adjustments could be made to the
ready much movement data from the Tower for this part of the structure, with erection length of the linking elements while they were
construction that could be used to calibrate being carried out piece-by-piece 160m above still on the ground prior to installation.
the analysis. ground level. Trial assembly of these trusses
at the fabrication yard prior to delivery was
essential to ensure that minimal adjustment The contractor chose to connect seven link
Overhang construction would be needed at height. elements at the inside corner of the Over-
Construction of the Overhang began after the hang during this initial connection phase (see
steelwork for the two Towers was completed Figure 13). These were lifted into place – to
to roof level. Tower 2 Overhang began first, in Prior to connection, the two Towers would less than 10mm tolerance – and temporarily
August 2007, and the structure was cantile- move independently of each other due to en- fixed with pins in the space of a few minutes
vered out piece-by-piece from each Tower vironmental conditions, in particular wind and at 9.00am on 8 December 2007, before the
over the course of the next five months (see thermal expansion and contraction. As soon Towers started to move relative to each other
Figure 12). This was the most critical construc- as they were joined, therefore, the elements (see Figure 14). The pins allowed them to carry
tion stage, not only in terms of temporary at the link would have to be able to resist the the thermal loads while the joints were fully
stability but also because its presence and the stresses caused by these movements. As a welded over the following 48 hours.
way it was built would change the behaviour result, the connection strategy required a delay
of those parts of the Tower already construct- joint that could allow a sufficient number of
ed. The forces from the two halves of the partly elements to be loosely connected between The specification originally called for the
constructed Overhang would be concentrated the Towers, then locked off quickly to allow connection to take place while ambient
in the Towers until such time as the two halves them all to carry these forces safely before any temperatures were between 12-28°C (i.e. close
were sufficiently linked and the building relative movement took place. to the standard room temperature assumed
became a single continuous form, when the in analysis). Since the connection took place
Arup specified that this should take place early during winter, the temperature at the time was
loads would start being shared between all of in the morning on a windless day, when the
the permanent structure. around 0°C, so further analysis of the structure
two Towers would be at a uniform tempera- was carried out by the design team to check
ture and the movements at a minimum. the impact of the increased design thermal
The bottom two levels of the Overhang range.
contain 15 transfer trusses that support the in- In the lead-up to connection, Arup’s specifi-
ternal columns and transfer their loads into the cation required one week of monitoring of
external tube. In the corner of the Overhang, Once the initial connection was made, the
global and relative movements so that the remainder of the Overhang steelwork was
these trusses are two-way, resulting in some correct dimensions of the linking elements
complex 3-D nodes with up to 13 connecting progressively installed. With the building now
could be predicted. The relative movements acting as one entity, the Overhang was prop-
elements, weighing approximately 33 tonnes of the Towers during the day were found to be
each. ping and stabilising the two Towers, and con-
around ±10mm. The contractor made the final tinued to attract locked-in stresses as further
measurements of the gap exactly 24 hours be- weight was applied. In addition to the primary
forehand (i.e. at identical ambient conditions) steelwork elements, a continuous steel 

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III CCTV Building | 23


Figure 14. Installation of first connection element Figure 15. The completed tower

plate deck up to 20mm thick was laid down Key elements at the intersection of the The performance-based design approach
on the lowest floors of the Overhang to resist Towers and podium were also post-fixed pioneered on CCTV has since been used suc-
the high in-plane forces that were part of this for similar reasons. In addition, this process cessfully for many other projects in China. The
propping action. The concrete floor slabs were enabled the architectural size of the elements structure of the CCTV building was complet-
only added once the entire primary structure to be controlled, while giving the contractor ed in May 2008, with the façade finished by
had been completed, so as to reduce the additional flexibility to deal with construction the start of the Beijing Olympic Games.
loads during the partially-constructed stage. movements.
Again, the construction stage analysis needed
to take account of this sequencing. That the contractor could construct such a
Delay joints were introduced between the vast and complex building with few delays
Towers and the Base to allow for differential was a credit to the design team and to
A topping-out ceremony on 27 March 2008, settlement between the two structures’ CSCEC, in particular the attention paid to de-
on a specially-constructed platform at the foundations. It should be noted that over half vising a feasible construction sequence from
corner of the Overhang, marked the comple- the predicted settlements were expected to an early stage, and the careful thought about
tion of the steelwork installation. take place after the Towers were constructed the buildability of the primary structural ele-
to their full height, due to the disproportion- ments and connections.
ate effect of the Overhang on the forces in
Post-installation of key elements certain columns. These were fully closed after
Arup’s early analysis showed that the corner completion of the main structure. Further References
columns on the inside faces of the Towers late-cast strips were also provided at several (1) CARROLL, C, et al. CCTV Headquarters, Beijing, China:
Structural engineering design and approvals. The Arup
would attract a huge amount of dead load locations around the basement to control Journal, 40(2), pp3-9, 2/2005
from the Overhang, and thus have little spare shrinkage. (2) CARROLL, C, et al. CCTV Headquarters, Beijing, China:
capacity for resisting seismic loads. Increas- Building the structure. The Arup Journal, 43(2), pp40-51,
ing the column sizes was rejected since they 2/2008
would become stiffer and hence attract even CONCLUSIONS
higher loads. Instead, the corner column and The project demonstrated that a building Credits
brace elements directly below the Overhang with many complex technical challenges Client: China Central Television
were left out until the end of construction, could be delivered successfully within a Architect: OMA Stedebouw BV, Ole Scheeren and Rem
forcing the dead loads to travel via the diago- tight programme. An international team Koolhaas
nals down adjacent columns and enabling was mobilized to make best use of the firm’s Engineer: Arup

the full capacity of the corner elements to be experience and knowledge, which required Local Design Institute: East China Architectural Design and

available for wind and seismic loads in the seamless co-ordination between a number of Research Institute Co Ltd (ECADI)

as-built condition. locations and cultures.


Illustrations
All © Arup except Figure 1 (© OMA), Figure 13 (© CSCEC)

24 | CCTV Building CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


Letters to the Editor
Reflection on Dubai Congress The Journal clearly keeps expanding. It’s now Hong Kong building, you may well be ending
almost 50 pages, a huge increase from just at level 63 since in many cases there is no
This year’s CTBUH CTBUH 2008
8th World Congress; Proceedings a year ago. That’s a great indication of how level 13 either, following the superstitious
congress held in
comprehensive the Journal has become in its western trend of not numbering most level
Dubai in many
content. And as the membership continues 13’s. In many European countries a 24-story
respects can be re-
to increase in the Council, it is only natural the project has 25 levels, due to the including
garded as a success-
Journal will grow with the membership. of first level as ‘ground floor’ i.e. ground floor
ful event serving as
I encourage all Council members to read and +24 levels.
a forum to showcase Editor: Antony Wood

projects, expertise use the information contained in the CTBUH Madou Plaza, a recently renovated and
and new trends in Journal. Likewise, I hope our membership expanded 34-story award-winning building
development phi-
Organizer: Main Sponsors:

Gold-Plus
passes along their copy of the Journal to in Brussels, Belgium (see Figure 1) has seen
Sponsor

losophies. other colleagues to give them an opportunity its overall above-ground surface increased
to review it as well. from 32,000 to 40,000 square meters through
This event, as with
Looking forward to the next issue. renovation.
many other recent gatherings of profession-
als active in real estate development areas, Bill Maibusch
also highlighted the need for a re-think of the Turner Construction International
format of such events. Doha, Qatar.
The unprecedented construction boom,
especially felt in the Middle East but also
in many parts of Asia, characterized by a Tall Buildings In Numbers
fascination with high-rise buildings, leads to It was with great interest that I read the new
taller and bolder designs proposed by both ‘Tall Buildings in Numbers’ feature in the
established design firms and a new breed of CTBUH Journal Issue II. Numerous statistics
professionals. have been widely published in the past
When talking to design professionals, I feel about the ‘tallest’ and ‘most iconic’ skyscrapers
there is a need for discussion platforms where built, but very few statistics have ever been
more open and in-depth exchange of ex- published regarding the total number of tall
periences can take place in an effort to raise buildings built. Since the turn of the new mil-
awareness of state-of-the-art design prac- lennium however, primarily via the Internet,
tices. Such gatherings should not only share information about individual tall buildings
success stories but also serve the important has been made widely available, however, Figure 1. Madou Plaza, Brussels, Belgium
function of alerting to problems in our ever globalization of numbers and figures is still
more complex and challenging projects. missing from most media, including the net. At the same time, the plot where the building
Because of the ever increasing number of tall sits has also been widely enlarged through
Dr. Greg Gajer
buildings built worldwide and accommodat- the acquisition of land. In the end, the FAR
Limitless LLC
ing different if not new uses, it is perhaps (floor area ratio) of the project has decreased
Dubai, UAE
time to give the public a wider access to widely from 27.8 to 11.6 while the density
more figures about this evolution. Tall Build- actually newly implemented in the area has
ings in Numbers clearly has such an ambition. been augmented by 25%.
Journal keeps getting better
Now, while global figures are needed to as- This is just an example of illustrating that pre-
As a long time member of The Council, I sess the ever changing global tall buildings cise figures do not always allow us to assess
enjoy reading the CTBUH Journal on a regular market growing taller and taller every day, we the reality in its global aspect! In summary
basis. The last issue of the Journal was very should be aware that individual figures may - yes, we all need figures and numbers about
informative. Two specific articles to mention; be false or misleading, For example, some tall buildings but before sorting them, we
first, Dan O’Connor’s research on building developers start numbering the floors in their need to make sure that we don’t mix apples
facades and fire safety, portrayed two critical projects with a 2-digit figure, thus in the end and pears or that final numbers do represent
elements of every tall building that must be gaining 10 levels to the total numbers of reality and not only some dry statistics.
developed together to provide maximum floors (in this case height – or its representa-
protection of the building’s occupants. Georges Binder
tion – being used as a marketing tool!). Some
The other article, “Tall Buildings in Numbers” regions of the world, and this is especially Buildings & Data sa
gives a great report of how tall buildings have noticeable in Hong Kong, do not number any Brussels, Belgium
evolved over the years, and also a good indi- level ending with 4, for superstitious reasons.
cator of the trends for future tall buildings. There are thus often no levels such as 4, 14,
24, 34…, when travelling up to level 70 in a

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Letters to the Editor | 25


The Vertical Farm - The origin of a 21 st
century Architectural Typology

“While no one questions the value of farming in


getting us to this point in our evolutionary
Eric C. Ellingsen
history, even our earliest efforts caused
irreversible damage to the natural landscape, and
are so wide-spread now that it threatens to alter
the rest of the course of our life on this planet.”

Dickson Donald Despommier

Though often bandied about by architectural form chasers, the invention of typologies are
Authors
1
Eric C. Ellingsen
rare. The fortuitous resultant of social imperatives, cultural and economic necessity, intrac-
2
Dickson Donald Despommier table environmental pressures and technological prodigality, architectural typologies, like
real paradigm shifts, are mostly nothing more than UFO sightings: stories dreamt up in bars
1
College of Architecture and wishfully elaborated for credibility in digital manifestoes.
Illinois Institute of Technology
S.R. Crown Hall, 3360 S. State St “The duct is one of the most monumental relationship between parts, rooms, program,
Chicago, IL 60616
[innovations] in the history of environmental mechanical and natural systems of exchange
e: ellingsen@iit.edu
engineering.” and circulation that allowed the hospital to
Reyner Banham (Banham, 1969) become a finely tuned and controlled
2
Department of Environmental Health Sciences
Mailman School of Public Health instrument of beauty, very literally an organon
Columbia University However, one such occurrence can be noted of change. (Organic has Greek roots from
60 Haven Ave, Rm. 100 Organon: instrument, tool. (Rykwert, 1992)). At
at the opening of the 20th century, which did
New York, NY 10032
e: ddd1@columbia.edu not appear as visibly among all the that moment architecture evolved as a
wonderful—indeed they are extraordinary!— modern enterprise, not merely a structural
avant-garde manifestoes. It is the modern revolution, but the material embodiment of a
Eric C. Ellingsen
hospital as a new architectural typology and networked, technical, spatial assemblage
Eric C. Ellingsen holds a Masters of Architecture,
and a Master of Landscape from the University of the untold (and not adequately told here) where 19th century structural revolutions of
Pennsylvania, (2005); a Masters in Classical history of the duct (think of the Vertical Farm as the steel frame could be enmeshed with
Philosophy, St. John’s College, Annapolis MD (2000).
He is a Senior Lecturer at the College of Reyer Banham might, a history of the near mechanical technology, the individual, the
Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology, and future). microbe, the city. It was near this time that the
serves as Assistant Director of the Graduate
Landscape Program. surgical suite replaces the anatomical theater,
and the natural environment is linked together
In 1906 the Royal Victoria Hospital, by Henman in a living mechanical architectural system,
Dickson Donald Despommier
and Cooper, opened in Belfast, Ireland. which addressed social, societal, political,
Dickson Donald Despommier holds a Ph. D in
(Banham, 1969). It was the first modernized, biological, and individual needs. It was the
Biology from University of Notre Dame (1967), a
Masters in Science in Medical Parasitology from air-conditioned building in the world, and duct which permitted the reinvention of the
Columbia University (1964). He is a Professor of launched the hospital as an apparatus that hospital, which had been in existence since
Public Health and Microbiology at Columbia
simultaneously reached across multiple scales 4000BC. Thus a mechanism of exchange and
University, NYC, 1982-present. Associate Professor
of Public Health and Microbiology, Columbia of engagement. It addressed and organized environmental controls becomes the impetus
University, NYC,1975-1982. the internal needs of a person and the internal for both new typologies, and a new breed of
control of a building environment, to the architecturally mediated and controlled
mediation of an external population of environmental possibilities, pressures, and
individuals and the external conditions of the constraints, possibilities which leaps and
natural environment. It was the functional

26 | The Vertical Farm CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


mutates from the hospital and proliferated The Vertical Farm, as perceived by the public, is
into variations at every architectural scale, from choreography of food visibility. Food is the
house to office, studio to indoor stadium. most dynamic and complex of systems in the
21st century, requiring a web of
interrelationships. Yet we often forget, as
The Vertical Farm is a correlate of the modern Wendell Berry states, that ”eating is an
city, offering stability while embracing the agricultural act.” (Berry, 1990) Therefore, the first
change. Far from fantasy, the Vertical Farm thing the vertical Farm does is mediate the
scoops up the available ducts and technologies visibility of the production of food. The Vertical
at the opening of the 21st century, organizing Farm helps you realize that your engagement
and redistributing otherwise unrelated parts, with the world, particularly in terms of what
grafting together everything available, from you eat, has consequences.
NASA Biosphere control systems to
Greenhouse technology. What is crucial to
understand at the outset is that the Vertical As you approach the Vertical Farm from a
Farm is a complex system rather than a single distance, you witness transparent shelves of
building. In other words, the Vertical Farm is not color and texture cantilevered off the structural
merely a building where you grow tomatoes core of the living system (see Figure 1). The
and shortened corn situated in the milieu of an shelves are agricultural programmed boxes,
urban setting; rather, the Vertical Farm is a each striated with modern fields of ripe Figure 1. The Vertical Farm model from above as seen in
functional part of the urban system itself. The agricultural foliage: vegetation, fruits, etc. the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago.

