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[...] tall buildings are still sold on the basis that they are good for the environment. Mostly the argument is about density – if you pile a lot of homes or workplaces high on one spot, it is said, then you can use land and public transport more efficiently. There’s some truth in this, but you can also achieve high levels of density without going above 10 or 12 storeys. — The Guardian
The Observer's Rowan Moore dissects a list of the usual arguments in favor of ever taller buildings around the world and concludes that not much of it passes the reality test of urgent climate crisis, resource scarcity, wealth distribution, city planning, global pandemic, and ultimately, good... View full entry
Rising high in the skies over New York City, Chicago, Hong Kong, and other great metropolises are tall towers that appear impossibly slender. Fueled mostly by market demand from wealthy clients who desire spectacular views, the design and construction of these superslim, generally residential skyscrapers also depend on engineering advances over recent decades in building materials and damping technologies as well as careful coordination by the design teams. — Civil Engineering Magazine
"Slender" towers are beginning to pop up all over the world, notably, in cities like New York, where real estate is scarce, but the desire to maximize ROI is strong. "The limited space for new buildings in places like New York City generally involves small parcels of land, which means that these... View full entry
Municipal laws in New York City are hampering the city's real estate developers and building owners as they look to embrace the use of drones to perform periodic building and facade inspections on their properties, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. In New York City... View full entry
In the next few years, Chicago's iconic Aon Center will be getting a shiny, new glass-sheathed exterior elevator that is set to be the tallest of its kind in North America. Designed by locally based Solomon Cordwell Buenz (SCB), the elevator — which will be tucked into the northwest corner of... View full entry
Researchers found the sedimentary basin under [Seattle] can amplify the type of ground motion that’s hardest on high-rises by a factor of two to five — much more than previous estimates.
In response, Seattle and Bellevue are boosting seismic standards for new buildings 240 feet or taller [...] But the prospect of stronger shaking also raises concerns about older high-rises
— Seattle Times
Rising 33-stories, the stack of concrete boxes that will make up the IQON tower in Quito, Ecuador, will become the city's tallest building. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, the firm's first project in South America recently began construction. Image by Bjarke Ingels Group.Plans for the residential... View full entry
Tel Aviv has the largest concentration of buildings in the Bauhaus/International Style of any city in the world. With a collection of over 4,000 buildings covering almost one and a half square miles, the White City, as it is called, was largely created in the 1930s by a group of 200 German Jewish... View full entry
Chicago is one of the global centers of the architectural world, not only for its rich history, but also as a stage for continuous innovation and design exploration. This lineage is a major part of why The Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) has decided to create the Chicago Architecture Center... View full entry
The first commercial passenger elevator was installed by Otis Elevator Company in 1857 and climbed at a glacial pace of 40 feet a minute, though it felt staggering at the time. Since then, we have come a long way both in terms of elevator speeds and in terms of the heights these elevators are... View full entry
Hudson Yards has been making headlines in recent months...But immediately to the northwest, another tower that’s been in the making for an equally long period of time may have just received a boost to become the tallest of them all. A new rendering of the Moinian Group’s 3 Hudson Boulevard has surfaced, showing both an updated design for the building itself, as well as the addition of a 300-foot spire, that would make the supertall the tallest in the neighborhood. — New York Yimby
Despite years of vigorous effort in the Hudson Yards, the Related Companies may not have the tallest skyscraper of them all, thanks to FXFOWLE's proposed spire-tastic tower on 3 Hudson Boulevard. Nothing's final as of yet, but as YIMBY notes, "Back in 2012, YIMBY heard speculation that the tower... View full entry
Ever wondered when the high-rises in downtown Los Angeles were built? This two-minute video of animated renderings by Commercial Cafe provides a brief history and date for most of the skyscrapers downtown, from City Hall to the Wilshire Grand, concluding with a color-coded erection sequence by... View full entry
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat officially declared the Ping An Finance Center in Shenzhen as the world's fourth tallest building — knocking One World Trade Center down to Number 5 in the CTBUH's ten tallest buildings in the world. Rising above Futian District at 599 meters, the... View full entry
Construction on the Hudson Yards supertall set to replace the McDonalds at the corner of 34th Street and Tenth Avenue will begin sometime next year...Standing 985-feet tall, the building will divided into three distinct sections stacked one atop the other...The design team has also planned what it’s calling a “halo” to be located atop the building...The interiors are comprised of column-free floors that span at least 50,000 square-feet, and each floor can accommodate at least 500 people. — ny.curbed.com
More about the Hudson Yards development on Archinect:Construction begins on Diller Scofidio + Renfro and the Rockwell Group's “shape-shifting“ arts center in ManhattanBIG-designed "The Spiral" Hudson Yards tower is inching closer to becoming realityRenderings of Thomas Heatherwick's "Vessel"... View full entry
This post is brought to you by 2017 Skyscraper Competition. Since 2006 eVolo Magazine invites architects and designers around the world to imagine the skyscraper of the future. The annual Skyscraper Competition explores new possibilities of building high through the use of novel technologies... View full entry
The 632-meter Shanghai Tower made it to the top once again, this time for the coveted Emporis Skyscraper Award. Since 2000, the Emporis Skyscraper Award recognizes outstanding skyscraper design worldwide...This year's competition reeled in more than 300 skyscrapers — all of which are over 100 meters tall and had to be completed in 2015. — Bustler
Another skyscraper in China won first prize in the Emporis Skyscraper Award, following Zaha Hadid’s Wangjing SOHO project in the 2014 edition. Here are a few of the top 10 skyscrapers in the latest Emporis competition:Evolution Tower | Moscow, Russia by Kettle Collective, RMJM EdinburghD... View full entry
