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High-rise commercial buildings are the icons of modern society. These symbolize the
power of commerce in the present world system. These also add the 3rd dimension to the city.
In addition, at the micro level, having an office at an attractive high-rise building gives additional
advantage to the business in terms of better customer confidence and corporate identity.
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many floors, usually designed
for office, commercial and residential use. Supertall buildings are a relatively recent addition to
the history of the cities around the world. Technology of the nineteenth century made their
development possible. Steel, concrete and masonry materials have existed for a long time in
the history of civilization but not in such a configuration.

History of Skyscrapers
Historically, tall structures were the preserve of great rulers, religions and empires. For
instance, the great pyramid of Giza – built to house the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu – once towered
over 145 meters high. It was the tallest man-made structure for nearly 4,000 years, before
being overtaken by the 160-metre-tall Lincoln cathedral in the 14th century. Other edifices,
such as Tibet’s Potala palace (the traditional home of the Dalai Lama), or the monasteries of
Athos were constructed atop mountains or rocky outcrops, to bring them even closer to the
heavens.
The first skyscraper was the ten storey home insurance building in Chicago built in 1884-
1885. In this building, a steel frame supported the entire weight of the walls, instead of load-
bearing walls carrying the weight of the building which was the usual method.
Yet these grand historical efforts are dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the 20th and 21st
centuries. London’s shard looms at 310 meters tall at its fractured tip – but it’s made to look
small by the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, which stands at more than 828 meters. And
both these behemoths will be left in the shadows by the kingdom tower in Jeddah. Originally
planned by architect Adrian smith to reach 1,600 meters, the tower is now likely to reach one
kilometer high, once it’s completed in 2020.

Building Classification
 1-3 stories – Low-rise buildings
 4-12+ stories – Mid-rise buildings
 30+ stories– high-rise buildings
 50 and beyond – Skyscraper

Demand for Skyscrapers

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  Scarcity of land in urban areas
 Increasing demand for business & residential space
 Economic growth
 Technological advancements
 Innovations in structural systems
 Desire for aesthetics in urban settings
 Concept of city skyline
 Cultural significance & prestige
 Human aspiration to build higher

Advantages
 Multipurpose – the structure can be used as residential, commercial and institutional.
 Space – it increase the total floor area and it’s best suited where land prices are
expensive.
 Views – it provides long-range view in congested city.
 Symbolism – it gives the symbol of country or state foe wealth, power, history etc.
 Broadcasting – it provides excellent site for installing broadcasting equipment.

Disadvantages
 Safety – hundred percent safety cannot be achieved in skyscraper. Defective towers
may pose a risk of falling and cause severe damage. The occupants at higher floor level
gets difficult in evacuation during emergency.
 Cost of construction – all the process involved are very expensive (design, construction).
 Environmental impact – pollution increase as lots of material like steel, cement, etc. Are
used in construction. Noise pollution due to large number of people and automobile.
 Psychological impacts – the old age people and children will have psychological impact
in living at high height.

Challenges
 Mobility (Elevator)
 Materials (Steel & RCC frame, Curtain wall)
 Heat (Air Conditioner, coated glass)
 Speed of Construction (Prefabricated structure, kangaroo crane, jump forming)
 Wind (inside frame to outside, extra skeleton, aero dynamic)
 Earthquakes (flexible joints, taipe 101, polymer slurry)
 Evacuation (fire resistant, refugee rooms, fire resistant duct for pumping fresh air)

TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM IN BUILDING LIFTS

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 Lift is a vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people between floors
(levels, deck) of a building, vessel or other structure. Generally powered by electric motor that
drive by traction cable and counterweight systems like a hoist or hydraulic pump.

History of Lifts
Roman architect Vitruvius, reported that Archimedes built his first elevator in 236 BCE.
Elevators were mentioned as cabs on a hemp rope and powered by hand or by animals.
In 1852, Elisha Otis introduced the safety elevator, which prevented the fall of the cab if
the cable broke. The design of the Otis safety elevator is somewhat similar to one type still used
today. On March 23, 1857 the first Otis passenger elevator was installed at 488 Broadway in
New York City
The equitable life building completed in 1870 in New York City was the first office
building to have passenger elevators.