Vertical Farm is not merely a skyscraper with (Note: the particular foods in each shelf would
farm plots chopped up like strips of turf and be controlled to cancel the foods traveling the
rolled into FAR [foot to area ratio] rationed most miles to your now truly sustainable city,
floorplates. Indeed, the Vertical Farm is not and, be selected around the individual dietary
merely about food, but about the unseen and cultural palette of the community). Also,
circuits of energy and materials, labor and springing from the structural core, you notice
resources, capital and infrastructure, residential apartments set like seeds into the
technology and politics upon which our cities more hermitically sealed laboratories in which
depend; food is only a single component of the the agricultural systems would be researched
Vertical Farm, the most visible part, the market and initially cultivated for control purposes and
and marketable part (imagine the politically finally deployed, by way of the core, into the
marketable ‘greenness’ of a 1000ft luscious shelves. Apartments to both scientists and
cornicopic living transparent zone of fertility students, the Vertical Farm also contains Figure 2. The Vertical Farm Park at base of model
next to the black steel and glass skyscraper in program for private residences, and for those
your city); food, the only part of farming which residents, gardens and vertical parks linking
consumers see while the rest of the industrial the outside of the shelves with the living and
process remaining invisible, unquestioned, the labs (see Figure 2). As you look closer you
absolved by sheer ignorance. Essentially, the will notice that some of the programmatic
Vertical Farm allows us to address in one shelves contain grazing colors, which seem to
ambitious but realistic strategy, the precarious be in motion. Upon closer inspection (see
and tricky crisis of modernity between the Figure 3) you notice pigs and chickens, not the
individual and the city, which French sour image via noisome smell of the factory
philosopher Paul Ricour stated so poignantly, it farm hidden out of site and attempting to
allows us to participate in the local place and evade the eye, but rather sterile and proud
global flow at the same time, to embrace public animal production. Finally, you will
modernity and simultaneously return to our notice two systems of tanks; one system
roots.” (Ricour, 1965) Those roots simply exist comprised of smaller pools filled with fish and
1000 feet above the ground. (A ground which shrimp, the other much larger tank linked into
would be better served by forests than by a waste water and bio-solid treatment facility, Figure 3. A vertical Farm in Dubai. Design by Eric Ellingsen
and Dickson Despommier. Image by Eric Ellingsen, Homero
feed-stock, as it turns out.) looking much like active industrial  Rios, and Mo Phala.

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III The Vertical Farm | 27


monuments decorating the country side as hectares of hardwood and coniferous forest (fifty or more years), responded to these
silos and refineries which, when preserved and (temperate and tropical), grasslands, and biological pressures, producing an astounding
remediable like at Gasworks Park in Seattle, or wetlands were sacrificed, or at the very least array of chemical deterrents that have, up to
documented so wonderfully well by the severely reduced to fragmented remnants of very recently, been able to control these
German photographers Bernd and Hilla their former ranges. In either case, significant unwanted guests attempting to sit at our
Becher. That’s what you’ll see from a distance loss of biodiversity and disruption of table. The regular application of pesticides and
across the city. ecosystem functions on a global scale has herbicides has facilitated an ever-increasing
been the result (Wilson, 1992). agricultural bounty, but many arthropod and
plant species have developed at least some
You will be walking to the Vertical Farm to join level of resistance to both classes of
your colleagues for lunch at a restaurant on While no one questions the value of farming in compounds. As the result, higher and higher
the second floor of the tower (see Figure 4). On getting us to this point in our evolutionary doses of these products are needed to do the
the way up you will stop through the park history, even our earliest efforts caused same job as the year before, thus making
(Figure 8) and listen to the public performance irreversible damage to the natural landscape, agricultural runoff the single most damaging
by local undiscovered buskers that afternoon and are so wide-spread now that it threatens source of pollution. In the majority of intensive
scheduled to take place each day (much like to alter the rest of the course of our life on this farming settings following even mild rain
Music Under New York: http://www.mta.info/ planet. The silt-laden soils of the floodplains of events, a toxic mix of agrochemicals leaves the
mta/aft/muny/). After lunch, you will dip the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys serve as a fields and contaminates surrounding ecotones
through the Vertical Farmers market and pick good example in this regard. This region was with predictable regularity. The ecological
up the fresh organic tomatoes and honey the cradle of western civilization attributable consequences of runoff have been nothing
which you need for the dinner party the next solely to the early invention of food growing short of devastating. Furthermore, human
night. And at that dinner, when your locavore technologies (mostly wheat cultivation). The health risks are also associated with high
friends lament the agricultural sores which land was soon degraded below a minimum exposures to some agrochemicals (Molyneux,
Michael Pollen repeatedly drives home, like the level of food production due to erosion caused 2003). However, many chemicals manifest their
fact that agriculture is above all in the 21st by intensive, primitive farming practices that toxic effects in the human body in ways far
century an industrial act. and that agricultural rapidly depleted the earth of its scant supply more subtle than, say for instance DDT and the
acts are as egregious to the health of the of nutrients, while mismanaged irrigation thinning of birds of prey egg-shells, making
environment as our industrial foods are to our projects were often interrupted by wars and them difficult to implicate in the disease
bodies, you will finally have a more palatable out-of-season flooding events. Traditional process (Stromquist, Burmeister, 2003).
conversation. Because, you will see and live farming practices (i.e. non-high tech) continue
and experience through the Vertical Farm the to this day to produce massive loss of topsoil,
real links between our food and our city as while excluding the possibility for long-term Farming itself is an activity fraught with health
perhaps the most intense and complex carbon sequestration in the form of trees and risks. The mechanisms of transmission for
network of interrelationships in the 21st other permanent woody plants (Williams, numerous agents of disease (e.g. the
century. 2003). schistosomes, malaria, some forms of
leishmaniasis, geohelminths) are linked to a
wide variety of traditional agricultural practices
As of January 2006, approximately 800 million According to the IFA (International Fertilizer (e.g. using human feces as fertilizer, irrigation,
hectares of arable land were in use, allowing Industry Association), Agrochemicals, plowing, sowing, harvesting). These illnesses
for the harvesting of an ample food supply for especially fertilizers, are used in almost every take a huge toll on human health, disabling
the majority of a human population now in commercial farming scheme due to the large populations, thus removing them from
excess of 6.4 billion. These estimates include demand for cash crops that require more the flow of commerce, and this is especially
grazing lands (formerly grasslands) for cattle, nutrients from the substrate that it can the case in the poorest countries. In fact, they
representing nearly 85% of all land that could provide. Fertilizer use is expensive and are often the root cause of their impoverished
support a minimum level of agriculture. encourages the growth of weeds, making situation. Trauma injuries are considered a
Farming also produces a wide variety of grains herbicide use almost a requirement. In normal consequence of farming by most who
that feed millions of head of cattle and other commercial ventures, farming involves the engage in this activity and are particularly
domesticated farm animals. According to the production of single crop species, most of common among “slash and burn” subsistence
US Department of Agriculture, in 2003 nearly which are vulnerable to attack from a wide farmers. It is reasonable to expect that as the
33 million head of cattle were produced in the variety of microbes and arthropods (Carson, human population continues to grow, these
United States. In order to support this large a 1962; Zupan, 2003). The agrochemical problems will worsen at ever increasing rates.
scale of agricultural activity, millions of industries have, over just a short period of time

28 | The Vertical Farm CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


D

F G H K
M
L

I C E

A anaerobic digester I vertical pork and chicken range

B Waste-water treatment Facility J aquaculture

C Vertical Farmers Markets as new public Agora K Produce

D Public Vertical Park System L Vertical agriculture production: hydroponic and aeroponic

E Grand Central Public Transportation M Research Laboratories

F H N City Water Reservoir


G residential / restaurant/commercial J B

Figure 4. Section of the various components of a vertical Farm in Dubai. Design by Eric Ellingsen and Dickson Despommier. Image by Eric Ellingsen, Homero Rios, and Mo Phala.

To address these problems and those 2. VF holds the promise of no crop failures Vertical Farm as urban agricultural armature:
perceived to soon emerge onto the horizon, due to droughts, floods, pests, or other With the Vertical Farm, there is no waste in waste.
an alternate way of food production was periodic natural phenomena.
A crucial component of the Vertical Farm mega-
proposed; namely growing large amounts of 3. All VF food will be grown organically structure is the anaerobic digester (A). Human
produce within the confines of high-rise employing chemically defined diets specific and animal waste serves as decentralized input
buildings. This idea appeared to offer a energy source as a feedstock on an urban scale.
to each plant and animal species: no
practical, new approach to preventing further The Vertical Farm complex also includes chicken,
herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers. hen, and hog production (I), and aquaculture
encroachment into the already highly altered
4. VF eliminates agricultural runoff. (J) tanks for raising shell-fish to tilapia; all waste
natural landscape. The Vertical Farm Project in the form of animal manure will be phytore-
was established in 2001, and is an on-going 5. VF would allow farmland to be returned mediated through the plants root systems and
activity at the Mailman School of Public Health to the natural landscape, thus restoring re-routed into the anaerobic digester generat-
at Columbia University in New York City. It is in ecosystem functions (e.g. increased ing biogas such as methane and as re-used as
fertilizer. Water from plant evapotranspiration and
its virtual stages of development, having biodiversity) and services (e.g. air
from the aquaculture tanks will be recycled into
survived 4 years of critical thinking in the purification). the waste-water large water treatment facility
classroom and worldwide exposure on the (B) and finally, a potable urban reservoir (N). The
6. VF would greatly reduce the incidence of
Internet to become an accepted notion Vertical Farm will also grow fruit and vegetable
many infectious diseases that are acquired produce (K) year-round. The produce palette will
worthy of consideration at some practical
at the agricultural interface by avoiding use be chosen by the local diet desires and needs, as
level. We have identified an extensive list of
of human feces as fertilizer for edible crops. well as by offsetting the imported foods which
reasons why vertical farming may represent a travel the furthest to arrive in our cities (usually an
viable solution to global processes as diverse 7. VF converts black and gray water into average of 2000km+). This produce will be grown
as hunger, population growth, and restoration potable water by engineering the in controlled environments using hydroponic
of ecological functions and services collection of the water realized through and aeroponic systems (L). Active Research Labo-
evapo-transpiration. ratories (M) will be a crucial component to the
(e.g. returning land to natural process, carbon
Vertical Farm complex, as will be the residential
sequestration, etc.). If vertical farming (VF) were 8. VF adds energy back to the grid via living (F) units, restaurants (G), and commercial
to become widely adopted, then the following methane generation from composting (H) programs.
advantages would most likely be realized: non-edible parts of plants and animals. Above the ground on the exterior of parts of the
Vertical Farm, a public park system (D) is woven
9. VF dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no
into the skyscraper. Whereas most skyscrapers
1. Year-round crop production; 1 indoor tractors, plows, shipping.). are merely visual stimulants to the inhabitant of
acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or 10. VF eliminates much of the need for the city, in the Vertical Farm a new relationship
more, depending upon the crop (e.g. between nature and the public space interior
storage and preservation, thus reducing
to skyscrapers will be created. Furthermore, the
strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor dramatically the population of vermin (rats, base of the Vertical Farm offers a wide range of
acres).(Note: for further examples see mice, etc.) that feed on reserves of food. public amenities as cultural catalysts, such as
WIRED magazine, 16-11-08, “The Future of out-door street level vertical farmers markets and
11. VF converts abandoned urban
Food” p.188-205) public agoras (C), and a grand central station (E)
properties into food production centers.  hub. The Vertical Farm will collect, intensify, filter,
layer, merge, and finally re-distribute the urban
energy.

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III The Vertical Farm | 29


going to eat and prepare that food live (your calories (2,000 cal/day/person) to comfortably
...vertical farms vegetables don’t have to travel the 1500 accommodate the needs of 50,000 people,
and mainly by employing technologies
hundred miles on average to get to your plate).


Thus, on an urban scale, waste literally fuels currently available. Constructing the ideal
What if “eating local” urban services rather than becoming an urban vertical farm with a far greater yield per square
in Shanghai or New York liability. All the while, re-tuning the cities foot will require additional research in many
meant getting your fresh infrastructural systems provides the urgent areas – hydrobiology, material sciences,
de-stressing of local and global natural structural and mechanical engineering,
produce from five blocks industrial microbiology, plant and animal
resources like our forests, waterways and
away? And what if skyscrapers mineral reserves. genetics, architecture and design, public
grew off the grid, as verdant, health, waste management, physics, and urban
self-sustaining towers where planning, to name but a few.
Indoor farming (e.g. hydroponics and
city slickers cultivated their


aeroponics) has existed for some time.
own food? Strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, Yet, despite the obvious enthusiasm for the
herbs, and spices grown in this fashion have idea, there are cautions to consider. High-rise
Quote by Bina Venkataraman, reporter for made their way to the world’s markets in food-producing buildings will only succeed if
the New York Times, Sciense section. Dickson quantity over the last 5-10 years. Most of these they function by mimicking ecological process;
Despommier, professor of public health at operations are small when compared to namely, by safely and efficiently re-cycling
Columbia University, discusses the concept of
factory farms, but unlike their outdoor everything organic and re-cycling “used” water
the ‘Vertical Farm’ in the city. From ‘Country,
counterparts, they produce crops year-round. (e.g. human and animal waste), turning it back
the City Version: Farms in the Sky Gain New
Interest’. The New York Times, July 15th, 2008. Japan, Scandinavia, New Zealand, the United into drinking water. Most importantly, there
States, and Canada have thriving greenhouse must be strong, government-supported
industries. Freshwater fishes (e.g. tilapia, trout, economic incentives to the private sector, as
12. VF creates sustainable environments for stripped bass, carp), and a wide variety of well as to universities and local government to
urban centers. crustaceans and mollusks (e.g. shrimp, crayfish, fully develop the concept. Ideally, vertical farms
mussels) have also been commercialized in this must be cheap to construct, durable and safe
13. VF creates new employment to operate, and independent of economic
way. Fowl and pigs are well within the
opportunities. subsides and outside support (i.e. show a profit
capabilities of indoor farming, and if we were
14. VF could provide year round production to proceed to do so, offers some interesting at the end of the day). If these conditions can
of medically valuable plants (e.g. the advantages in addition to providing the world be realized through an ongoing,
anti-malarial plant-derived artemesinin). with a convenient food supply. For example, if comprehensive research program, urban
15. VF could be used for the large-scale chickens and ducks were to be raised entirely agriculture could provide an abundant and
production of sugar (sucrose) to be used in indoors, then the current epidemic of avian varied food supply for the 60% of the people
the revolutionary new method for the influenza might well have been aborted, or at that will be living within cities by the year 2030.
production of non-polluting gasoline. the very least, significantly reduced in scope.
None have been configured as multi-story
entities. In contrast, cattle, horses, sheep, goats, Waste management and urban sustainability
Thus, the Vertical Farm is an apparatus of and other large farm animals seem to fall well Today, we face the challenge of trying to
capture (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) a filter outside the paradigm of urban agriculture. understand enough about the process of
which helps regulate the flows of urban What is proposed here differs radically from ecological balance to incorporate it into our
energy in the forms of water and waste what currently exists; namely, to scale up the daily lives (i.e. do no harm). Our willingness to
management, redirecting those problematic scope of operations, in which a wide variety of try to solve problems that we ourselves have
outputs as energy inputs and agents of produce is harvested in quantity enough to created is a measure of our selflessness and
change for the production of our daily caloric sustain even the largest of cities without altruistic behavior as a species. Thus, the
needs. Vertical Farms also act as cultural significantly relying on resources beyond the second most important reason to consider
catalysts, allowing unique pockets and urban footprint. Our group has determined converting to vertical farming relates to how
authentic food fields particular to the diverse that a single vertical farm with an architectural we handle waste (Malkow, 2004; Eckenfelder,
ethnic diets and populations of place to match footprint of one square New York City block 1999). Current waste management practices
and coordinated with the place where food is and rising just 30 stories (approximately 3 throughout the world, regardless of location,
grown to the lives where people that are million square feet) could provide enough are largely detrimental to public health and

