HIGH RISE BUILDINGS

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH),

embraces the following definitions:

• A tall building, a high-rise, or a tower is a 50 m+ (164 ft+)

building.

• A skyscraper is a 150 m+ (328 ft+) building.

• A supertall or ultra-tall is a 300 m+ (984 ft+) building.

• A megatall is a 600 m+ (1967 ft+) building.

The Tall Building Construction Boom
Since 1990, most cities have seen a steady increase in urban
dwellers.
In 1990, 43 percent of the world’s population lived in urban
areas, and by 2015, this had grown to 54 percent (
By 2030, the United Nations expects that 60 percent of the
world’s population will live in urban areas;
and in 2050, 80 percent of the world’s population will live in
urban areas.
The urban population constitutes about 55 percent of the
world’s population
Therefore, by 2050, urban population will increase about
2.5 billion people.
That is, the projected urban population increase is 80
million people a year.
This is equivalent to about 1.5 million new urban dwellers
a week or 220 thousand a day.
Geographically, this would be the equivalent of building
eight mega cities (defined as cities with 10 million people
and greater) a year.
By 2050, in addition to having a greater number of mega
cities, currently existing mega cities of the world,
particularly those in Asia, Africa, and Latin America will
house greater populations, ranging from 30 to 50 million
people or more.
Although tall buildings are not the only way to accommodate the
increasing urban population—it is possible to do so with mid-rise
buildings—cities are constructing tall buildings across the globe
rapidly
Indeed, since 2000, cities have constructed more tall buildings
than it did in the previous 115 years—Year 1885 is considered the
birth date of skyscrapers
These new buildings are also reaching record-breaking heights. For
example, before the year 2000, we constructed only 24 supertalls.
Since that time, over 84 supertalls have been completed.
Further, from 1930 to 2001, the world has completed 282 200 m+
buildings (an average of about four buildings per year), while from
2002 to 2015, that number was 679 (an average of 52 buildings
per year).
In the past decade, a new height category was created for
skyscrapers known as “megatalls” that are over 600 m (1979 ft)
tall.
Three megatalls have already been constructed, and several
more are currently under construction.
In recent years, the “super mega-tall”, category has arrived as
buildings such as the 1000 m+ Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia are
built.
The driving forces for building tall include massive migration
from rural to urban areas, rapid urban renewal, skyrocketing
land prices, active agglomeration, globalization and global
competition, human aspiration, symbolism, and ego
Certainly, cities around the globe are experiencing a tall building
boom.
Asia is clearly leading the way in this regard, with
unprecedented tall building construction occurring in cities such
as Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Dalian,
Wuxi, Hong Kong and Taipei (Greater China); Tokyo, Osaka and
Nagoya (Japan); Bangkok, Pattaya and Nonthaburi (Thailand);
Seoul, Busan and Incheon (South Korea); Kuala Lumpur
(Malaysia); Jakarta (Indonesia); Makati, Quezon and Manila
(Philippines); Mumbai (India) and Singapore, among others.
Middle Eastern cities such as Dubai, Jeddah, Doha, Mecca, Tel
Aviv, and Beirut also have been vigorously building tall.
North American cities such as New York, Chicago, Miami, Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, and Calgary are experiencing a
renewed interest in building skyscrapers. South American cities
(e.g., Santiago, Cartagena, Buenos Aires, and São Paulo) and
Central American cities (e.g., Panama City, Mexico City,
Monterrey, and Guadalajara) also are building more tall
buildings.
Even African cities such as Johannesburg, Pretoria, Sandton,
Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, and Lagos are increasingly embracing
the tall building typology
Critiques of Tall Building Developments