Importance of Lifts
 Rapid development: buildings design nowadays built vertically /higher because of high
land cost.
 Basic needs: to bring building user from one level to higher level in building
 Comfort needs: working efficiency for office building or large organization.
 UBBL: building with more than 6 storey must provide lifts system.
 Fire requirements: provide fire lift to be used during fire.

Lift Categories According to the Function

Trade lift
 Crucial to the good performance to clients of the building.
 Between 6 – 23 people.
 Speed of elevator 200 – 2000 ft. / min.
 Examples: offices, shopping mall and hotels

Hospital lift
 Used in hospital & treatment center
 Designed for transporting large carts or furniture.
 Speed of elevator 100 – 350 ft. / min.
 Two sides of front and back doors for loading and unloading facilities.
 Door width between 900 – 1100mm

High residential lift

 For high rise residential buildings such as flat, apartment or condominium.

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  Needs regular maintenance because high frequency of its use every day or possibility of
vandalism.

Institution lift
 Used in library, office, classroom or lecture hall located at high altitudes.

Store lift
 Used to transport heavy goods but depends on types of good transported.
 Elevator speed 50 – 150ft/min.
 5000 lbs. normal, load haul 20000 lbs.
 Usually used in shopping complex, airports, hotels, warehouse

Lift of cars
 Used specifically to lift a car in multi storey car park or showroom.

Notes:

 The six types of elevators had to be in the form of pull (traction) and hydraulics.
 Form of traction is more commonly used for high velocity.
 Hydraulic type only used to transport goods where waiting time is not concerned.

How Architects and Builders unravel the problems to defy gravity

The main obstacle in building upward is the downward pull of gravity.

This is how "cheerleader pyramids" work, and also how real pyramids and other stone buildings work. There has to be more
material at the bottom to support the combined weight of all the material above. Every time you add a new vertical layer, the
total force on every point below that layer increases. If you kept increasing the base of a pyramid, you could build it up
indefinitely. This becomes infeasible very quickly, of course, since the bottom base takes up too much available land.

In normal buildings made of bricks and mortar, you have to keep thickening the lower walls as you build new upper floors. After
you reach a certain height, this is highly impractical. If there's almost no room on the lower floors, what's the point in making a
tall building?

Using this technology, people didn't construct many buildings more than 10 stories -- it just wasn't feasible. But in the late
1800s, a number of advancements and circumstances converged, and engineers were able to break the upper limit -- and then
some. The social circumstances that led to skyscrapers were the growing metropolitan American centers, most notably Chicago.
The main technological advancement that made skyscrapers possible was the development of mass iron and steel production.
Essentially, this gave architects a whole new set of building blocks to work with. Narrow, relatively lightweight metal beams
could support much more weight than the solid brick walls in older buildings, while taking up a fraction of the space.

Different Styles per Period

a. 1920s: Expressionism and Neo-expressionism

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 o Key features of Expressionism include the use of distorted shapes, fragmented lines, organic or biomorphic
forms, massive sculpted shapes, extensive use of concrete and brick, and lack of symmetry.
b. 1920s: Constructivism
o Constructivist architecture combined engineering and technology with political ideology.
c. 1920s: Bauhaus
o is a German expression meaning “house for building”. Functional, without ornamentation of any kind.
d. 1920s: De Stijl
o Bold, minimalist geometric statements.
e. 1930s: Functionalism
o Used to describe any utilitarian structure that was quickly constructed for purely practical purposes without
an eye for artistry.
f. 1940s: Minimalism
o Wherein the subject is reduced to its necessary elements.
g. 1950s: International
o Geometric, monolithic skyscrapers with these typical features: a rectangular solid with six sides (including
ground floor) and a flat roof; a curtain wall (exterior siding) completely of glass; no ornamentation; and
stone, steel, glass construction materials.
h. 1950s: Desert or Midcentury Modern
o Rocks, trees, and other landscape features were often incorporated into the design.
i. 1960s: Structuralism
o Based on the idea that all things are built from a system of signs and these signs are made up of opposites:
male/female, hot/cold, old/young, etc. Relationship between elements.
j. 1960s: Metabolism
o Is a type of organic architecture characterized by recycling and prefabrication; expansion and contraction
based on need; modular, replaceable units (cells or pods) attached to a core infrastructure; and
sustainability.
k. 1970s: High-Tech
o High-tech buildings are often called machine-like. Steel, aluminum, and glass combine with brightly colored
braces, girders, and beams.
l. 1970s: Brutalism
o Rough, concrete crude buildings.
m. 1970s: Organic
o Organic buildings are never linear or rigidly geometric. Instead, wavy lines and curved shapes suggest
natural forms. 
n. 1970s: Postmodernism
o Combining new ideas with traditional forms, postmodernist buildings may startle, surprise, and even amuse.
Familiar shapes and details are used in unexpected ways.
o. 1980s: Deconstructivism
o is an approach to building design that attempts to view architecture in bits and pieces.
p. 1990s and 21st Century: Parametricism
o The design concept was to create a fluid, continuous skin that would appear to fold onto its surrounding
plaza, and the interior would be column-free to create a continuously open and fluid space.

