The year 2019 was remarkable for the tall building industry, with 26 supertall buildings (300 meters or taller) completed, the most in any year. This...

In the past 50 years, tall buildings and their relationship to streets and open spaces has evolved through various scales and typologies. As place-makers, how...

This study examines issues and opportunities around The Bellwether, a 52-story tower located in a 1960s public housing campus in Manhattan. It is the first...

Because regulations in New York City specify the total number floors a building can have, based on its location and lot size, but do not...

Among the hazards of cities with tall buildings is the prospect of objects falling to the streets below. After a woman was killed by a...

As many architects and visionaries have shown over a period spanning more than a century, the re-creation of the urban realm in the sky through...

The astronomical growth in tall building construction observed over the past decade continued in 2018, though the total number of completed buildings of 200 meters’...

This paper presents a review on progressive collapse mechanism of steel framed buildings exposed to fire. The influence of load ratios, strength of structural members...

Tall buildings which began from about 40 m tall office towers in the late 19th century have evolved into mixed-use megatall towers over 800 m....

What does the office of the future look like? The leading tech industry giants all seem to agree the main goal is “connectivity” that forges...

The emergence of tall buildings in the late 19th century was possible by using new materials and separating the role of structures and that of...

The last decade has seen great design opportunities for tall building construction around the globe. The best designs represent a new generation of skyscrapers that...

For over 100 years, the tall building has largely advanced in technological innovation; however very little has been done in the terms of understanding the...

The Lotte World Tower became the world’s fifth-tallest building upon completion in 2017, and is currently the only supertall building (300 meters or higher) in...

In 2017, 144 buildings of 200 meters’ height or greater were completed. This is the fourth record-breaking year in a row, and it brings the...

CIVITAS is a search engine for urban conditions, developed to allow stakeholders to identify qualities of livability and urban experiences that suit their tacit desires...

ASPECT: RATIOS is the outgrowth of a program developed by the CTBUH Young Professionals Committee in New York, beginning in 2016. The purpose of the...

What housing models should dense urban cities pursue to address population rise, housing shortages, and changes in demographics? As cities seek to address large discrepancies...

Recently, there has been a growing and overdue recognition in the architecture discipline that women are under-represented, not just in terms of leadership positions held,...

In 2016, 461 Dean Street, the world’s tallest volumetric modular building, was completed in New York City (see Figure 1). As few such projects had...

The Pertamina Energy Tower (PET) and Manhattan West North Tower (MWNT) are two supertall towers recently designed and engineered by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)....

Vertical shortening in tall buildings would be of little concern if all vertical elements shortened evenly. However, vertical elements such as walls and columns may...

CTBUH has determined that 128 buildings of 200 meters’ height or greater were completed around the world in 2016 – setting a new record for...

Efficiencies in the strength and stability of truss systems have been understood since the Middle Ages. The major impetus for widespread use of the truss...

Tall buildings increasingly dominate our skylines as an almost inevitable response to urbanisation. They often do not integrate well with the urban habitat in which...

As cities aspire to become global metropolises, older low-rise structures are getting torn down to make room for new, often tall, buildings and neighborhoods. What...

This paper is intended to introduce the upcoming CTBUH technical guide titled “The Space Between,” which investigates the importance of publicly accessible spaces surrounding tall...

A high-density urban habitat must engage the public in a walkable setting that unfolds as a coherent but multifaceted experience. In our work at a...

Ever taller skyscrapers, increased density, and global interconnectivity are creating new pressures and complexities in both the urban environment and the public space. Contemporary attitudes...

As the draw to urban centers increases drastically with financial growth and global influence, emerging markets seek to develop salient markers of success and hope....

Historically, mega-towers were frequently labelled “egocentric displays of power,” becoming iconic symbols of a city or an individual. In today’s age of global hyper-urbanization, supertall...

This paper highlights a new 21st-century skyscraper typology – the very tall and slender residential tower – and analyzes the economic, engineering, and urbanistic forces...

A new and almost unprecedented model for skyscrapers is currently being explored within the Manhattan real estate market: these are the so-called super slender ultra-luxury...

Nimit Langsuan Residences project, located in Bangkok, Thailand, is a 210-meter-tall high end residential with over 50,000 square meters of accommodation. The tower will be...

Some of our established world cities are already facing the challenge of older tall building stock that is no longer relevant to the most commercially...

