7 Reasons Why High-Rises Kill Livability (Commentary)

[bobdreamz]

Originally Posted by chris08876

^^^

Isn't the building code also strict due to the temperature of the region? I remember hearing that when it comes to home construction, how a home remains cool in the hot summer or year really, is a factor that dictates how a home should be built material wise?

Yes that is true but the main building material for homes in SE Florida now is CBS (concrete block & stucco) construction which holds up well in most hurricanes. All highrises & midrises in SE Florida are concrete.I've never seen a wooden one.

[memph]

Originally Posted by memph

I'll run some different scenarios to avoid having this problem.

Scenario 2: The endless slab

Slab buildings have been pretty popular in the past, sometimes arranged in rows and columns tower-in-the-park style. By the way... while the scenarios I'm describing might creating some soulless landscapes, I'm putting that aside for now and just going for a density efficiency argument.

So lets say that the slabs are 70 ft thick, just like the wings of the buildings in the previous scenario. Assuming hallways are about 10ft, that means all rooms in the apartments would be at most 30ft from the edge of the building (i.e. a potential window). Some condo buildings might be a bit "thicker" but generally not much, and they typically have all glass curtain wall which is many not ideal and still bring up complaints about having many rooms without windows. So... 70 ft thick and again using the 1/3 of height separation distance rule.

1 storey: 0.91 FSI
5 storey: 3.39 FSI
12 storey: 5.60 FSI
75 storey: 9.21 FSI
500 storey: 10.28 FSI

So you've got some decent increases from 1 to 5 to 12 storey, and to 75 storeys is good too (though most of the increase is from 12 to 50 storeys), but after that the increase is pretty small and just not really worth it.

[memph]

Scenario 3: Courtyard style

Basically typical European style courtyard arrangement that is common with mid rises. We'll assume the thickness is again 70ft or whatever number is needed to ensure that the "corners" make up less than 1/4 of the building area (for lower buildings). So for example, a 24 storey building would have a 80x80ft courtyard on a 150x150 ft lot with all the exterior walls touching other buildings (and no windows on exterior walls). Courtyards are always square.

1 storey (1/4 = corners rule)
-3.33 ft wide courtyard
-44.44 sf lot
-0.75 FSI
-Doesn't really make sense as a building... it would probably make more sense to have a bigger courtyard and building and a slightly lower denser, or just get skylights... but whatever.

3 storey (1/4 = corners rule)
-10 ft wide courtyard
-400 sf lot
-2.25 FSI
-still not very practical as a building, although I guess you could think of it like a small row house with a large air-well.

5 storey (1/4 = corners rule)
-16.67 ft wide courtyard
-1111 sf lot
-3.75 FSI
-a bit more practical but still narrow, typically buildings like this would still have larger courtyards and larger floor plates

12 storey (1/4 = corners rule)
-40 ft wide courtyard
-6400 sf lot
-9 FSI
-floor layouts are looking more practical now, although courtyard buildings this tall are rather uncommon

25 storey (70 ft thick rule)
-83 ft wide courtyard
-23,511 sf lot
-17.62 FSI
-IRL you'd rather have 4 slabs with a courtyard like configuration rather than a single courtyard building. It helps for air circulation and the density reduction wouldn't be much since it eliminates more poorly lit corners so you can instead make the building thicker

50 storey
-167 ft wide courtyard
-56,011 sf lot (over 2 acres)
-25.20 FSI
-still a decent density increase

100 storey
-333 ft wide courtyard
-162,678 sf lot
-31.70 FSI
-density increase is getting smaller, though not completely insignificant

250 storey
-833 ft wide courtyard
-816,011 sf lot
-37.24 FSI
-still get an increase in density, but unlikely to make up for the increase in building costs and land assembly issues

500 storey
-1667 ft wide courtyard
-3,016,011 sf lot (almost 1/2 square mile)
-39.49 FSI
-definitely not worth it

10,000 storey
-33,333 ft wide courtyard
-1,115,782,678 sf lot (40 square miles)
-41.87 FSI
-just in case the previous one wasn't absurd enough... It would have about 80 million residents at a density of 2 million per square mile (assuming all residential). Despite extending well into the stratosphere, about 4 times higher than Mt Everest and 2.5 times higher than an airliner, it would only be about 30% denser than a 100 times shorter more "normal" 1000 ft skyscraper.

Anyways, I'm not sure if 3 to 1 is necessarily good enough, especially for taller buildings and buildings with rooms up to 30ft from windows. But whatever ratio you use, there's no reasonable ratio that leads to mile high towers making much sense compared to more typically sized skyscrapers.

[Dr Nevergold]

Having a high rise in a grassy green area isn't a bad concept. What is a bad concept is when the mass amounts of them are surrounded with similar lots without businesses in the lower levels to give access to services and products and shopping in a close proximity. Unless a housing area is very close to a walkable business district - or very rapid transit access to one - it doesn't always work.