Skyscrapers and its Architects

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 Shanghai Tower, China 632
Burj Al Arab, Dubai 321m
Architect: Tom Wright of WKK Architects Architect: Jun Xia (Gensler) TJAD

Structural Engineer: Atkins Structural Engineer: Thornton Tomasetti

Cosentini Associates I.DEA Ecological Solutions
Empire State Building, New York 381m
Contractor: Shanghai Construction Group
Architects: Richmond Harold Shreve, William F.
Lamb and Arthur Loomis Harmon Lotte World Tower, South Korea 555m

Structural Engineer: Homer Gage Balcom Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox

Contractor: Starrett Brothers and Eken Structural Engineer: Leslie E. Robertson

Associates
Shanghai World Financial Center, China 492m
Burj Khalifa, Dubai 828m
Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox
Architect: Adrian Smith
Structural Engineer: Leslie E. Robertson
Associates RLLP Architecture Firm: Skidmore, Owings & Merill

Contractor: China State Construction Engineering Structural Engineer: Bill Baker

Corp and Shanghai Construction (Group) General Co.
Contractor: Samsung C&T
Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre 530m
Jeddah Tower, Saudi Arabia
Architecture Firm: Kohn Pedersen Fox
Reinforced concrete and steel, all-glass facade
Structural Engineer: Arup Group
Architect: Adrian D. Smith
Main Contractor: China State Construction
Engineering Engineer: Langan International

Structura Engineer: Thornton Tomasetti

Innovative way of construction per period

Innovation in Construction Technology
Much of the technological change in concrete construction was in the first half of the 20 th century. Advances in formwork,
mixing of concrete, techniques for pumping, and types of admixtures to improve quality have all contributed to the ease of
working with concrete in high-rise construction.

o Formwork: The most efficient construction coordination plan for a tall building is one that allows formwork
to be reused multiple times.

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Standardization of Building Components
o Modular construction is a process in which a building is constructed off-site, under controlled plant
conditions, using the same materials and designing to the same codes and standards as conventionally built
facilities; pre-fabrication of materials.

Improvements in Concrete Technology

Along with advances in the ways that concrete is brought to the site, the types of formwork in which it is cured, and how it is
placed at high elevations, its mechanical and chemical properties have made great advances in the past century. Again, many of
these were developed and used in the first half of the twentieth century, but are valid for today's applications and further
improvements.

o Lightweight Concrete: It can be made from a variety of aggregate types. A few of these are scoria, pumice,
vermiculite, perlite, herculite and polystyrene beads.
o High Strength Concrete (HSC): HSC is also known as micro silica concrete or condensed silica fume concrete
(CSF). Silica fume is a byproduct of the electric arc furnace production of silicon and ferro-silicon alloys. All
of these are combined to create a product that has strength greater than 5,000 psi (34.5 MPa) and even up
to 20,000 psi (138 MPa).
o High Performance Concrete (HPC): Use of HPC truly began in 1927 when engineers building a tunnel
through the Rocky Mountains near Denver needed a quick way of supporting the loads on the tunnel.

Advances in Structural Systems

The issues involved with structural design and technology are ones of both natural and human implications. A structure must
be designed to carry gravity, wind, equipment and snow; resist high or low temperatures and vibrations; protect against
explosions; and absorb noises.

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