The rise of the megacity presents unprecedented opportunities to understand the human urbanization phenomenon, and to observe the effects of multicore, polycentric cities growing together...

The 2016 CTBUH Conference, “Cities to Megacities,” explores the phenomenon of already large cities merging together to form megacities, in parallel with many cities and...

In this paper we discuss the terms “exo-spatial design,” “solar carving,” and “bridging” as strategies for creating more socially connective tall buildings. As a typology,...

This paper discusses the economics of skyscraper construction in Manhattan since 1990. First the paper reviews the economic theory of skyscraper height. Next it documents...

The use of outriggers with dampers (the damped outrigger concept) has been shown to be a cost effective method of adding structural damping to a...

In a continuing effort to support the Obama Administration’s climate strategy, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), in partnership with the Softwood Lumber Board...

CTBUH has determined that 106 buildings of 200 meters’ height or greater were completed around the world in 2015 – setting a new record for...

Tel Aviv’s Midtown/Azrieli North Complex is the new hub of the northern central business district (CBD) that functions to connect the activity centers of the...

Why is it that cultural and educational buildings that deal with creativity and innovation are horizontal, whilst those dealing with land value are vertical? And...

While the ever increasing global interchange of capitals and ideas have created immense opportunities and growth in cities around the world, the physical manifestation of...

In addition to the 207 residential units in the tower, the MahaNakhon will feature the Bangkok EDITION, a 159-room boutique hotel catering to a growing...

With the impact of urbanization, larger cities, operating pressures and the rise of megatall skyscrapers, today’s new and existing buildings are increasingly being engineered as...

Di-BOSS is the world’s first Digital Building Operating System that acts as a “Brain” for buildings. All subsystems are integrated into a Systems Integration Facility...

At the turn of the century, building design began to evolve. Improvements included indoor plumbing, the advent of escalators, and creation of the “Chicago window.”...

Much of the existing tall building stock is burdened with aging and underperforming façades, resulting in opportunities to substantially improve building performance through façade retrofit....

Though the skyscraper has been with us for a century, we are yet to discover how to deploy it as an effective building block for...

Overpopulation, climate change, aging infrastructure: the threats facing tomorrow’s cities are, in many ways, design problems. The challenges of today’s world have to be solved...

This paper recaps the “what and why” of the super-slender type and gives an abbreviated illustration of the mechanics of the “logic of luxury.” The...

This paper discusses the economics of skyscraper construction in Manhattan since 1990. First the paper reviews the economic theory of skyscraper height. Next it documents...

Tall Buildings in urban landscapes present a unique challenge in the field of sustainable building. These structures tend to attract a tenant base of dynamic...

This paper chronicles the development and design of 432 Park Avenue, New York, which, is the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere, and one...

This paper traces the development of One Vanderbilt from early design through the complex city approvals process that is ultimately allowing for its realization. From...

432 Park Avenue, the MoMA Tower and Steinway Tower at 111 West 57th Street are the first of a new generation of supertall buildings in...

One World Trade Center (1WTC) totaling 3.5 mil square feet of area is the tallest of the four buildings planned as part of the World...

In this paper we discuss the terms “exo-spatial design,” “solar carving,” and “bridging” as strategies for creating more socially connective tall buildings. As a typology,...

With the rise of technological solutions, the practice of architecture is often divorced from the cultural, social, and environmental contexts where we build. Buildings have...

This paper investigates the Network of Urban Spaces Surrounding Tall Buildings, the Tall Building as Place Makers how Tall Buildings meet the street. As contributing...

Density and development come in many forms – not all of them tall. One of the most successful development initiatives undertaken in New York City...

This paper investigates the role of the Urban Skyscraper with respect to climate change resilience. Large urban centers are now experiencing the consequences of climate...

This paper will reveal the importance of integrating the Ground Plane, Mid-Level and Rooftop Urban Public Spaces in the City. We will explore the NYLON...

Should a tower in Moscow look like one in Dubai? Once one entered a city and marveled at the unique magic of its architecture –...

New York’s most iconic buildings, the early 20th-Century high rises, were designed as aspirational symbols of urban life with carefully sculpted forms that mediate between...

This paper will provide a data-driven analysis of building performance from three eras: the early 1900s, mid-twentieth century, and today. This longitudinal analysis will illustrate...

Skyscraper development has been linked with financial extremes; this paper explores this relationship by analyzing global construction trends for office skyscrapers with a height of...