30 | The Vertical Farm CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


social welfare, and exposure to untreated Waste management issues are equally dire in Todd, Josephson, 1996) will be used to help
effluent often carries with it serious health risks. the rural setting. Agricultural runoff despoils remediate contaminated water. They will be
However, even in the best of situations, most vast amounts of surface and groundwater periodically harvested for methane generation
solid waste collections are simply compacted (Foster, 2003; Holt, 2000). Vertical farming offers employing state-of-the-art composting
and relegated to landfills, or in a few instances, the possibility of greatly reducing the quantity methods yielding energy to help run the
incinerated to generate energy. Liquid wastes of this non-point source of water pollution. In facility. By-products of burning methane – CO
are processed (digested, then de-sludged), and addition, it will generate methane from 2, heat, and water – can be added back into
treated with a bactericidal agent (e.g. chlorine) municipal waste currently being funneled into the atmosphere of the vertical farm to aid in
before being released into the nearest water pollution control facilities. The concept fostering optimal plant growth. The resulting
convenient body of water. More often in less of sustainability will be realized through the purified water will be used to grow edible
developed countries, it is discarded without valuing of waste as a commodity so plant species. Ultimately, any water source that
treatment, greatly increasing the health risks indispensable to the operation of the farm that emerges from the vertical farm should be
associated with infectious disease transmission to discard something –any thing - would be drinkable, thus completely re-cycling it back
due to fecal contamination. analogous to siphoning off a gallons’ worth of into the community that brought it to the farm
gasoline from the family car and setting it on to begin with. Harvesting water generated
fire. Natural systems function in a sustainable from evapo-transpiration appears to have
All solid waste can be re-cycled (returnable fashion by recycling all essential elements some virtue in this regard, since the entire farm
cans, bottles, cardboard packages, etc.) and/or needed to produce the next generation of life. will be enclosed. A cold brine pipe system
used in energy generating schemes with This way of doing business is being could be engineered to aid in the
technologies that are currently in use. A major incorporated by NASA engineers into all future condensation and harvesting of moisture
source of organic waste comes from the programs that focus on colonizing outer space. released by plants. Nonetheless, several
restaurant industry (Wie, 2003). Methane If we are to live in closed systems off the varieties of new technology will be needed
generation from this single resource could surface of the earth, then the concept of waste before sewage can be handled in a routine,
contribute significantly to energy generation, becomes an outdated paradigm. safe manner within the confines of the farm.
and may be able to supply enough to run Unfortunately, this goal has yet to be fully Lessons learned from the nuclear power plant
Vertical Farms without the use of electricity realized by NASA or by the ill-fated Biosphere 2 industry should be helpful in this regard.
from the grid. For example, in New York City Project (Allen, 1997). If we are to live in a
there are more than 21,000 food service balanced extraterrestrial environment, we
establishments, all of which produce significant must somehow learn how to do it here first. Some “proofs of concept”
quantities of organic waste, and they have to 1. Year round crop production
pay to have the city cart it off. Often the
garbage sits out on the curb, sometimes for Sludge, derived from waste water treatment Traditional farming takes place over an annual
hours to days, prior to collection. This allows plants of many, but not all cities throughout growth cycle that is wholly dependent upon
time for vermin, including cockroaches, rats the US, and treated with a patented process what happens outside. Significant deviation
and mice, to dine out at some of the finest referred to as advanced alkaline stabilization (e.g. drought or flood) for more than several
restaurants in the western hemisphere, albeit with subsequent accelerated drying, is being weeks away from conditions necessary for
second-hand. Vertical farming may well result turned into high grade topsoil and sold as insuring a good yield has predictable, negative
in a situation in which restaurants would be such to the farming community at-large by effects on the lives of millions of people
paid (according to the caloric content?) for this N-Viro Corporation, Toledo, Ohio. The limiting dependent upon those items for their yearly
valuable commodity, allowing for a greater factor in using municipal sludge for farming food supply (Cairns, 2000). Every year,
measure of income for an industry with a appears to be heavy metal contamination, somewhere in the world, crops suffer from too
notoriously small (2-5%) profit margin (Mann, mostly from copper, mercury, zinc, arsenic, and little water and wither on the spot, or are lost
1999). In New York City, on average 80-90 chromium (Scancar, 2000). Vertical farms will to severe flooding, hailstorms, tornados,
restaurants close down each year, the vast be engineered to take in black or gray water, earthquakes, hurricanes, cyclones, fires, and
majority of which are precipitated by depending upon availability, and restore it to other destructive events of nature. Many of
inspections conducted by the New York City near drinking water quality using these phenomena are at best difficult to
Department of Health. A common finding by bioremediation (Bonaventura, 1997) and other predict, and at worst are impossible to react to
inspectors in these situations is vermin (mouse technologies yet to be perfected. Fast growing in time to prevent the losses associated with
and rat droppings, cockroaches) and inedible plant species (e.g. cattail, duckweed, them. Climate change regimens will surely
unsanitary conditions that encourage their life sawgrass, Spartina spp.), often referred to complicate an already complex picture with
styles. collectively as a living machine (Todd, 1994; respect to predicting crop yields (Tilman,
2001). 

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III The Vertical Farm | 31


+
+ + +

energy farming: apartments


bio solids, water and poultry farming vegetable farming and residental park research laboratories and
waste water retention beds aquaculture farming residential

The components of the Vertical Farm model

In addition to losses due to bad weather 2. No-cost restoration of ecosystems: the tolerant plants) grew back to the same density
events, an unavoidable portion of what is principle of benign neglect as before the experiment was begun. These
grown spoils in the fields prior to harvest time. Converting most food production to vertical data give credence to the hypothesis that if
Another large portion of harvest, regardless of farming holds the promise of restoring vertical farming could replace most horizontal
the kind of plant or grain, is laid waste by a ecosystem services and functions. There is farming, then ecosystem services that
variety of opportunistic life forms (i.e. fungi, good reason to believe that an almost full reinforce a healthy life style (e.g. clean water,
bacteria, insects, rodents) after storage. In recovery of many of the world’s endangered clean air, carbon sequestration) would be
Africa, locusts remain an ever-present threat terrestrial ecosystems will occur simply by restored.
(Abate, 2000), devastating vast areas of abandoning farmland and allowing the
farmland in just days. Finally, armed conflict countryside to “cure” itself (Gunderson, 2000).
halts all normal human activity in any given 3. Urban sustainability
This belief stems, in part, from numerous
war zone. Faming usually suffers greatly during anecdotal observations as to the current Natural systems function in a sustainable
those stressful times, with crops being burned biological state of some regions that were fashion by recycling all essential elements for
or otherwise made unavailable by those once severely damaged either by now-extinct the next generation of life (Eugene, 2005). One
wishing to severely limit the opposition’s civilizations or by over-farming, and, in part, of the toughest challenges facing urban
access to a reliable food supply. from data derived from the National Science planners is trying to incorporate the concept
Foundation-sponsored long-term ecological of sustainability into waste (both solid and
research program (LTER), begun in 1980, on a liquid) management. Even in the best of
Vertical farming obviates all external natural situations, most solid waste collections are
processes as confounding elements in the wide variety of fragmented ecosystems
purposely set aside for study subsequent to an compacted and relegated to landfills. In a few
production of food. Growing food within rare instances they are incinerated to generate
urban centers will lower or even eliminate the extended period of encroachment. One of the
most intensively studied of these fragmented energy (Ragossnig, 2005). Liquid wastes are
consumption of fossil fuels needed to deliver processed, then treated with a bactericidal
them to the consumer, and will eliminate ecozones is Hubbard Brook in northern New
Hampshire (Likens, 2001; Likens, 1970). The agent (e.g. chlorine) and released into the
forever the need for burning fossil fuels during nearest body of water. More often than not in
the act of farming. So where does the energy area is a mixed boreal forest watershed that
has been extensively harvested at least three less developed countries, it is discarded
come from that is needed to run the vertical without treatment, greatly increasing the
farm? Ideally, they will take full advantage of times in modern times (1700s-1967). The
Hubbard Brook LTER lists its research objectives health risks associated with infectious disease
technologies centered around methane transmission due to fecal contamination
digestion of the inedible portions of what is as: vegetation structure and production;
dynamics of detritus in terrestrial and aquatic (Khosla, 2005). From a technological
grown (i.e. biogas production). Solar, wind, and perspective, all solid waste can now be
tidal power could also contribute to reducing ecosystems; atmosphere-terrestrial-aquatic
ecosystem linkages; heterotroph population efficiently re-cycled (returnable cans, bottles,
their dependence on fossil fuels. Iceland and cardboard packages, etc.) and/or used in
other geologically active regions (e.g. Italy, dynamics; effects of human activities on
ecosystems. A portion of the watershed was energy generating schemes with standard
New Zealand) will have the distinct advantage methods that are currently in use (Malkow,
of harnessing geothermal energy, which they clear-cut and the trees left in place, in contrast
to farming regimes in which trees are removed 2004). Incorporating modern waste
have at their disposal in abundance. management strategies into the vertical farm
to make way for crop production. Re-growth
of some plants (shade intolerants) occurred model should work the first time out without
within 3 years. By 20 years, the trees (shade the need for new technologies to come to the

32 | The Vertical Farm CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


The Vertical Farm model is a 23’
interactive model, featured in
the Fast Forward exhibit at the
Museum of Science and
Industry, Chicago, IL. The model
was designed and built by Eric
Ellingsen and TJ McLeish;

+ + = Student Design and build team:


Homero Rios, Ryan Szanyi,
Stephanie Herrera, Sabine
Kollwitz, Adie Rios, William
Hutchison, John Castro, Mahdieh
Salimi Consulting and Dickson
Despommier.

commercial and restaurant vertical farmers market and Vertical Farm model
public park

rescue. It must be emphasized that urban showed how life behaves with regards to the disposal today. Nourishing Vertical Farms right
sustainability will only be realized through the sharing of limited energy resources. Tight knit within the intolerably impoverished regions of
valuing of waste as a commodity, deemed so assemblages of plants and animals evolved the world’s largest urban settings, such as
indispensable that to discard something into trophic relationships that allowed for the Ethiopia, India, Central African Republic, the
–anything - would be analogous to siphoning seamless flow of energy transfer from one level Gaza Strip, etc. is not only realistic, it’s practical.
off a gallons’ worth of gasoline from the family to the next, regardless of the type of Taking these ideas from outer space and
car and setting it on fire. ecosystem in question (Ricklefs, 2000). In fact, deploying these strategies in the space of our
this is the defining characteristic of all cities is not only rationally feasible, it may be
ecosystems. In contrast, humans, although one of the best vehicles we have to take on
Since agricultural runoff despoils vast amounts participants in all terrestrial ecosystems, have agricultural challenges of the near and distant
of surface and groundwater (Stalnacke, 2001; failed to incorporate this same behavior into future.
Fawell, 2003; Foster, 2003), any water that their own lives. If vertical farming succeeds, it
emerges from the vertical farm should be will establish the validity of sustainability,
drinkable, re-cycling it back into the irrespective of location or life form. Vertical CONCLUSION:
community that brought it to the farm to farms could become important learning Our lives, actions and activities don’t happen in
begin with. Harvesting water generated from centers for future generations of city-dwellers, the city—they ARE the city. The city is not the
evapo-transpiration appears to have some demonstrating our intimate connectedness to skyscrapers and tall buildings; it is the living
virtue in this regard, since the entire farm will the rest of the world by mimicking the nutrient and dynamic material and economic networks
be enclosed. A cold brine piping system could cycles that once again can take place in the that makes these technological sequoias
be engineered to aid in the condensation and natural world. These traits re-emerged as the possible. Our cities are desperate for
harvesting of moisture released by plants. The result of returning land back to the natural something that is simultaneously global,
only perceived missing link is the ability to landscape. international, modern, and, local, unique,
easily handle untreated human and animal particular to the identity, identification, and
wastes in a safe and efficient fashion. Several individuals that are the place. The Greek urban
varieties of new technology may be required. Finally, hydroponic and aeroponic technology planner, Doxiadis, in the 60s called this a Glocal
Perhaps lessons learned from the nuclear has increased yield potential by more than 23 economy: global + local. What the Vertical
power industry in handling plutonium and times while decreasing water usage by well Farm offers, among other benefits like
enriched uranium may prove helpful in over 30 times; LED’s (Light Emitting Diodes, re-growth of forests and carbon sequestration,
designing new machinery for this purpose. the kinds used in many traffic lights) and is a local food economy, a shortened route
sulfer-mircrowave lamps are being employed from producer to consumer, a self-dependant
as alternative light sources in agricultural autonomy rather than a 1500 mile on average
4. Social benefits of vertical farming environments which grow and harvest within delivery from field to plate, and, a deeper, more
The social benefits of urban agriculture offer a ‘biomass production systems’ and ‘plant meaningful, living typology rather than merely
rewarding set of achievable goals. The first is research units’ by the Bioregenerative Life a thin iconic, visual typology. Chicago, for
the establishment of sustainability as an ethic Support Project at Dynamac, Inc., at the example, claims that being a sustainable city is
for human behavior. This ecological concept is Kennedy Space Center. These are constantly one of its highest priorities, in fact it speaks in
currently only a property of the natural world. regulated, environmentally maintained, and all superlatives—the MOST. But a green roof
Ecological observations and studies, beginning hermetically controlled completely sustainable on the city hall doesn’t cut the longest yard. A
with those of J. Teal in Georgia (Teal, 1962) agricultural solutions which we have at our Vertical Farm offers a real Millennium iconic 

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III The Vertical Farm | 33


production, not merely an Millennium iconic ...economic analysis
symbol; not some urban planning, boiler-plate


cultural import star-architect trick. Rather, the
Vertical Farm offers a brand new architectural
very provocative - but it requires a rigorous economic
typology as a local and global solution to a analysis… Would a tomato in lower Manhattan be able to outbid an
21st century crisis. investment banker for space in a high-rise? My bet is that the

Architects must be informed by this active


understanding of how nature works and how
investment banker will pay more.

