Question about Hypertalls

the urban politician · #1 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 4:58 PM**

I've got a question about what I consider to be "hypertall" buildings, or buildings that break the 2000 ft mark.

Has technology changed in the past 40 years to make these buildings possible now in a way that they weren't back then?

Why are such buildings being proposed now, esp if they were possible decades ago?

Alliance · #2 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 5:10 PM**

I don't think hypertall is a valid term. Its antoehr word made up to make people feel important about what they're building based on such a arbitary measurement as height.

Wy are people building big now? Because several cities realized that they could, bringing an aura of modernity and cultural advancement to their cities. (I'm thinking Bangkok with Baiyoke II and later Kuala Lumpur with Petronas). This set off a global competition/pissing contest. Many other cities followed suit, especially with the then healthy state of the global economy, there were enough funds to start pushing these projects.

Wrightguy0 · #3 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 6:08 PM**

It's no different now than it was from 1885 to 1933.

It's all about pride, technology advances, people get rich, they showboat by building taller than the next guy now the buildings are just pushing higher than ever

FrancoRey · #4 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 6:13 PM**

I agree 'hypertall' isn't quite the right way to describe a 2,000+ foot building. I have been calling them 'megatalls', and 3,000+ foot buildings 'ubertalls'. But that's just me

.

malec · #5 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 6:14 PM**

:lol: ubertall

Pandemonious · #6 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 6:50 PM**

The technology existed 40 years ago to build 2,500 feet. The Chicago World trade centers proposed in early 80's were both to be solidly over 2000 feet, but using technology that really had already been around for more than a decade. While I don't know much about Harry Weese's version, the SOM version was like a Sears Tower on steroids, using even more bundled steel tubes. These towers could have been built, but they would be huge hulking masses because they were to be built with steel, and would probably even have made the Sears Tower seem slim.

The changes in technology up to today, is that now we have really high strength fast-curing concrete, like is being used in Burj Dubai, etc. The concrete is so strong and sets so quickly that a whole massive series of drawings to document all conduits and penetrations into the concrete had to be prepared, because of the thickness of the walls and strength of the material, once they are in place it is impossible to put these in afterward. I believe this is causing hassles with interiors, as they have less freedom as they must work with what is there.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that Sears Tower will probably always be the tallest all steel skyscraper. The next generation of supertalls (hypertalls, ultratalls, megatalls, ubertalls, whatever you want to call them) will likely all be built with reinforced high strength concrete or they will utilize more innovative composite structural systems like SOM's proposed Shanghai Center design or a Super-Mega-Frame concept for structure like that of the Dynamic Intelligent Building (Way ahead of its time) or the proposed Al Burj, which is likely using a very similar concept.

Tom Servo · #7 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 6:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrancoRey

ubertalls

you have no idea how funny that is!

the term ive been hearing is this notion of 'megatall' structures at 1k or ~3,280

with commonality of supertall structures, perhaps 'supertall' should be bumped up to 5 or 600 m instead

Alliance · #8 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 6:56 PM**

I think no new term is needed until we're past the one km mark.

malec · #9 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 7:16 PM**

What I'm surprised at isn't the really tall ones like burj dubai, etc, but the amount of buildings between about 1000 and 1500 feet that are under construction and proposed.

I've heard people saying that buildings above 80 stories aren't really economic anymore. However today there's an incredible amount of under construction and proposed buildings above 1000 feet. Has there been some sort of recent technological advancement which has allowed 300m to become the next 200m?

I mean look at this list!!!!

Tom Servo · #10 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 7:26 PM**

whoa.

malec · #11 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 7:46 PM**

And it's not just China and dubai either. Everywhere seems to be getting them. I recon there are 100s of proposals

malec · #12 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 7:59 PM**

I just went through the list at skyscrapercity and there are about 200 buildings in the supertall forum. Especially for China this doesn't include a lot that are still on the drawing board that are in the list above.

30 supertalls in 2005
300 supertalls in 2020?

aaron38 · #13 Posted **Mar 30, 2008, 8:17 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Has technology changed in the past 40 years to make these buildings possible now in a way that they weren't back then?
Why are such buildings being proposed now, esp if they were possible decades ago?

The reason 2000' buildings weren't built 20 years ago is that the World's Tallest race had run it's course in the few global powerhouse cities. And large swaths of the global economy were blocked off by communism or by regions so poor they just did not have the infrastructure to build a supertall. So the situation had become static. There was little reason to build another supertall for ego reasons.

Then, 20 years ago, communism fell and the global economy exploded. The new crop of powerhouse cities wanted a way to announce to the world that they'd arrived. And what better symbol than a supertall?

Kuala Lumpur got a lot of notice out of the Petronas Towers - it put them on the global map. Same with Taipai 101. Dubai is known almost solely for the scale of the projects being built. China wants it's large cities to to be as well known as the cities of America and Europe. Nobody wants to be left out.

So we have a new supertall boom as the new powerhouse cities and nations jockey eachother for position and prominance.

techchallenge · #14 Posted **Apr 1, 2008, 7:40 PM**

'I've heard people saying that buildings above 80 stories aren't really economic anymore. However today there's an incredible amount of under construction and proposed buildings above 1000 feet. Has there been some sort of recent technological advancement which has allowed 300m to become the next 200m?'

Doesn't this also have to do with Green Building in some cases? Higher ceiling heights equals higher overall roof height if you want the same floor count/sq footage as a scraper built in the 80s.