There is no doubt more tall buildings are required to accommodate global population growth. However, the taller a building, the greater the disconnect between occupants...

The paper proposes to reflect on the questions: what does the typology of apartments in contemporary high-rise construction mean and whether it is consistent with...

This paper underscores the extraordinary commitment that Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. has made to establish the Empire State Building as one of the most...

Michael Adlerstein shares his insights into how the United Nations Secretariat Building, an aging icon of Mid-century Modernism, was renovated to meet the security, efficiency...

New York is a city that’s experienced more than 125 years of skyscraper development. The rich history of tall-structure development here creates both a cautionary...

There is a tension between aspirations and risks in the development and delivery of any building project. Columbia University Medical and Graduate Education Building (CUMGEB)...

The rapid densification of cities is a fairly recent phenomenon and seems in many cases to be progressing without regard to important already established urban...

The commandment to keep the Sabbath as a day of rest appears in the Bible many times. Jewish law prescribes an intricate set of rules...

Stainless steel is a key material in modern skyscraper architecture, exploiting the material’s sustainability, functionality and aesthetics. After an outline on some general features of...

Syska Hennessy Group and the Fire Department of the City of New York propose a paper and presentation detailing an overview of Fire/Life Safety in...

The recent prevalence of extra-thin and tall “superslim” towers in New York, which mostly contain luxury apartments, has been controversial. We felt it was time...

A timeline of skyscraper completions in New York uncannily resembles the boom and bust cycles of the United States in the 20th and early 21st...

Hudson Yards is a mixed-use development built over rail yards on the west side of New York’s Manhattan Island. As the largest real estate project...

To commemorate the CTBUH 2015 International Conference, some of the most prominent voices in the New York tall building industry today – all of whom...

The skyline, as a collection of skyscrapers, is inherently an economic phenomenon. The heights, frequencies, locations, and shapes of skyscrapers are driven by the costs...

This article presents a case study of structural and logistical issues involved in the adaptive reuse of an early 20th-century skyscraper, and outlines the case...

This paper reviews the 2014 Network 3D High-Rise Design Studio, which was undertaken by the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP), Tongji University, with...

Hudson Yards is the largest private real estate development ever undertaken in the United States. The site, built over a working rail yard, will eventually...

Perhaps no element of a tall building is more closely related to the pure pleasure of standing high in the sky and taking in the...

As the skyscraper matures as a building type, its role in actively connecting to, and reinforcing, major threads of urban fabric becomes increasingly more important....

An All-Time Record 97 Buildings of 200 Meters or Higher Completed in 2014 and 2014 showed further shifts towards Asia, and also surprising developments in...

Without big dreams, there would be no tall buildings. Conceiving, financing, designing, and constructing a skyscraper is no simple feat, even under the best of...

The 8X8 Tower addresses challenges created by our increasingly populated, dense and vertically extruded urban environment by creating a socially and environmentally sustainable residential community...

The Atlantic Yards B2 Modular Residential Tower will be the tallest volumetric modular building in the world when completed in early 2015. In January 2011,...

As the skyscraper matures as a building type, its role in actively connecting to, and reinforcing, major threads of urban fabric becomes increasingly more important....

56 Leonard, a new 57-story residential development, totaling 480,000 GSF rises 825 feet from street level. At about 78’ in width, the slenderness ratio is...

The recent exhibition “SKY HIGH & the Logic of Luxury” at The Skyscraper Museum examined a dozen super-slim, ultra-luxury residential towers on the rise in...

The survival of humanity on this planet relies on a radical repositioning of our cities. In the face of unprecedented global population growth, urbanization, pollution...

Are Net Zero tall buildings possible in dense city cores? Or are cities destined to lose ground on sustainable innovation to less-compact suburban areas? These...

Recent media attention in major urban centers such as New York City and Chicago has brought the issue of falling ice from tall buildings to...

This paper investigates skyscraper competition between New York City and Chicago from 1885 to 2007. Skyscraper rivalry between these cities is part of US historiography,...

The genesis of PlaNYC, New York City’s ambitious sustainability agenda, was the need to accommodate an estimated one million more people by 2030 within the...

The CTBUH’s Height Committee ratified the architectural height of One World Trade Center last November, touching off massive media coverage and opening up complicated mixed...

This paper proposes a framework for understanding the energy consumption differences between tall and low-rise buildings. Energy usage data from 706 office buildings in New...