Armando Carbonell, chairman of the department of planning and urban form at the Lincoln Institute of
Land Policy in Cambridge, Mass., explains how he feels about Dr. Despommier’s vertical farm visions.
our cities need to work, rather than merely From ‘Country, the City Version: Farms in the Sky Gain New Interest’. The New York Times, July 15th, 2008.
what nature and a broad shouldered city looks
like—an aesthetic shoplifting really both of the
image of ‘nature’ and the image of a ‘modern CARSON R. (1962) Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin Company, TILMAN D, FARGIONE J, et al. (2001). Forecasting
NY, NY. ZUPAN J. (2003). Perinatal mortality and morbidity in agriculturally driven global environmental change.
city’ that, in the end, is merely racing to build developing countries. A global view. Med Trop 63:366-8. Science. 292: 281-284.
taller. But our view of nature meshed with a MOLYNEUX D.H. (2003). Common themes in changing http://www.globalfundforchildren.org/index.htm
more dynamic view of the performance vector-borne disease scenarios. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg.
http://nutrition.tufts.edu/academic/hungerweb/
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ABATE T, VAN HUIS A, AMPOFO J. K. (2000). Pest
in robust and deep ways. How do natural STROMQUIST A.M, BURMEISTER L.F, et al. (2003).
management strategies in traditional agriculture: an
Characterization of agricultural tasks performed by youth
systems, for instance, constantly change and African perspective. Annu Rev Entomol.45:631-59.
in the Keokuk County Rural Health Study. Appl Occup
yet constantly perform and stabilize in that Environ Hyg. 18:418-29. GUNDERSON L. H. (2000). Ecological resilience –in theory
and application. Ann Rev Ecology Systematics. 31:425-439.
change? How can we feed and grow and grow MALKOW T. (2004). Novel and innovative pyrolysis and
gasification technologies for energy efficient and LIKENS G. E. (2001). Ecosystems: Energetics and
and grow simultaneously? Our cities must environmentally sound MSW disposal. Waste Manag. Biogeochemistry. pp. 53-88. In: Kress WJ and Barrett G (eds.).
perform like this, and the Vertical Farming will 24:53-79. A New Century of Biology. Smithsonian Institution Press,
help. On the one hand Vertical Farms will be Washington and London.
ECKENFELDER W. W. (1999). Industrial water pollution
like hospitals for food, but they will also be control. McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math; 3 rd ed. P. LIKENS G. E, BORMANN F. H, JOHNSON N. M, FISHER D. W,
600. PIERCE R. S. (1970). Effects of forest cutting and herbicide
eco-services to our cities, which are in treatment on nutrient budgets in the Hubbard Brook
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watershed-ecosystem. Ecol. Monogr. 40:23-47.
like our strangled waste management systems in foodservice operations. J Am Diet Assoc. 103:475-82. EUGENE P, BARRET O. & G. W. (2005) Fundamnetals of
Ecolog. Thomson Brooks/Cole, Pubs. Australia, Canada,
and hydrological services, storm water MANN L. L, MAC INNIS D, GARDINER N. (1999). Menu
United States.
Analysis for Improved Customer Demand and Profitability
management, etcetera. Vertical Farms will
in Hospital Cafeterias. Can J Diet Pract Res. 60:5-10 RAGOSSNIG A. M, LORBER K. E. (2005). Combined
allow flexibility and stability at the same time. incineration of industrial wastes with in-plant residues in
FOSTER S. S. D, CHILTON P. J. (2003). Groundwater: the
Our cities are starving for better answers to a fluidized-bed utility boilers--decision relevant factors. Waste
processes and global significance of aquifer degradation.
Manag Res. 23:448-56.
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KHOSLA R, BHANOT A, KARISHMA S. (2005). Sanitation: a call
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Pediatr. 42:1199-206.
Toxicol. 38(1 Suppl):S21-7.
DELEUZE, GILLES; GUATTARI, FELIX. (1987). A Thousand
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Company, Pubs. processes and global significance of aquifer degradation.
machines for wastewater treatment. Ecological
Phil Trans: Biol Sci. 358: 1957-1972.
WILLIAMS M. (2003) Deforesting the Earth. The University of Engineering 6, 109-136.
Chicago Press. Chicago and London. TEAL J. M. (1962). Energy flow in a salt marsh in Georgia.
CAIRNS J. (2000). Sustainability and the future of
Ecology. 43:614-624.
NATIONAL ASSESSMENT DATABASE, (2002) Environmental humankind: two competing theories of Infinite
protection Agency. Substitutability. Politics and the Life Sciences 1: 27-32. RICKLEFS R. E. (2000). The economy of nature. WH Freeman
& Co. 5th ed.

34 | The Vertical Farm CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


Call for Papers
Council on Tall Buildings The CTBUH Journal is an official periodic Previous CTBUH Journals
and Urban Habitat publication of the Council on Tall Buildings and
Illinois Institute of Technology,
Urban Habitat. Published and Circulated to the
S. R. Crown Hall CTBUH
3360 South State Street Council’s worldwide membership three times Journal
Chicago, IL, 60616 each year, the Journal aims to document and Tall buildings: design, construction and operation | 2008 Issue II

The Shanghai World Financial Center

publicize ground-breaking work taking place Sustainability Through Greener Concrete


Sustainable rating systems around the world

Phone: +1 (312) 909 0253 Building Façade or Fire Safety Façade?

in the many fields related to tall building and CTBUH Working Group Update: Seismic

Fax: +1 (610) 419 0014 Tall Buildings in Numbers

urban development. In addition to technical


Email: info@ctbuh.org papers, issues of the Journal host updates and
http://www.ctbuh.org/ news from the Council leaders and its
subcommittees, Literary reviews of relevant
internal and external publications, and
information on upcoming events hosted and
sponsored by the organization.

Editor The Council maintains an open invitation for


Zak Kostura content submission, and encourages both CTBUH
Associate Editor members and nonmembers to submit Journal
Robert Lau Tall buildings: design, construction and operation | 2008 Issue I

proposals or drafts of papers for potential CTBUH 8th World Congress

Development The Race for the Sky: Unbuilt

inclusion as articles in an upcoming issue of The “International” Skyscraper


High-Rise Home Technology
Katharina Holzapfel Tallest 10 Completed in 2007

the Journal. Papers are welcome on any topic


relevant to the core missions of the Council,
CTBUH Chairman
David Scott
which include the dissemination best practice
information on tall buildings and healthy
CTBUH Executive Director
Antony Wood urban environments, facilitation of business
Manager of Operations exchange amongst the international tall
Geri Kery building / built environment community, and
publishing the latest knowledge available to
professionals in a useful form. The nature of
article themes often range from technical to
policy-based, philosophical, analytical and
historical. CTBUH
Journal
Tall buildings: design, construction and operation | Fall 2007

Burj Dubai Stack Effect


The Sky Court

Publication in the CTBUH Journal awards the


BIM – a search for answers
Maglev goes high-rise
The Tallest 20 in 2020

featured author with broad exposure to a


multitude of industry leaders and active
professionals around the world. By sharing
knowledge, findings or experience, each
author fosters valuable discourse amongst
Council members with common interests, and
in turn opens an opportunity to gather
information useful to his or her published
pursuits. Above all, each author contributes to
the organization’s mission of elevating its Contact info@ctbuh.org for more information
members’ collective awareness of the built on submitting drafts to the CTBUH Journal, or
environment. visit the CTBUH website at www.ctbuh.org.

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Call for Papers | 35


Partial Occupancies for Phased and
Multi-Use Tall Buildings
"What if parts of a building could be occupied
before the entire building is completed?"

Robert Lau
In the Spring 2004 issue of the CTBUH journal I wrote an article ‘Multiple Phase Construction
Author
Robert Lau
for a Multi-Use Tall Building’. This article noted the financial risk that multi-use buildings can be
exposed to because they can be constructed without becoming fully occupied upon
Roosevelt University
430 S. Michigan Avenue completion. Another issue has been the long time-frame required for constructing large multi-
Chicago, IL 60605-1394, USA use high-rise buildings. What if parts of a building could be occupied before the entire building
e: laurobe@iit.edu
is completed? What if a large high-rise project could be constructed in phases, so that only the
spaces that the current market can support will be constructed?
Robert M. Lau received his Bachelor of Architecture
degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology
(host institution for the CTBUH) and his Master of
Business Administration at the Chicago School of While any construction project involves risks, spaces can open as independent entities
Real Estate at Roosevelt University. to construct above an occupied space has before the office and/or residential
He has worked with Myron Goldsmith and Lucien inherently more risks. Planning can remedy components are completed above. In some
Lagrange at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (Chicago
office) and with Helmut Jahn and Jim Goettsch at some of these risks. Each stakeholder has cases, this time lag could be months to over a
Murphy/Jahn in Chicago. He is an advocate of the differing attitudes regarding the execution of year. Some examples include:
Chicago School of Architecture, beginning with
William LeBaron Jenny, John Root, and Louis the construction. City building departments 1. One Rincon Hill in San Francisco by
Sullivan and continuing through Fazlur Khan and are skeptical about issuing a permit for only Solomon Cordwell Buenz (Post 2008)
Myron Goldsmith.
occupying part of the building instead of the
He has written several articles for the CTBUH
entire structure. How the remainder is a. Floors 8-27 occupied in Jan. 2008
Journal. He presented the paper ‘A Platonistic
Program for Block 37 in Chicago’s Loop’ at the constructed, while tenants occupy the spaces b. Floors 28-35 occupied in Feb. 2008
December 2001 CTBUH conference Building for the
21st Century in London and the paper ‘Financial below, is a concern to all involved. This paper
c. Residences to floor 60 occupied in
Aspects That Drive Design Decisions’ at the October will discuss Partial Occupancy issues from the
2005 conference in New York City. He was also a Aug. 2008
member of the NY conference’s committee that views of designers, contractors, building
reviewed the papers to be presented. owners, the city government that the project is 2. Trump Tower Chicago by Skidmore,
In addition to practicing architecture in Chicago, he constructed in, and the current tenants while Owings, and Merrill (Bergen 2008)
is a Construction Committee member with the
the construction is taking place. While there a. Hotel floors 14–27 occupied in Jan.
Windy City Habitat for Humanity (local affiliate).
are several examples of partial high-rise 2008
occupancy, identifying and addressing these
b. Residence floor 92 topped out in
special concerns will be important for issuing
August 2008
future permits.
c. Completion to be in 2009

INTRODUCTION
Phased Construction (Vertical Expansion)
Partial Occupancy
In master planned projects, components are
In most construction projects, an Occupancy
planned but not designed or intended for
Permit is secured after the construction has
construction for years or even decades to
been completed. The city issuing this permit
come. Master plan projects may (for example)
defines the project as safe and complete for
build an office tower first, then a retail mall,
human habitation in which it was intended. A
and then a residential tower lastly, when the
Partial Occupancy permit allows only a portion
neighborhood has established this market
of the completed project to be open for
over the past several years. This can be
occupancy. The remainder of the construction
especially true in former industrial areas that
can continue until its completion. This type of
are being converted to other zoning uses by
arrangement will benefit multi-use towers
the city. It is now possible to construct these
since the lower-floor commercial and retail
independent components as one complete

36 | Partial Occupancies for Tall Buildings CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III
Figure 1. Hotel entry at Trump Tower on upper Wabash Figure 2. North elevation of Trump Tower over Figure 3. Blue Cross Blue Shield at start of vertical expansion
hotel entry

tower. Building the first, then the second or An advantage of Partial Occupancy projects is The financial advantage is occupying as each
third can be described as Vertical Expansion. their ability for some tenants to open for use is completed instead of at tower
While the concepts are the same as other business as soon as possible, without waiting completion. In the case of multi-use Tall
master planned projects, the construction for the completion of the tower. An advantage Buildings, the time-frame for construction can
takes place within one structure as opposed to of Phased Construction Vertical Expansion, as be years. Developers that can complete a
many structures within the same site. Some in other master planned projects, is their ability space for occupancy by retail or offices, on the
examples include: to minimize the risks of constructing large- lower floors, have a financial advantage over
1. Bentall 5 in Vancouver by the Musson scale space at one time period and not those who must wait until total tower
Cattell Mackey Partnership (bentall5) flooding the market at what could be a completion. Securing financing may be easier
vulnerable time. By being able to adjust to the in these scenarios.
a. Phase I office floors to 22 occupied in current market, Vertical Expansions can
Sept. 2002 minimize the financial risks inherent in
b. Phase II office floors 23-34 occupied in large-scale construction projects. Both Partial While current requirements are sometimes
April 2007 Occupancy and Phased Construction projects difficult to assess, planning for future
can benefit the financial bottom-line for requirements can be even more difficult. It is
2. Blue Cross Blue Shield in Chicago by critical that the developer is aware of the risks
investors by their advantages.
Goettsch Partners (Corning 2008) involved for predicting the future. As
a. Phase I office floors to 32 occupied in construction material costs have risen in the
1997, daytime worker population of 4,400 MAJOR STAKEHOLDERS OF THE PROJECT United States in 2008, convincing an owner to
Designers and Developers invest in materials, knowing that they will not
b. Phase II office floors 33-57 to be
While planning is required for the design of be used for years to come, could be a ‘tough
completed in 2009, anticipated daytime
any project, advanced planning is required in sell’. Setting aside certain assets today, to be
worker population of 8,000 total for both
projects that include either Partial Occupancy used in a future addition in the coming years,
phases
or Vertical Expansion. In a designer’s mind, the could be difficult to persuade to a stockholder
project is considered a combination of looking at the balance sheets.
Incentives for Partial Occupancy or Phased separate buildings. Each can be designed and
Construction Projects constructed on its own, as part of a complete A total planning package needs to be
Large-scale multi-use Tall Buildings are whole. This approach will include inherent developed at the outset of the project by the
complicated structures involving an army of redundancies. By planning for elevators and designers and the developer. Andrew Weiss of
stakeholders. They require vast resources, utility shafts for the entire project, each the Trump Organization says,” We planned the
multi-year planning and multi-year occupied phase will sustain itself within the entire project so that the different uses within
construction scheduling. Besides the large context of the whole. Planning this the Trump Tower Chicago could open at
quantities of materials required for infrastructure for the tower creates the different times.” Tom Corning of Walsh
construction, financing a project of this possibility of constructing each use Construction has been working on the Vertical
magnitude is a major accomplishment. Many individually and over time, if required. Expansion of the Blue Cross Blue Shield in 
risks are inherent in any construction project.

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Partial Occupancies for Tall Buildings | 37
Chicago. He says,” The entire project had to be Elements for the designers and developers to 9. Peer reviews at various stages of the
developed at the outset in 1997 in order for plan for are: design process.
the Vertical Expansion of today to be effective. 1. Multiple entries for each function from
Otherwise, the assets invested would be garage and grade. While some of these
unused and a waste of resources.” Fortunately, While planning can help prepare for
entries may not be constructed in the first encountering future problems during
this project was well planned by the designer phase, their location is pivotal at the outset.
Jim Goettsch so that, for today’s expansion, it construction, a certain amount of flexibility is
These could be on different levels as well as required. Market demand is flexible along with
can proceed as anticipated. This may not different street accesses. Preplanning is
always be the case, especially when designers, changes in personnel of designers and
important. The entire project must be developers. Record keeping during the
building owners, and contractors can evolve or considered, even if only part of the building
change over the years. The designer of the design’s progress is important. It may be
will be constructed in the first phase. impossible to have seamless construction that
Trump Tower Chicago is Adrian Smith, who is
now a consultant to SOM. The designer of Blue 2. Elevators and utility shafts may change takes place over several phases. Integrating
Cross Blue Shield is Jim Goettsch, who is no functions as the construction proceeds flexibility and adapting to changing conditions
longer a partner with Dirk Lohan from the from one phase to the next. Concerning can help the project as a whole.
Phase I construction of 1997. Economic the Trump Tower Chicago, Lucas
forecasts are constantly changing. Today’s Tryggestad of SOM says, “The Fireman’s
elevator must reach every floor of the Contractors
demands can be vastly different in the next
building, thus precluding it from operation Construction that takes place in several phases
decade. No matter how well an owner defines
prior to completions of the floors. Therefore, is challenging. While it is easier to construct at
their market or niche, predicting future
another elevator must be sized to one time and adjust to different parts of the
expansion needs is difficult. Peer reviews of
accommodate the sizing and functionality building being occupied at various times,
each construction phase as well as the entire
of a Fireman’s elevator during construction.” there are still challenges. The greatest
project can assist the designers throughout
challenge for a contractor is to resume phase
the design process. These reviews can be 3. Phased design. Consider it as a building- two or three of construction several years after
performed for the design issues but can also on-top-of-a- building. Each use is a separate the previous construction. Not only may the
include constructability concerns and market building that fits into one complete project. use’s market have changed but also the
trends for the future. The developer should use Tryggestad goes on to say,” In the Trump designers, developer, and construction
the expertise of these peer reviews to produce Tower each phase of occupancy must material suppliers may have changed. In the
a clear vision for financing this project and represent a total completed building in case of Blue Cross Blue Shield, the original
promoting it to other investors. which all building systems and curtain wall supplier for Phase I was Antemex
components must be operational.” International of Toronto. The supplier for Phase
4. As much a possible, consider future II is Permasteelisa Group SPA of Italy (Barner
technology trends for the future 2008). To make the completed tower’s facade
construction phases. look like one project could be the biggest
5. Utility shafts from subgrade connection challenge.
up to the occupied levels for each use.
6. Construction deliveries separated from Construction activities must remain separate
tenant deliveries. Future elevator or duct from the tenants. Besides the use of separate
shafts may be used for concrete pumping entries and elevators, the noise, vibration and
or fireproofing delivery in a construction dust of construction activities must also not
stage. Provide ample loading docks as affect tenants. Corning says,” Noises, especially
construction staging areas. loud ones, are a concern because of the
7. During construction, access for disruption of the employees’ work day but also
construction workers is separate from they can cause concerns from their
tenant entries. uncertainty of the cause.” Daytime workers do
not wish to adjust their established patterns
8. Distinct HVAC, electrical, plumbing and because of construction that does not affect
communication systems for each use. As them. Contractors must be aware of their
construction continues or as phase two imposition to those that they share the site
construction commences, the tenants are (but not the zone) with. Additional meetings
not affected by the construction activities. with the tenants and the building owner may
Figure 4. Blue Cross Blue Shield at current construction

