TALL BUILDINGS

Introduction

    Throughout history, human beings have built tall monumental structures such as temples, pyramids and cathedrals to honour their gods. Human beings have always been struggling to push the limits of nature in their age-old quest for height, from the legendary Tower of Babel in antiquity, purportedly designed with the aim of reaching heaven, to today’s tallest building. Today’s skyscrapers are monumental buildings too and are built as symbols of power, wealth and prestige. 

    At the beginning of the twentieth century, tall buildings were generally designed as offices and achieved an important position as a “distinguished space” in the history of American urban architecture. These buildings emerged as a response to the rapidly growing urban population, with the aim of meeting the demand for office units to be positioned as closely as possible to one another. Architects’ creative approaches in their designs for tall buildings, the shortage and high cost of urban land, the desire to prevent disorderly urban expansion, the effort to create a skyline concept, and factors such as concerns for cultural identity and for prestige have driven the increase in the height of buildings. 

    Today it is almost impossible to imagine a major city without tall buildings. As the most important symbols of today’s cities, tall buildings have become a source of faith in technology and national pride, and have changed the concept of the modern city along with its scale and appearance. Despite the fact that tall buildings have moved city life away from the human scale, in general, it is accepted that these buildings are an inevitable feature of urban development. 

    In the past, the forms used in the design were restricted but currently, freedom in the design of tall buildings has significantly increased, along with a contemporary widening of the form spectrum in design. Tall buildings today, designed with the aid of advanced computer technologies are built with exceedingly daring architectural and structural designs that are almost never found in their predecessors. The most important factors enabling the construction of tall buildings are developments and innovations in the following areas: materials, construction techniques, operating (mechanical) systems, structural systems and analysis, but at the same time, the increase in the height of buildings makes them vulnerable to wind and earthquake-induced lateral loads. Essentially, in tall building design, which aims to respond to the needs of the occupants, in addition to structural safety, standards of occupancy comfort (serviceability) are also among the foremost design inputs. Excessive building sway due to wind can cause damage to non-structural elements, the breakage of windows, the shortening of fatigue life, the malfunction of elevators and other mechanical equipment, and damage to, or even the failure of, a structural system. In this regard, wind-induced building sway affects both the structural safety and the serviceability of a building and is thus a critical variable in the design of tall buildings. As a result, building sway becomes a serious problem for designers as much as for occupants, and during windstorms, it is necessary to keep it within acceptable limits, especially to reduce the discomfort felt by occupants on the top floors to a minimum and to prevent the negative outcomes discussed above.

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