Phyllis Lambert, the daughter of the Seagram owner Samuel Bronfman, played an integral role in selecting Mies van der Rohe and Phillip Johnson to design...

This issue’s cover story on Kingdom Tower details the latest quest for the industry to reach new heights. However taller doesn’t always lead to better....

Multi-function universities in tall buildings are still a rarity, but they are growing more common as institutions look for efficient and cost-effective ways to serve...

OMA alumnus Bjarke Ingels has made a name for his Bjarke Ingels Group with innovative, paradigm-busting projects that blend nature and functionality with new twists...

In 1990, only 11 buildings in the world could be counted as a “supertall” (defined as a building over 300 meters tall), and all but...

Looking at Chicago's or New York's skylines, one feature that sets apart the first skyscraper cities from the recent ones is the rich history of...

Within this decade we will likely witness not only the world’s first kilometer-tall building, but also the completion of a significant number of buildings over...

From a global standpoint, the high-rise city remains a negotiated territory, a juggling act between private interests, political processes and public good. But while private...

The most evident shortcoming for firefighters on that fatal day of September 11, 2001 was the inability to communicate with the Fire Command Center in...

This paper will examine the question, 'Did the Tall Building produce urban density or did the Urban Habitat of CBDs, with the creation of urban...

The world knows what happened in Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. The twin towers of the World Trade Center and several other buildings were...

Just as many Americans still remember exactly where they were when they heard the news that US president John F. Kennedy had been shot, most...

A 2011 poll found that, 10 years on, a majority of people missed the World Trade Center twin towers, which had been destroyed in the...

New York’s dramatic skyline, over a century in the making, has for years been the envy of cities around the world. From the very birth...

Once completed the new World Trade Center, currently under construction, will grace New York well over 40 years since the completion of the original Twin...

Almost 10 years after the destruction of the Twin Towers, the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site is in full swing. One World Trade...

The high-line is a new 1.5-mile long public park built on an abandoned elevated railroad stretching from the Meatpacking District to the Hudson Rail Yards...

The modern skyscraper is generally considered to be an American invention. Chicago and New York claim they once hosted the world's first skyscraper and many...

The world’s tallest buildings have always been more about expression rather than necessity or a solution to any problem. Being the visible landmarks that they...

The service core is the distinctive feature of a tall building: it provides the skyscraper with structural solidity, room for elevators, and other amenities, and...

The building is a destination, both visually and experientially, realizing the client’s conceptual goal to create a "living room for the neighborhood," a public place...

As a major energy consumer, the tall building does not ordinarily conjure images of sustainable design. But a new generation of tall buildings is incorporating...

Trump International Hotel & Tower named tallest building completed in 2009; Successful year for the American high-rise. Over half of all buildings 200m or taller...

Over time, the average height of the 100 tallest buildings in the world has been steadily increasing. However, by 2010, this average height will have...

The skyscraper was born over 100 years ago, when the elevator made it possible to have access to previously unimaginable levels of a building. This...

While using tall buildings data, the following paper aims to show trends and shifts relating to building use and new locations accomodating high-rise buildings.

This paper describes three major tall buildings focusing on their incorporation of sustainable structural designs.

This paper will outline some of these challenges, focusing on those driven by aesthetic, erection, and fabrication considerations of the exterior steel used on the...

While using tall buildings data, the following paper aims to show trends and shifts relating to building use and new locations accommodating high-rise buildings. After...

333 meters high with 72 stories and 480 suites, Rose Rotana Tower in Dubai leads the list of the 10 tallest buildings completed in 2007....

The Burj Dubai tower will be the world’s tallest building by a wide margin when completed. Wind is the dominant lateral load and thus governed...

This paper presents important details, layout, design considerations, commissioning, operation guidelines and benefits of the Tuned Liquid Column Dampers (TLCDs), water-filled custom-shaped tanks, used at...

This paper argues mass transit is the key to urban development, urban renewal and sustainable cities with New York City as the case study.

This paper presents the pioneering colutions in the design and constructuon of the Trump World Tower.

Times Square has seen the development of more than 15 new high-rises in the past two decades. The firm that has designed the most of...

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is undertaking the federal building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center (WTC) disaster.

In response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated a formal federal building and fire...

This paper is about the correct design focus/design approach for future tall buildings. Our quick answer to this question is “safety, safety, safety” because of...

The September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) resulting in the collapse of the two major icons of New York City has...