38 | Partial Occupancies for Tall Buildings CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III
be required in order to address their issues
during construction. Additionally Corning says,”
These issues are planned and discussed in a
separate weekly building facilities and security
meeting.” Concerns for the contractor include
the following:
1. Staging construction. Instead of one
construction zone, the project may have
several work platforms at different
elevations. Materials may have to be
handled several times before they reach
their final installed position.
2. Delivery of materials. Construction
deliveries at grade may conflict with tenant
Figure 5. Blue Cross Blue Shield entry canopy on upper Randolph Figure 6. North elevation crane access for Blue
deliveries. Both Trump Tower and Blue
Cross Blue Shield from lower Randolph
Cross Blue Shield have upper and lower
street levels (Wabash and Randolph, in operation. Redundancies will be built Building Departments
respectively) to deliver construction into each use. A failure of one will not affect While designers and contractors are becoming
materials at lower level and allow normal the others. familiar with multiple phase and occupancy
tenant activities at upper level. 6. Construction worker safety and tenant construction, the city officials that oversee
safety. While these may seem as distinctly these projects may not. The officials’ job
3. Crane and construction elevator
different, they are both a concern while on becomes more difficult in these types of
locations are critical. Preplanning may help
the same site. Tenants must feel safe while scenarios. The peer reviews that are preformed
in establishing these locations, but plans
construction takes place overhead. by the designers can greatly assist the
can change as construction phases
Construction workers must work in safe permitting officials. If a city’s building
proceed. Temporary cranes and elevators
conditions without endangering others. department is not familiar with partial
for a specific use may also be required at
Additional canopies and netting below the occupancy while construction continues,
various phases during construction.
construction work platforms can help these peer reviews may provide additional
Corning notes that, “For Blue Cross Blue
ensure this. information to help them understand the
Shield a small crane was dismantled and
complex intricacies. Dan Murphy, a member of
lifted up by an elevator, to be assembled on 7. Past construction errors can continue on the Chicago Committee on High-Rise
the roof. This small crane assembled a into future phases. No construction work is Buildings, says,” The presentation process of the
medium sized crane, which in turn perfect. Adjustments made in the past to project for a building permit is crucial. The peer
assembled the large lifting cranes on the tolerance errors should be documented so review can help tremendously for the
roof. Temporary beams were installed to as not to perpetuate the errors into the confidence of the building officials issuing the
support these large cranes for construction next construction phase. permit”.
operations.” Not only does this increase the
8. Building construction always contains
construction budget, it also requires
risk. To continue construction above while
additional foresight and resources. Building officials are responsible for ensuring
tenants occupy the spaces below has more
4. As a matter of safety, sizes and weights of risk. To begin an additional phase where the safety of the general public while a
the materials being transported by the another has left off can be fraught with building is under construction. When
cranes and elevators must be limited. On risks. Insurance can protect against some of construction conditions change, as in the case
windy or snowy/icy days, lifting and these risks. Addressing the project as a of phased construction, these officials must
installing of certain materials may be construction manager instead of a lump approve these changes. Not only does this
delayed. As a safety precaution, the delivery sum construction bid is one way for a include additional inspections, it may also
location of materials may vary compared to contractor to minimize risk. The developer/ include reconfiguring exit requirements and
where it will actually be lifted into place by owner and construction manager should occupancy loads. Besides the additional work
the cranes. negotiate this type of arrangement prior to that is required for phased construction,
commencing a contract for the work. These building officials must also approve the overall
5. Utility connections by the contractor
types of alternatives are becoming more concepts and the project’s ‘philosophy’.
cannot interrupt tenants utilities. Each use
popular as these multi-use construction Building officials concerns include the
is separated so that one, under
projects are becoming more complex. following: 
construction, does not affect another that is

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Partial Occupancies for Tall Buildings | 39
like limiting crane operations on windy or building’s owner, or a short-term developer
icy days, may be unpopular but are who is concerned about the immediate future.
probably necessary. In any of these cases, the tenants are a prime
2. Inspections as the phased work concern of the owner. As a liaison between the
continues. Temporary construction could contractor and the tenants, the owner’s role is
be used while the permanent construction to satisfy the lease responsibilities to the
is installed. Inspectors need a clear tenants. Safety meetings, communications, and
understanding of the progress of the work addressing complaints logged by the tenants
as they make their inspections. These can are important duties. If acting in the
differ from the traditional process that developer’s role with the designers, the owner
building officials are used to. should have a clear understanding of the
complexities that phased construction
3. Ensure that insurance is in place to cover produces. The owner should have a willingness
risks. The complications inherent in phased to assume the risks of building more than is
construction may produce risks that the required for today, to address tomorrow’s
contractor should be aware of. A clear needs. The owner’s responsibilities include the
understanding of where the contractor’s following:
responsibility ends and where the building
owner’s responsibility begins is important. 1. Complete understanding of the phased
project. Understanding the need for partial
4. Work platforms and safe transport of occupancy or phasing over time as
Figure 8. Trump Tower south elevation crane and construction materials. Ensuring a safe opposed to occupying or constructing at
construction elevator access construction zone is paramount. The one time. There should be a complete
day-to-day activities of tenants during ‘game plan’ developed by the owner to
construction is also important. Inspections clearly indicate the need and the
should ensure that these activities are free advantages.
and independent from each other.
2. Liability for risks. Insurance in place to
5. Ensure required exits continue to be cover these risks of partial occupancy or
available to tenants. In the course of phased construction. Competent and
construction phasing these exits may shift experienced designers and contractors to
or transfer. When tenants become familiar execute the design and the construction.
with a path of exit, changing that path may
produce problems. Safety meetings to 3. Safety of the tenants is paramount for the
identify these issues are important for the owner. The safety of the contractor’s
contractor to communicate with the workers is the contractor’s responsibility.
tenants, building owner and the building The safety of the tenants is the responsibility
officials. Ensuring these required exits at all of the owner and the city officials.
times is important. 4. In cooperation with the contractor,
6. During construction, tenants have a right ensuring separation of the tenants from the
to uninterrupted utilities. As separately construction activities. This includes entries,
designed buildings under one roof, the material deliveries, parking, noise, vibrations,
phase in construction should not affect the dust, and views.
zone occupied by tenants. The work plan 5. As mentioned previously, ensure that the
Figure 7. South crane and construction elevator of Trump should identify the utility connections tenant utilities are uninterrupted during
Tower with lower Wabash access under construction without involving the continuing construction activities.
completed, occupied spaces. 6. Financing for the project can be
1. Safety of the tenants as the construction
work proceeds. Whether this includes improved. Weiss of the Trump Organization
additional netting or barricades around the Building Owners says,” The length of time until initial
work platforms, the safety of the occupants A building owner may be involved with the occupancy and start of payments on the
is paramount. Any construction accident continuing construction or may own only the loan are reduced, thus reducing the length
can affect the overall project, especially if a occupied zone. The owner could be the tenant, of the loan and reducing some of the time
tenant is hurt. Enforcing safe procedures, a future tenant, the continuing long-term related risks of the loan.”

40 | Partial Occupancies for Tall Buildings CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III
Tenants
Tenants always have concerns during
construction projects. If the construction is not
part of their organization, they want their
normal activities to continue uninterrupted.
Altered entries may not be desirable. If tenants
are required to adjust their fire exits after they
have become accustomed to existing patterns,
clear communication from the building owner
is required as to this change. Whether a worker
or a resident, tenants have concerns that need
to be addressed, which include:
1. A safe environment during entering and
exiting, whether from grade entry or the
parking garage. Temporary construction
netting and barricades can remedy these
concerns.
2. Associated with these safety issues are
construction dust, noise, and vibrations.
Mechanical floors tend to separate the
Figure 9. East and south elevations of Trump Tower during Figure 10. Completed One Rincon Hill, © Michael Dickter ,
occupied zones from each other and can construction Magnusson Klemencic Associates
aid in this. Tenants have a right to co-exist
with the construction activities but not be concerns to be addressed. As Corning says, Many thanks to the following individuals for
adversely affected by it. This may be “Residents were upset when we started their contributions to this article:
impossible for the contractor to comply Phase II construction of Blue Cross Blue Lucas Tryggestad of SOM
with in all cases. The contractor should do Shield after they had moved into their new
Andrew Weiss of the Trump Organization
his best to minimize these tenant concerns. condominiums at 340 on the Park.”
Tom Corning of Walsh Construction
3. No utility interruptions because of
Dan Murphy of Environmental Systems Design,
construction activities. Redundancies built CONCLUSION International
into the project should alleviate this
concern. Partial Occupancy permits are not a new idea
but they are gaining popularity for phased And very special thanks to:
4. Normal deliveries that do not conflict with construction and multi-use towers. As with any
construction deliveries. Sufficient loading construction project, risks exist. The financial Cameron Hufford of Magnusson Klemencic
docks planned ahead of time to service all advantages of immediate occupancy for some Associates who helped to make this article
parties. If possible, lower and upper street uses can make these risks justifiable. An ability possible.
level access to alleviate potential conflicts. to adjust to a volatile real estate market is also
5. Few obstructed views from tower cranes an advantage. As more projects utilize partial References
and construction elevators. The contractor, occupancy in some form, the concepts are BENTALL5 www.bentall5.com, Online website
working with the owner, should find gaining acceptance. It is important for all POST, N. M. (2008) Seismic Design’s Stature, Engineering
amicable locations for this required stakeholders involved to accept the concepts News Record issue of January 21, 2008, pp 22-26.
equipment. The material deliveries and of partial occupancy. Pre-planning by the BERGEN, K. (2008) 1st look at Trump Tower hotel reveals
5-star views, ambitions, Chicago Tribune Business section of
lifting sequences from the working designers and developer can alleviate many
January 31, 2008, pp 1 & 4
platforms to final installation should be very construction problems before they materialize.
CORNING, T. (2008). Email correspondence from Tom
well thought out so as not to adversely Addressing concerns in a proactive manner can Corning of Walsh Construction on August 12, 2008.
affect the tenants. lead to the success of the completed project. BARNER, C. (2008). Midwest Construction issue of May 2008,
Flexibility of the planning to emerging pp 12-14.
6. Neighbors can also influence the project.
technology and material resources can also
Construction projects always affect the
benefit the project. As long as everyone is ‘on
neighbors. Height limits, obstructing
the same page’, including city building officials,
established views, and unwanted
partial occupancy projects will flourish for the
construction traffic are all neighborhood
advantages they provide.

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Partial Occupancies for Tall Buildings | 41
Tall Buildings In Numbers
An Overview of Historical Factors Affecting Tall Building Energy Consumption
Overview: The Five ‘Energy Generations’
1. From the Birth of Tall Buildings in 1885, to the 1916 New York City Zoning Law
2. From the 1916 Zoning Law to the Development of the Glazed Curtain Wall, 1951
3. From the Development of the Glazed Curtain Wall, 1951, to the 1973 Energy Crisis
4. From the Energy Crisis of 1973, ongoing to the present day
5. From the Rise of an Environmental Consciousness, 1997 ongoing to the present day

1916: Impact of the New York City Zoning Law – increased building surface area / greater heat loss
through envelope

0.20
Energy Generation 2
Building surface area to volume ratio (m2/m3)

Energy Generation 2
0.19
0.189
0.18 Energy Generation 1
0.17 Ave = 0.152 m2/m3

0.16
0.158
0.15 Energy Generation 1
0.14 0.144
Ave = 0.107 m2/m3 0.138
0.13
0.130
0.12 0.112
0.118 0.118
0.11
0.10
0.09
0.087 0.088
0.08
0.07
0.06
0.05
90 West St

195 Broadway

Equitable Bldg

Bryant Park

Mercantile Bldg

570 Lexington Ave.


1907
Woolworth Bldg
1913

1914

1914

1915

1924

1930
Chrysler Bldg
1930
500 5th Ave.
1931

1931
Municipal Bldg

Pre-1916 Building, Typical “Wedding Cake”


New York City Building after 1916
New York City

Pre-Zoning Law Buildings: Compact shape, large volume vs. Post-Zoning Law Buildings: Slender shape, small volume vs.
smaller façade area = Reduced heat loss / gain through concen- larger facade area = Greater heat loss / gain through building
trated building mass envelope but greater natural light penetration

1950 1970: Impact of increased use of mechanical conditioning and florescent lighting – increased
overall energy consumption
Average building energy use (000s BTU / Sqft / Annum)

300
Electricity
266.4
250 Steam 188

214.5
200 154.1

164.4
108.1 A Study of 86 office buildings constructed in Manhattan shows that on
150
128.9 average, buildings completed in the late 1960s had energy require-
78.4 ments more than double those of buildings constructed in the early
100 1950s
78.4
50
50.5 56.3 60.4 Data from:
STEIN, R. G. (1977). Observations on Energy Use in Buildings. Journal of
0 Architectural Education, Vol. 30, No. 3, February 1977. pp.36 – 41.
1950 - 1954 1955 - 1959 1960 - 1964 1965 - 1969

42 | Tall Buildings In Numbers CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


1951: Impact of the modern glazed curtain wall 1970 Present Day: Impact of 1973 and 1979
– increased facade transparency / reduced enve- energy crises - Improved envelope thermal prop-
lope insulation / increased heat loss + gain erties / reduced overall energy consumption
Typical façade U-values (W/m2K) Typical façade U-values (W/m2K)
2
Typical façade U-values (W/m K) Typical façade U-values (W/m2K)
Transparency within façade (%) Transparency within façade (%)
Transparency within façade (%) Transparency within façade (%)
Transparency within façade (%)

Transparency within façade (%)


100 Energy Generation 3 4.5 100 Energy Generation 3 4.5

Typical façade U-values (W/m2K)

Typical façade U-values (W/m2K)


90 4 90 Energy Generation 4 4
80 3.5 80 3.5
70 70
Energy Generation 2 3 3
60 60
2.5 2.5
50 50
2 2
40 40
1.5 1.5
30 30

20 1 20 1

10 0.5 10 0.5

0 0 0 0
Empire State

Apartments

Apartments
New York, 1930

New York, 1931

New York, 1952

New York, 1952

New York, 2008


Chrysler Building

Building

Chicago, 1951

Lever House

Chicago, 1951

Lever House

Post Tower

Bank of America
Tower
Lake Shore Drive

Lake Shore Drive

Bonn, 2002
Prior to the development of the glazed curtain wall: High levels of Early glazed curtain wall tall buildings: Poor performance single-glazed
thermal mass, low percentage of façade transparency. curtain wall with tinted glass, high percentage of façade transparency.
Early glazed curtain wall tall buildings: Poor performance single-glazed Modern curtain wall tall buildings: High performance double-skin and
curtain wall with tinted glass, high percentage of façade transparency. triple glazed curtain wall with clear glass, high percentage of façade
transparency.

Prior to the 1973 Energy Crisis:


Energy Crisis 1973

Energy Crisis 1979

18 62 black skyscrapers completed in previous


No. of Black Skyscrapers Built in U.S.

10 years (1964 – 1973)


16
After the 1979 Energy Crisis:
14
19 black skyscrapers completed in next
12 10 years (1979 -1988)

10 Buildings over 100m in height and located in


8
Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami,
Energy Generation 3 New York and San Francisco considered.
6
Energy Generations 4+5
4

0
1950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

1997 Present day: Increased performance of façade, natural and mixed-mode


ventilation exploited, atria utilized, on-site energy generation maximized, wind tur-
bines, photovoltaics, CHP, etc. – What does the future hold?
For more depth on this analysis see:
OLDFIELD, P., TRABUCCO, D. & WOOD, A. (2009) Five Energy Generations of Tall Buildings: A Historical Analysis of Energy
Consumption in High Rise Buildings. Proceedings of the CTBUH 8th World Congress “Tall & Green: Typology for a Sustainable
Urban Future”, Dubai, March 3 – 5, 2008, pp. 300 – 310. Available to download at: www.ctbuh.org/technicalpapers.htm

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Tall Buildings In Numbers | 43


Moscow Gaining Height Conference: Review
The ‘Moscow Gaining Height’ conference is typical of affiliate Council on Tall Buildings and
Urban Habitat (CTBUH) conferences, which are often held two or three times a year between
CTBUH World Congresses. Whereas World Congresses are organized centrally by CTBUH,
affiliate conferences are usually steered by a local organization, with an objective in parallel
with the Council’s primary mission – to disseminate best practice information in the field
of tall buildings globally. In these cases the CTBUH plays an advisory and promotion role;
suggesting conference theme and speakers, advising on program and technical tours, and
promoting the event amongst its members and networks.
Kremlin, Moscow

Elena Shuvalova, CEO of the Moscow-based was chaired by CTBUH Country Representative
Lobby Agency and active CTBUH member, for Russia Tom McCool of Turner Construc-
brought a party of Russian dignitaries and pro- tion International, with keynote presenta-
fessionals to visit CTBUH headquarters at the tions given by Yury Tabunshchikov , (see
Illinois Institute of Technology in October 2007. Figure 1), President of ABOK (the Russian As-
Following that visit, the same party attended sociation of Engineers for Heating, Ventilation,
the CTBUH 8th World Congress in Dubai in Air-Conditioning, Heat Supply and Building
March 2008, and decided at that event that Thermal Physics) and Antony Wood (Executive
it would be very beneficial to hold a smaller- Director of CTBUH). Mr. Tabunshchikov gave a
scale but similar event in Moscow, to bring in presentation on the Boundaries of Engineering
some of the world’s experts in the field of tall Opportunities in Russian Tall Buildings, whilst Figure 1. Marianna M. Brodatch (Vice President of AVOK,
buildings to present to Russian colleagues, Mr. Wood delivered a presentation entitled ‘Tall Professor of Moscow Architectural Institute) & Yury
Tabunshchikov (President of AVOK)
many of whom are planning or constructing Buildings Futures? Sustainability and Design
the numerous tall buildings in Moscow and in the context of Tall’. The latter presentation
elsewhere. Thus, in Dubai in March 2008, the prompted numerous questions from the audi- The session after the morning break was
idea of the ‘Moscow Gaining Height’ confer- ence on issues of sustainability – a reoccurring chaired by CTBUH Executive Director Antony
ence was born. theme throughout the conference. Wood and began with an excellent pre-
sentation on the challenges of ‘Sustainable
Technologies in Modern Megalopolis’ by
The event itself took place in the prestigious Next up were Mr. Stanislav Nikolaev, Director
Elizabeth Belenchia, Vice-President of FIABCI
setting of the Ararat Park Hyatt Hotel Moscow, of TSNIIEP Zhilisha, who explained the work
(The International Real Estate Federation, see
from the 22nd – 24th October 2008, with of TSNIIEP to the audience, David Genc of De
Figure 2). Elizabeth’s presentation really set the
approximately 120 delegates in attendance Stefano & Partners in the US who gave a fasci-
scene for how major cities are expanding and
drawn from numerous disciplines (architects, nating insight on the Waldorf-Astoria project
what challenges urban humanity faces in the
engineers, planners, government officials etc). in Chicago, and Mrs. Galina Poplavskaya, Head
future. She was followed by Brad Malmsten of
With KONE as the main sponsor, the event of Construction at the Russian Association of
Thornton Tomasetti who presented some of
opened with a welcome address by Mr. Yuri Construction, who took us through some of
the Hybrid structural solutions his company
Granik of the design and research agency the problems faced with high-rise construc-
has introduced to several high rise projects in
TSNIIEP Zhilisha, who had partnered the or- tion in Russia.
ganization of the conference. The first session Red Square at night, Moscow

44 | Moscow Gaining Height Conference: Review CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III
Moscow; Alexey Chaikin, Deputy Director of The first day continued late into the evening
the fascinating ‘New Ring of Moscow’ develop- with the conference Gala Dinner which was
ment which he explained to the audience; and held at the Esterkhazi restaurant on Maroseyka
Mikhail Markovsky, Principal of the ByeINIIS in Moscow. Overseas visitors were treated to
Research Institute in Belorussia, who portrayed traditional Russian food and hospitality in the
some of the developments in Belarus and intimate setting of the restaurant, with numer-
other parts of his country. ous toasts (and glasses of vodka!) from Russian,
Ukrainian and Belorussian colleagues!

The session after lunch on the first day was


one of the best sessions of the conference, The first session of Day 2 of the conference,
Figure 2. Elizabeth Belenchia, Vice-President of The
chaired by Elizabeth Belenchia of FIABCI. Three chaired by Yuri Gravnik of TSNIIEP, was also one International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI)
inspiring presentations gave delegates a snap- of the highlights of the three days. Georges
shot of high-rise work both within and outside Binder, Managing Director (see Figure 3) of the
Russia; starting with Tom McCool, Head of Belgium-based Buildings & Data gave a fasci-
European Operations for Turner Construction nating overview of past and current trends in
International who gave a passionate overview tall buildings with his presentation ‘100 Years of
of the short-comings of tall buildings; Tim High-Rise Construction: Evolution and Trends’.
Johnson, design Partner of NBBJ, who showed Georges was followed by Marcus Lee, Director
the work of his practice across the world; and of FLACQ architects in the UK (see Figure 4)
Philip Nikandrov of RMJM who, as project and formerly of Richard Rogers & Partners
architect for the controversial ‘Gazprom Tower’ architects. Marcus was the site architect for the
project in St. Petersburg, gave us valuable seminal Lloyds of London project in the 1980’s
insight into the design of the project and and has since been involved in the upgrade Figure 3. Georges Binder, Managing Director, Buildings &
the work that has been done to counter the and ‘future proofing’ of the project with his Data, Belgium
negative publicity the project has received and new company, FLACQ. In today’s world of
better communicate its intent. increasingly precious embodied energies
locked-up in existing buildings, his presenta-
tion on how to keep Lloyds relevant and
The final session of the first day was chaired operational into the future was particularly apt.
by Elena Shuvalova of the Lobby Agency and Next up was Young Ju of Korea University and
focused on Tall Building Safety, with presenta- the Korean CTBUH who presented a structural
tions by Konstantin Belousov of the Moscow- case-study of the diagrid of the Lotte Super
based Science and Research Institute for Tower in Seoul, South Korea, and the session
Fire-Fighting; Leo Razdovsky of LR Structural was closed by Mr. Anatoly Franivsky of the
Engineering who gave an absorbing presenta- Ukrainian Council of Tall Buildings, who gave
tion on ‘The Structural Design of Tall Buildings us an overview of the developments in Kiev Figure 4. Marcus Lee, Director of FLACQ architects, UK
against possible Terrorist Attacks’; Marsel Bik- and other areas. 
bau of the Moscow Institute of Materials and
Effective Technologies; and Mikhail Dashevsky
of Vibrosysmozashita who gave a presentation
on ‘Protecting Tall Buildings from Transport
Vibration’. ...building financing

“ The Trump Tower Chicago is the only building that got built, and the skeletons of the other ones
are strewn all over the place; Chicago Spire, Waterview Tower. The days of building buildings like this are
over. It will take 10 years to finance buildings like this. Unless I used my own money, it would be
impossible. The banks are out of business. The sad thing is, it’s a blight for cities.

Quote of Donald Trump at his topping out celebration for the Trump Tower Chicago on 9/24. Chicago Tribune Thursday 9/25 issue, Business section,
pp.1 & 4. Mary Ellen Podmolik is the reporter for the article.

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Moscow Gaining Height Conference: Review | 45
Figure 5. Federation Towers, view looking up Figure 6. Presentation in the Federation Towers by Ara Figure 7. Presentation by Stanislav Nikolaev (Director of
Aramyan, Vice-President Mirax Group TSNIIEP) and Valery Ostretsov (Head of Architecture, TSNIIEP)

The final presentation-based session of the The remaining day and a half of the confer- The final day of the conference started with a
conference took place after coffee on Day ence was devoted to technical tours, aimed visit to the headquarters of TSNIIEP, who had
2, chaired by Peter Anderson, Director at at giving delegates first-hand experience of been instrumental in supporting the confer-
Knight Frank. The session had two themes; some of the seminal projects built and under ence. TSNIIEP are basically an architectural
the marketing of tall buildings and verti- construction in Moscow. The Thursday after- design and engineering research institute who
cal transport systems, and had interesting noon was devoted to the ‘Moscow City’ (see work closely with the government on develop-
presentations from Johannes De Jong, Director Figure 5) urban-scale project and the Fed- ing codes for high-rise buildings, and have
of Products & Technology at KONE who spoke eration Towers in particular. Delegates were worked with numerous developers to deliver
about ‘Advances in Elevator Technology’; Julia treated to a presentation in the Federation a number of high-rise projects throughout
Nikulitcheva of Jones Lang LaSalle who spoke Towers by Mr. Ara Aramyan, Vice-President the city. They were especially instrumental in
about ‘The Peculiarities of Planning Mixed-Use of the developer the Mirax Group (see Figure designing and developing the first high-rise
High Rise Complexes’; Richard Pulling, High 6), and were then guided to the top of the buildings in the city after the 40-year hiatus
Rise Operations Director at OTIS who spoke completed lower tower of the twin complex, following the first Stalinist skyscrapers, which
about elevatoring innovations within his com- getting good views of the taller tower under were completed in the 1950’s. Head of TSNIIEP
pany; and Miguel Angel Baeyens of Optimum construction (approximately 75% complete) Mr. Stanislav Nikolaev received the visiting
World Properties who spoke about the high- and views out over the city of Moscow. The party and, together with colleagues, discussed
rise development opportunities in Panama. grandeur of the completed tower’s lobby areas the work of his institute (see Figure 7).
and high-level restaurant were particularly
amazing.

46 | Moscow Gaining Height Conference: Review CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III
...height race

“ I think that other


people will consider more than
a kilometer. How tall can one
go? It is more a question of
money and determination and
while the technical aspects are
challenging, it is not
insurmountable.

David Scott, CTBUH Chairman and
Principal at Arup New York, discusses the
likelihood of future tall building proposals
being taller than the recently announced
‘Nakheel Tower’, which is set to be
over a kilometer in height. From ‘2.4km
Figure 8. Moscow State University Figure 9. Triumph Palace Tower
tower plan not yet on tallest buildings list’,
Emirates Business, October 9th, 2008, p.9
In the afternoon delegates had a choice of building in Europe. The building is often
technical tours, including the seminal Moscow termed ‘the 8th tower’ as it is built in a similar
State University Tower (see Figure 8), complet- style to the 7 previous Stalin-era skyscrapers, working which is sometimes missing at larger
ed in 1953 and standing 240 meters tall with though it was clear to visiting delegates that events, and from which all delegates had ben-
36 stories. The tallest of the seven towers built the attention to detail and finishing was far efitted. Like many cities around the world, it is
during the Stalin era in Moscow, the building inferior to these original skyscrapers. Still, del- clear that Moscow and other parts of Russia
was for a while the tallest building outside egates were treated to a thorough tour of the are enthusiastically embracing tall buildings as
New York, and the tallest building in Europe building, including the roof viewing platforms an urban solution. And although the country’s
till 1988, and it still stands proud as a truly with fantastic views out over Moscow. immediate future in light of the current global
massive complex buzzing with students and economic slowdown is unclear, conference
academics. Delegates were able to journey to attendees witnessed convincing evidence
the top of the tower, with great views out over The conference drew to a close following Fri- that the thirst for knowledge and information-
Moscow, and also to see some of the original day’s technical tours, and all delegates agreed sharing between Russian-based and overseas
interiors, including the wooden-seated class- it had been an informative and inspiring three colleagues is indeed strong. Hopefully what
rooms and lecture theatres. days. The mixture of presentations and techni- has started here with the information shared
cal tours, overseas and local speakers across and contacts made at the ‘Moscow Gaining
numerous disciplines, and the somewhat close Height’ conference will continue long into the
Other delegates elected to visit the Triumph gathering of 120 or so delegates had given the future and ultimately result in better, safer and
Palace Tower (see Figure 9) which, at 264 me- event a uniqueness and opportunity for net- more sustainable tall buildings worldwide.
ters and 57 stories, is the tallest residential
All photos © Antony Wood / CTBUH.

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Moscow Gaining Height Conference: Review | 47
Australian CTBUH Seminars: Report

Antony Wood reports on his visit to Australia, presentations to the Australian Council on Tall
Buildings and Urban Habitat in Brisbane and Sydney, and various meetings with existing
CTBUH members and members-to-be.
Sydney Opera House and bridge

After the best part of a week in Australia, from from University at Buffalo, had presented the There were other sub-plots in the presentation;
the 9th – 15th November 2008, I am very recently-published CTBUH Recommendations how greenwash and the emphasis on design
pleased to report that the Australian Council for the Seismic Design of High Rise Buildings rather than as-built performance in worldwide
on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (ACTBUH) to audiences in Brisbane and Sydney in August sustainability rating systems is hampering the
is very much alive and kicking. Together with and I had agreed to visit in November to talk embrace of real environmental progress, and
the Dutch and Korean Councils, the ACTBUH is about tall buildings and sustainability. how tall buildings have an opportunity to lead
perhaps the most active of our regional ‘chap- the way for the benefit of the building industry
ters’, under the high-octane leadership of Brett My presentation, entitled “Urban Futures: as a whole; not only because denser cities with
Taylor of Bornhost & Ward and Bruce Wolfe of Green or Grey? The Aesthetics of Tall Building less energy-intensive suburban sprawl is a bet-
Conrad Gargett Architecture in Brisbane, and Sustainability” was very well received in both ter model for urban development but also be-
Jim Forbes of Hyder Consulting in Sydney. The Brisbane and Sydney, judging by the Question cause the financial and professional investment
Australian Council was established in Brisbane and Answer sessions and the positive feedback in each tall building offers the opportunity for
in 1988, and has been reinforced over the years from attendees after the presentation. This was experimentation with environmental technolo-
through various direct collaborations with good, because the message I was delivering gies, for example, which is more difficult to
central CTBUH (for example; our 6th World was potentially controversial; that the vast justify in smaller buildings.
Congress held in Melbourne in 2001). It is majority of built tall buildings around the world
today are nowhere I finished the presentation with an overview of
near the evolved state some of the hypothetical tall building design
they need to be in projects I have created in conjunction with my
to help face the twin students of architecture over the past five years
challenges of climate (see www.ctbuh.org/designresearch.htm).
change and optimal Much of this work tends towards the utopian
urban domains. In and I guess I was a little nervous that this com-
particular I feel that bination of tough words on the state of the tall
we are missing the building industry, and the somewhat utopian
opportunity for a vision as a possible answer, would serve to
new expression in tall negate the overall message in an audience
building design, more of predominantly practical, ‘at the coal face’
reflective of the age in architects and engineers. However the inverse
Brisbane Skyline from Story Bridge, showing Riparian Plaza, Harry Seidler
which we now reside; seemed to happen, and many from the audi-
an aesthetic that is ence made a point of mildly berating me for
now focused mainly on delivering bi-monthly less about the steel-and-glass modernism that my apologetic air concerning the utopian ideas
seminars on tall buildings and urban habitat has dominated tall building design for the past and pointed out that most were actually quite
in each of the major Australian cities (primarily 50 years and more about a sensible degree practical and, more importantly, achievable if
Brisbane and Sydney, with a plan to extend to of opacity in facades, plus organic matter and the right conditions could be created. And that
Melbourne soon). greenery embraced as a positive part of the thus became one of the main outcomes of my
This Australia trip had its origins six months overall material palette, as well as contribut- presentation – the thought that we perhaps
previously at our Dubai Congress in March, ing to a positive environmental strategy. I need to concentrate less on the design of the
when discussions with ACTBUH had led to a presented a seven-point plan for consideration building and more on the social, political and
request for assistance with arranging inter- in the design of future skyscrapers. economic conditions that have allowed the
national speakers for the Australia program. best tall buildings to flourish in places around
Co-chair of our working group on the Seismic the world, in the hope of recreating those con-
Design of Tall Buildings, Andrew Whittaker ditions, and hence the better buildings.

48 | Australian CTBUH Seminars: Report CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


Figure1. Harry Seidler’s Riverside complex, Brisbane Figure2. Renzo Piano’s Aurora Place, Sydney Sydney from top of the Sydney Tower

So both presentations, in Brisbane and Sydney, after reading Henry Gifford’s paper entitled In between all these meetings and presenta-
fostered some excellent thought and discus- “A Better Way to Rate Green Buildings” on the tions, I managed to capture about 500 tall
sion however this visit had objectives beyond plane on the way back to Chicago (furnished building photographs for the CTBUH Tall
just delivering a presentation. It was essentially to me by a colleague at Bovis Lend Lease Building Image Database (see www.ctbuh.
a fact-finding mission for the Council, to see – I would encourage you all to read this at org/imagedatabase.htm), and delight in the
how the situation in Australia is currently (both www.henrygifford.com), I am becoming more many new developments that have occurred
economically and environmentally), to see and more convinced that this is the path that since I was last in Australia 14 years ago – Harry
how we can better support the Australian LEED and BREAM and others need to start Seidler’s Riverside complex in Brisbane and
chapter of the Council and, of course, to bring following: an energy rating based on hard con- Renzo Piano’s Aurora Place in Sydney (see Fig-
organizations which are not yet involved with sumption data produced after a year or two of ure 1 + 2) to name but two. In particular I was
the Council into our network and initiatives. I operation, rather than noble intentions (often impressed with how many recent Australian
am very pleased to report that all three objec- untested in their effectiveness) at the design tall buildings seem to meet the ground posi-
tives were met. Economically (although there stage, often several years before occupation. tively (something many other cities struggle
are quite clearly the same tell-tale signs of with) – creating multi-layered, public urban
plunging stock markets and job losses as seen So during my five days in Brisbane and Sydney domain that is just a pleasure to be in – Aus-
recently in the US and Europe) Australia seems I had meetings with the Queensland Govern- tralia Square in Sydney or virtually the entire
to be, at worst, a few months behind the ment Department of Public Works, Laing O’ Brisbane River north shore from Story Bridge to
western world in feeling the brunt of the credit Rourke Construction, Leighton Property Ltd, the Botanic Gardens to name but two. Yes, as
crisis. At best, however, there are many who Cottee Parker Architects, Cundall Engineers, I sit aboard a Qantas flight on my way back to
believe that with much of the economy ben- JPW Architects and Meinhardt Engineers. I Chicago writing this, I think we could certainly
efitting from natural resource export to China also attended the November luncheon of the learn a thing or two from the Australians,
(coal, iron ore and copper ore), it is actually Australia Property Council at the Westin Hotel in more ways than one. My great thanks in
much better placed to weather the economic in Sydney – along with 700 other people – and particular to Brett Taylor and Jim Forbes for
storm than many other nations. heard the newly-in post New South Wales MP making such a worthwhile trip possible, and
/ Minister for Planning Kristina Keneally outline to Jim for the incredible couple of hours on his
I was also extremely impressed with some her vision for urban infrastructure in Sydney. boat in Sydney Harbour!
of the sustainability initiatives being imple- Of all the people who graciously met with me
mented there, in particular the post-occu- and gave of their time, I must make a special All photos © Antony Wood / CTBUH.
pancy, performance-based ratings system mention to colleagues at Bovis Lend Lease
for measuring energy and water consump- who received me in both Brisbane and Sydney,
tion, waste handling and building occupier giving me a tour of their fantastic ‘The Bond’ Note: Visit www.ctbuh.org/ . . .
satisfaction developed through the NABERS headquarters on the quayside in Sydney. to download Antony Wood’s Brisbane presen-
scheme (see www.nabers.com.au). Especially tation.

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III Australian CTBUH Seminars: Report | 49


Skyscraper Museum Exibit, New York: Review
Vertical Cities: The typology of the skyscraper spawned from a once unlikely collusion of technological mile-
Hong Kong | New York stones. It has become a multifaceted solution to congestion and dispersion alike and an icon
on which cities like Hong Kong and New York now base their identity. What was once endemic
to a few select metropolises along the Great Lakes and Eastern Seaboard of the United States
can now be found thriving in the clouds over downtowns in virtually every corner of the globe.

Vertical Cities Exhibit with New York’s continued growth as a global


© New York, Richard Berenholtz For its current dynamic exhibit, the Skyscraper center for finance and business. Coupled with
Hong Kong | New York Comparison Skyline Museum has selected these two notable the prolonged availability of affordable labor
corners of New York and Hong Kong. Through through the Great Depression of the 1930s,
photographs, film and architectural models, these factors led to the development of some
the exhibit alternatively compares and con- of the most iconic structures ever built.
trasts the social, economic, geographic and
cultural landscapes of these two cities. From Hong Kong’s explosive Development
the differences, the exhibit pulls a convincing In recent decades, growth in overseas trade
assertion of the versatility of the skyscraper between China and the rest of the world has
typology. Through the similarities, the exhibit fueled a similar explosion in Hong Kong, now
reveals the unilateral impact of Tall Buildings home to more Tall Buildings than New York.
on the built environment and several universal Several of the most notable buildings of the
© The Skyscraper Museum, P & T Architects & Engineers Ltd. urban issues that transcend site specificity. last twenty years have risen from the soil in
Hong Kong | New York Bridge Comparison Hong Kong, including the 484m International
At its entrance the exhibit presents, as its first Commerce Center, the 367m Bank of China
On display now through February 2009 at the visual, a diagrammatic and statistical com- Tower, and the 308m One Island East tower.
Skyscraper Museum parison between the two cities under study. Small pockets of increasingly valuable urban
39 Battery Place, New York, NY 10280 Some similarities are inherent here. Both con- land have given rise to extruded towers that
Hours: Noon – 6PM, Wednesday – Sunday tain a population of roughly 7,000,000 people, today carry the very definition of building
Admission: $5; $2.50 for Students and Seniors clustered into urban areas that reach stagger- slenderness – a superlative that once conjured
ing densities of more than 70,000 people per notions of New York towers such as the Bush
Office Tel: 212 945-6324
square mile. Building of 1917. The exhibit celebrates the
Fax: 212 732-3039
shape of some of Hong Kong’s boldest archi-
Hours and directions: 212 968-1961
The differences between the cities are, howev- tectural forms, including the 252m tall Highcliff
www.skyscraper.org
er, palpable. The land contained within greater residential tower, which bears an aspect ratio
New York is today largely developed, with only of nearly 1:20 on its front face.
25% percent of its total area devoted to open
space or parkland. In contrast, Hong Kong has This exhibit celebrates the vertical achieve-
kept an inverted ratio, with nearly 75% of its ments of both cities through a balanced array
land preserved as open space or agricultural of installations. There is, however, a subtle
land. Such a draconian limitation on lateral juxtaposition at play, between grainy, sepia
expansion has fueled the vertical growth of toned photographs of depression-era New
Hong Kong, concentrated along its shores York skyscrapers and crisp, colored imagery of
where colonists originally landed. This is again modern towers in Hong Kong. These conjure
in contrast, as the exhibit demonstrates, to the the notion of a torch passed and a new home
development pattern of New York which grew for the world-class high rise. Yet beneath all
Reviewer up along such landlocked thoroughfares as of the trends illustrated through numbers
Zak Kostura, CTBUH Journal Editor Broadway & Wall Street . and figures of this exhibit is the unequivocal
Arup, 155 Avenue of the Americas, assertion that the history of the skyscraper is
New York, NY, 10013, USA New York’s evolutionary Development inseparable from these two continually evolv-
t: +1 212 896 3240 The exhibit takes a critical look at the history of ing urban landscapes.
f: +1 212 352 1354 Tall Building development with the same eye
e: zak.kostura@arup.com
toward contrast. The economic conditions of For those interested in the evolution of Tall
New York at the turn of the 20th Century were Buildings in two of the most unique urban
ideal for skyscraper development as dimin- areas on earth, this is an exhibit that should
ished opportunities for lateral expansion met not be missed.

50 | Skyscraper Museum Exibit: Review CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


CTBUH Working Group Update: Sustainability
Perhaps inspired by the recent first publication of the CTBUH Seismic Working Group Working Group Members
(www.ctbuh.org/seismicrecommendations.htm), the working group on Tall Buildings and
Sustainability has seen major strides forward since the last edition of the CTBUH Journal.
Sadhu Johnston, Mayor’s Office, City of
Chicago
Under the steering of group co-chairs Sadhu
Antony Wood, CTBUH / Illinois Institute of
Johnston, Chief Environmental Office of the
Technology
City of Chicago Mayor’s office, and Antony
Wood of the CTBUH, two meetings of the 20 David Scott, CTBUH / Arup
or so members of the group have taken place Sam Assefa, City of Chicago
in the past three months. These meetings have
Scott Bernstein, Center for Neighborhood
channeled the efforts of the group into an
Technology
anticipated 80,000 word, 200-page, richly-
illustrated book, entitled the ‘CTBUH Guide to Jeff Boyer, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill
Sustainability for Tall Buildings in Urban Architecture
Environments’. The envisaged chapter plan for Kim Clawson, Goettsch Partners
this book is shown below.
Fiona Cousins, Arup
Mark Frisch, Solomon Cordwell Buenz
Discussions at the working group meetings
Jeanne Gang, Studio Gang Architects
have been thorough and productive, including working group members are listed to the right.
hot topics such as whether carbon or energy If you have any comments on the group or the Russell Gilchrist, Skidmore Owings & Merrill
should be the main benchmark metric used in plans for the book, please contact info@ctbuh. Benet Haller, Dept. of Planning and
the book (with the conclusion to use energy, org. For a full description of the working group, Development, City of Chicago
but articulate the issues with translating to the planned output, and full minute of all
carbon); whether the issues of the upgrade of Ilana Judah, FXFOWLE Architects
meetings, see www.ctbuh.org/sustainability.
existing tall building stock should be a theme htm. Luke Leung, Epstein
carried throughout the book or as a stand- Patrick Loughran, Goettsch Partners
alone chapter (with the consensus being
both); and exactly who would benefit the Bruce McKinlay, Arup
CTBUH Guide to Sustainability for Tall Build-
most from using the book (city departments, ings in Urban Environments - Chapters: Dan Murphy, Environmental Systems Design
professionals and interested public being the
John Pulley, Skidmore Owings & Merrill
main focus) and what its aims should be. This
latter topic is perhaps the most important, for Foreword, by Mayor Richard M. Daley Grace Rappe, Hoerr Schaudt Landscape
a book of this nature, especially in the Architects
01. Introduction: Where are we?
emerging field of sustainability, could become David Reynolds, Earth Tech
too broad in nature and lacking in substance. 02. Cities, Tall Buildings, Urban Planning &
Green Cities Travis Soberg, Goettsch Partners
The decision to orientate every topic to the
unique nature of tall buildings, rather than 03. Economics of Tall Buildings Steve Watts, Davis Langdon LLP
buildings overall, should help with this. 04.Tall Buildings and Urban Infrastructure Peter Weingarten, Gensler Associates
05. Tall Building Planning and Design
Larry Weldon, Goettsch Partners
Working group members and contributors to 06. Enclosure
Greg Weykamp, EDAW
the book project are now progressing the 07. Energy and Tall Buildings
writing of the individual sub-chapters, with the 08. Water
next meeting of the group scheduled for early
09. Materials & Embodied Energy
December to review. The overall aim is to have
the book on bookshelves by Summer 2009. We 10. Measuring and Monitoring Building
Performance
have had no shortage of book publishers
interested in publishing what promises to be a 11. Retrofitting / Building Upgrades
seminal – and much needed – text. The 12. Conclusion: Considerations

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III CTBUH Working Group Update: Sustainability | 51
Diary More upcoming events at: www.ctbuh.org/events.htm

H&V News’ annual conference on 2nd Annual High-Rise Buildings 2009 Fazlur R. Khan Lecture Series
Building Services for Tall Buildings Conference Lehigh University, Bethlehem, USA
February 12 / 2009 February 12-13 / 2009
Barbican Centre, London, UK London, UK February 20 /2009
Tall buildings present a host of unique The advancement of engineering technology Leslie E. Robertson, Leslie E. Robertson
has led to a proliferation of tall buildings Associates, R.L.L.P., “The Architect and the
challenges, not least for the building services
worldwide. Tall buildings have become now Structural Engineer – Partners in Design”
industry, with the design and construction of
these modern day skyscrapers pushing the symbols of city life with important
boundaries and breaking new heights. sociocultural implications. March 20 / 2009
William F. Baker, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
Around the globe more high-rise and super The 2nd annual edition of this pan-European “Engineering the World’s Tallest: Burj Dubai”
high-rise construction is happening like never case study driven comprehensive forum for all
before. the construction, architecture and property April 17 / 2009
development experts, boasts an exceptional Bruce R. Ellingwood, Civil & Environmental
H&V News’ annual ‘Building Services for Tall Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
array of speakers and organizations willing to
Buildings’ conference promotes the skills and “Abnormal Loads and Progressive Collapse
share their experience.
technology that you need to deliver integrated – Assessment and Mitigation of Risk”
solutions to increasingly challenging designs.

EWEEK Expo at IIT-Rice Campus: RETECH 2009 Renewable Energy SEI / ASCE Structures Congress 2009
Structural Engineers to explore Technology Conference CTBUH Performance - Based
engineering with students February 25-27 / 2009 Seismic Design of Tall Buildings
February 21 / 2009 Las Vegas, USA Session
Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Campus, Wheaton, The Renewable Energy Technology April 30 trough May 2 / 2009
Illinois Conference and Exhibition (RETECH 2009) is Austin, Texas, USA
DuPage Area Engineer’s Week Committee has ACORE’s premier trade gathering of the
This CTBUH organized session, part of the 2009
scheduled an Open House for Saturday, all-renewable energy industry in the United
SEI / ASCE Structures Congress, focuses on the
February 21, 2009 at Illinois Institute of States.
latest advances in the field of the seismic
Technology’s Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Campus CTBUH members are eligible for a special $100 design of tall buildings, presenting and
at 201 East Loop Road, Wheaton. This discount offer when registering for RETECH illustrating the design recommendations from
program includes activities that are free and 2009! To take advantage of the Council on Tall the CTBUH Seismic Design Working group,
open to the public. You are invited to explore Buildings and Urban Habitat discount, simply which are intended for application around the
engineering with members of the Chicagoland type 'Tall100' into the discount code box when globe across all levels of seismic hazard.
engineering community. This event promises registering online at RETECH2009.com
to be something very special as this year marks
the 25th anniversary of the program.

52 | Diary CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


CTBUH Country Representative

France
Alan Jalil, Design Manager, is heading the SOCOTEC has been involved for forty years on
section Tall Buildings in the Civil Works many prestigious projects in France (Business
Department of SOCOTEC INTERNATIONAL, Center La Defense and Paris), developing tools
based in Paris since 2005. He has been working for risk analysis specific to the design of tall
on projects in various countries including buildings within various fields (structural
some supertall buildings in the Gulf Region. design, wind analysis, differential settlement
analysis, curtain wall design, MEP design, fire
The most recent iconic projects he has been
safety).
involved in, which cover structural feasibility
studies, structural checking or value Within the last few months, various
engineering are: competitions have been launched regarding
new developments in the business center of
t7BSJPVTTVQFSUBMMCVJMEJOHTJO%VCBJ.BSJOB
La Defense, but at the same time a new law
(Torch Tower, Marina 23, Marina 101, Marina
has been enacted that abrogate a height limit
106, Ocean Height Tower).
for buildings inside Paris, which will lead to
t)BSE3PDL5PXFS TUPSFZTVQFSTMJN interesting debates. These developments
tower) in Dubai. consider sustainability and specific modern
t%JBHSJEDPNQMFYTUSVDUVSF TVDIBT%PIB technical improvements attempting to lead
Alan Jalil, SOCOTEC, CTBUH Country Representative France Office Building from the French architect the way to a better creative architectural
Jean Nouvel). design. Involved parties should consider the
t5XJTUFETIBQFTUSVDUVSFTVDIBT1MBUJOVN latest dissemination of information through
Tower in Doha (Qatar). the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban
Habitat.

Iran
Dr. Peyman is Principal Engineer of the global He is an Iranian Engineer who received his PhD
consulting engineering practice, Hyder in civil engineering, specializing in seismic
Consulting, and serves on the Hyder global design, from the University of Sharif
professional board. Hyder is headquartered in Technology and is a member of the Scientific
London UK, managing a staff of approximately Committee of University of AIU Knowledge
3,000 in 20 offices around the world, including village Dubai-UAE.
more than 900 staff members in the Persian
He was selected as Chairman of the Seismic
Gulf.
Committee of High-rise & Complex Building in
Peyman is an expert high-rise designer for International Congress on Seismic Retrofitting
super tall skyscrapers in the United States and in Iran (March 2006), and serves on several
in the Middle East. Currently he is with Hyder’s International Code Committees. He received
Dubai office, responsible for many of the the Article Award for his presentation on
high-rise projects undertaken by Hyder around concrete deep beams using perforated steel
the world. Peyman’s design team currently has plates at the 7th International Conference on
2 towers between 60 levels and 110 levels Multi-Purpose High Rise Towers and Tall
under various stages of design and Buildings, in Dubai (December 2005).
construction for clients in the Dubai and Gulf
Dr. Peyman Askari Nejad, Hyder Consulting, CTBUH region.
Country Representative Iran

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III CTBUH Country Representative | 53


CTBUH Organizational Structure
Board of Trustees Advisory Group Country Representatives
Chairman Ahmad K. Abdelrazaq, Samsung Corporation Argentina
David Scott, Arup, USA Mir M. Ali, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana Champaign Alberto Fainstein, AHFsa
Executive Director Carl Baldassarra, Schirmer Engineering Australia
Antony Wood, CTBUH / Illinois Institute of Corporation Brett Taylor, Bornhorst + Ward Consulting
Technology, USA W. Gene Corley, CTL Group Engineers
Vice-Chairman Johannes de Jong, KONE International Austria
Ron Klemencic, Magnusson Klemencic Stephen V. DeSimone, DeSimone Consulting Ronald Mischek, Mischek Ziviltechniker GmbH
Associates, USA Engineers
Canada
Treasurer Mahjoub Elnimeiri, Illinois Institute of Barry Charnish, Halcrow Yolles
Charles Killebrew, Pickard Chilton Architects, Technology
USA James G. Forbes, Hyder Consulting Finland (Latvia, Lithuania)
Thomas K. Fridstein, Hillier Architecture Matti-Esko Jarvenpaa, WSP Finland Ltd.
Secretary
William Maibusch, Turner Construction Mayank Gandi, Remaking of Mumbai France
International LLC, Qatar Federation Alan Jalil, SOCOTEC International
Louis F. Geschwindner, American Institute of Greece
Trustee Steel Construction
Sabah Al-Rayes, Pan Arab Consulting Alexios Vandoros, Vandoros & Partners
Timothy J. Johnson, NBBJ
Engineers, Kuwait Hong Kong
Sang Dae Kim, Korea University
Trustee Keith Griffiths, Aedas Ltd.
Ryszard M. Kowalczyk, Univ. de Beira Interior
William Baker, Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP, India
USA Simon Lay, WSP Group
Lalit Gandhi, Remaking of Mumbai Federation
Thomas J. McCool, Turner International LLC
Moira M. Moser, M. Moser Associates Iran
Staff Gary H. Pomerantz, Flack & Kurtz
Peyman Askarinejad, PGB Engineering Design
Consultancy
Executive Director Jerry R. Reich, Horvath Reich CDC, Inc.
Antony Wood Mark P. Sarkisian, Skidmore Owings and Korea
Merrill LLP. Sang-Dae Kim, Korea University
Research & Communications Manager
Jan Klerks Simon Strzelecki, Bovis Lend Lease S.r.l. Malaysia
Brett Taylor, Bornhorst + Ward Consulting Faridah Shafii, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
Operations Engineers
Geri Kery Netherlands
George von Klan, GVK-ECS, Inc. Jan Vambersky, Corsmit Raadgevend
Development Steve Watts, Davis Langdon LLP Ingenieursbureau BV
Katharina Holzapfel Kenneth Yeang, Llewelyn Davies Yeang Philippines
Publications Felino A. Palafox, Palafox Associates
Steven Henry
Working Groups Co-Chairs Qatar
General Counsel William Maibusch, Turner Construction
Joseph Dennis Seismic Design International LLC
Ron Klemencic, Andrew Whittaker and
Research Coordinator Russia
Michael Willford
Philip Oldfield Elena Shuvalova, Lobby Agency
Sustainable Design
IT Support Saudi Arabia
Sadhu Johnson and Antony Wood
Wai Sing Chew Ibrahim Al Saudi, Saudi Oger Ltd.
Progressive Collapse
CTBUH Journal Editor Turkey
Bob Smilowitz and Craig Gibbons
Zak Kostura Husamettin Alper, Arup Mühendislik ve
Fire & Safety Müşavirlik Ltd. Şti.
Newsletter Editor
Simon Lay and Daniel O’ Connor
Natalie Brush United Arab Emirates
Legal Aspects of Tall Buildings Andy Davids, Hyder Consulting Engineers
Editorial Support
Cecily Davis and Marnix Elsenaar
Robert Lau United Kingdom
Construction Logistics / Project Management Steve Watts, Davis Langdon & Seah Interna-
Buildings Database Editor
David Crowell and Ian Eggers tional
Marshall Gerometta
Finance & Economics Vietnam
Radio Journal Editor
Steve Watts Nguyen Dinh Toan, The Architecture Research
Jeff Herzer
Institute
Natural Ventilation Working Group
Brian Ford and Ian Jones

54 | CTBUH Organizational Structure CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III


CTBUH Organizational Members
SUPPORTING CONTRIBUTORS Pan Arab Consulting Engineers CTL Group
Aedas Limited RISE International Dar Al-Handasah (Shair and Partners)
Arup Leslie E. Robertson Associates Dunbar & Boardman
Bovis Lend Lease S.r.l. RMJM Hillier Edgett Williams Consulting Group, Inc.
CB Richard Ellis Ltd Rosenwasser/Grossman Consulting Engineers P.C. Emirates Specialities Co. LLC
Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc. Terry Farrell & Partners
Davis Langdon LLP
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture Fitzgerald Associates Architects
DeSimone Consulting Engineers
Solomon Cordwell Buenz & Associates, Inc. Flack + Kurtz
Gale International
Studio Gang Architects FXFOWLE Architects P.C.
Illinois Institute of Technology, Gold Coast City Council
College of Architecture The Thornton Tomasetti Group
Weidlinger Associates, Inc. Gorproject (Urban Planning Inst. of Residential
Kohn Pedersen Fox and Public Buildings)
Winward Structures Pty. Ltd.
KONE Oyj GS Engineering & Construction
Woods Bagot
Mori Building Co., Ltd. Gulf Glass Industries.
Nabih Youssef & Associates
NBBJ GVK Elevator Consulting Services, Inc.
Remaking of Mumbai Federation Haynes Whaley Associates, Inc.
Samsung Corporation (Engineering & CONTRIBUTORS Heller Manus Architects
Construction) AKF Engineers Hijjas Kasturi Associates Sdn.
Schindler Elevator Corporation American Iron and Steel Institute Hilson Moran Partnership Ltd.
Schirmer Engineering Corporation Broadway Malyan HOK,Inc.
Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP Canary Wharf Group Hong Kong Housing Authority
Turner CB Engineers Horvath Reich CDC Inc.
Webcor Builders Continental Automated Buildings International Union of Bricklayers and Allied
W.S. Atkins & Partners Overseas Association (CABA) Craftworkers.
WSP Group Cook + Fox Architects LLP K.A.N. Development
CPP, Inc. Dennis Lau & Ng Chun Man, Architects & Engi-
C.S. Structural Engineering, Inc. neers (HK) Ltd.
PATRONS DeStefano + Partners Ltd. Lerch Bates Inc.
American Institute of Steel Construction, Inc. DHV Bouwen Industrie Limitless LLC
BMT Fluid Mechanics Ltd. Dong Yang Structural Engineers Stanley D. Lindsey & Associates
DLA Piper UK LLP Goettsch Partners Lobby Agency
Zuhair Fayez Partnership T. R. Hamzah & Yeang Sdn Bhd, Arkitek Lucien Lagrange Architects
Gifford Limited INTEMAC Margolin Bros. Engineering & Consulting Ltd.
Hongkong Land Ltd. Japan Iron and Steel Federation McNamara/Salvia, Inc.
KLCC Property Holdings Berhad HP Konig, Heunisch und Partner Middlebrook & Louie
Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of MulvannyG2 Architecture Miyamoto International, Inc.
Sciences Nakheel Tall Tower Murphy/Jahn
Saudi Ogers Ltd. NFPA Nikken Sekkei Ltd.
The Calvin Group Norman Disney & Young O’Connor Sutton Cronin
Tishman Speyer Properties Perkins+Will Palafox Associates
Pickard Chilton Architects, Inc. Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
Structal-Heavy Steel Construction Plannungsgruppe Droge Baade Nagaraj
DONORS STS / AECOM John Portman & Associates
The Blume Foundation Studio Daniel Libeskind, Architect LLC Taylor Thomson Whitting Pty Ltd.
Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Tekla, Inc.
Laboratory (U. Western Ontario) The Calvin Group, LLC
Built Form
PARTICIPANTS TPS Consult Ltd Centre
Al Jazera Consultants
Dagher Engineering Traynor O’Toole Architects
Allford Hall Monaghan Morris LLP
Halcrow Yolles United States Gypsum Company
APH Capital Partners
Halvorson and Partners University of Nottingham
Arabian Aluminum Co. LLC
Hughes Associates, Inc. Vanguard Realty Pvt. Ltd.
ARC Studio Architecture + Urbanism
Hyder Consulting Vipac Engineers & Scientists Ltd.
Architectural Institute of Korea
Rolf Jensen & Associates, Inc. Viracon
Arquitectonica (Hong Kong)
Larsen & Toubro Limited Walsh Construction Company
Arquitectonica (US)
MACE Werner Sobek Stuttgart GmbH & Co. KG
Axis Design Group Inc.
Magnusson Klemencic Associates Wong & Ouyang (HK) Ltd.
BG&E Pty Limited
W. L. Meinhardt Group Pty Ltd. World Academy of Sciences for Complex
Building Design International
Walter P Moore Security
Callison LLP
Nishkian Menninger Consulting and Structural WSP Cantor Seinuk Group Inc.
Canderel Management, Inc.
Engineers CBM Engineers
Omrania & Associates Chicago Committee on High-Rise Buildings

CTBUH Journal | 2008 Issue III CTBUH Organizational Members | 55


About the Council
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban
Habitat, based at the Illinois Institute of
Technology in Chicago, is an international
not-for-profit organization supported by
architecture, engineering, planning,
development and construction professionals.
Founded in 1969, the Council’s mission is to
disseminate multi-disciplinary information on
tall buildings and sustainable urban
environments, to maximize the international
interaction of professionals involved in
creating the built environment, and to make
the latest knowledge available to
professionals in a useful form.
The CTBUH disseminates its findings, and
facilitates business exchange, through: the
publication of books, monographs,
proceedings and reports; the organization of
world congresses, international, regional and
specialty conferences and workshops; the
maintaining of an extensive website and tall
building databases of built, under
construction and proposed buildings; the
distribution of a monthly international tall
building e-newsletter; the maintaining of an
international resource center; the bestowing
of annual awards for design and construction
excellence and individual lifetime
achievement; the management of special
task forces / working groups; the hosting of
technical forums; and the publication of the
CTBUH Journal, a professional journal
containing refereed papers written by
researchers, scholars and practicing
professionals. The Council actively undertakes
research into relevant fields in conjunction
with its members and industrial partners, and
has in place an international ‘Country
Representative’ network, with regional CTBUH
representatives promoting the mission of the
Council across the globe.
The Council is the arbiter of the criteria upon
which tall building height is measured, and
thus the title of ‘The World’s Tallest Building’
determined. CTBUH is the world’s leading
body dedicated to the field of tall buildings
and urban habitat and the recognized
international source for information in these
fields.

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat


Illinois Institute of Technology,
S. R. Crown Hall
3360 South State Street
Chicago, IL, 60616
Phone: +1 (312) 909 0253
Fax: +1 (610) 419 0014
Email: info@ctbuh.org
http://www.ctbuh.org/

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