Numerous scholars have pointed out serious concerns about tall

buildings.
For example, Ken Yeang, a leading figure on sustainable tall building
developments, stated that, “At the outset, we should be clear that
the skyscraper is not an ecological building type. In fact, it is one of
the most un-ecological of all building types”
He illustrates the notion of “unecologicalness” by arguing that tall
buildings require excessive materials and sophisticated structural
systems to build so that they are able to withstand greater wind
forces that prevail at higher altitudes.
They also demand greater energy to construct, operate, and
maintain. Many of these problems stem from the vertical
orientation of this building typology.
Earlier, Christopher Alexander and colleagues in their seminal
book A Pattern Language rejected the high-rise city altogether as
a viable human habitat.
Pattern 21: FOUR-STORY LIMIT.
There is abundant evidence to show that high buildings make
people crazy. Therefore, in any urban area, no matter how dense,
keep the majority of buildings four stories high or less. It is
possible that certain buildings should exceed this limit, but they
should never be buildings for human habitation.
Similarly, Léon Krier, a prominent proponent of the New
Urbanism movement, explains in his book The Architecture of
Community that buildings should have no more than five floors
James Howard Kunstler, a widely respected figure in urban
geography, argues that skyscrapers generate urban pathologies.
They also demand lots of energy and are expensive to retrofit.
Likewise, the Danish architect and urban designer Jan Gehl in
Life Between Buildings (1971) and Cities for People (2010)
critiqued high-rise cities and praised low-rise ones in various
parts of the world for they emphasize the value of human scale
and provide abundant opportunities for healthy social
interaction.
The well-known Jane Jacobs in The Death and Life of Great
American Cities (1963) praised human scale environments that
foster an active pedestrian life
Also, Hans Blumenfeld in his influential work The Modern
Metropolis (1971) denounced tall buildings because they
damage the historic fabric of cities
Sustainability as a Framework

The concept of sustainability continues to be of paramount

importance to our cities
Planners, architects, economists, environmentalists, and
politicians continue to use the term in their conversations and
writings.
The term “sustainability” frequently appears in academic
literature, professional conferences and organizations, and in
practice.
For example, the American Planning Association (APA) continues
to use this term in its discussions, publication, and programs. The
APA’s Sustaining Places Initiative, a program dedicated to
promoting sustainability in human settlements, has recently
released several important reports that center on sustainability.
Remarkably, Sustaining Places: Best Practices for Comprehensive
Plans (2015) by David R. Godschalk and David C. Rouse offers
planners a detailed guide to creating comprehensive sustainable
plans
Similarly, the United Nations’ World Urban Forum (WUF), the
world’s premier conference on urban issues, uses “sustainability”
as a guiding theme to its myriad activities. Since its first meeting
in Nairobi, Kenya in 2002, through the latest in Rio de Janeiro in
2016, the WUF uses the concept of “sustainability” as central to
their agenda.
Importantly, WUF uses the term “sustainable” in each of its
objectives as follows:
• Raise awareness of sustainable urbanization among
stakeholders and constituencies, including the general public;
• Improve the collective knowledge of sustainable urban
development through inclusive, open debates, sharing of lessons
learned and the exchange of best practices and commendable
policies; and
• Increase coordination and cooperation between different
stakeholders and constituencies for the advancement and
implementation of sustainable urbanization.
The comprehensiveness of the sustainability concept is
apparent in one of the earliest and most frequently used
definitions created by the United Nations’ Bruntland
Commission in 1987.
The commission defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs”
Concisely, this definition resonates the root meaning of the
word “sustain”, which is to “provide with nourishment” or to
“keep going”, as defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Therefore, in line with the urban planning profession,
sustainability emphasizes the long-term implications of all
human activities. It also presumes that resources are finite and
that we should use them conservatively and wisely according to
long-term priorities and consequences of the ways we use
them.
Over the past three decades, sustainability has evolved and
become even more comprehensive and complex. Planners,
architects, and politicians have been applying expanded and
diversified definitions of sustainability to almost all human
activities, such as
• A sustainable future is one in which a healthy environment,
economic prosperity, and social justice are pursued
simultaneously to ensure the well-being and quality of life of
present and future generations. Education is crucial to attaining
that future.
• In essence, sustainable development is about five key
principles: quality of life; fairness and equity; participation and
partnership; care for our environment and respect for ecological
constraints—recognizing there are ‘environmental limits’; and
thought for the future and the precautionary principle.
Therefore, sustainability addresses a wide-spectrum of planning
and design issues (e.g., housing, economic growth, water, land,
energy, waste recycling, transportation, tourism, parks, open
spaces) and illustrates their interconnectedness.
It helps us to adapt our activities to the constraints and
opportunities of the natural systems we need to support our lives.
It also assists in planning for “balanced community where urban
centers prosper, natural landscapes flourish, and farming is
strengthened as an integral component of our diverse economy
and cultural heritage”
Notably, in his book The Architecture of Community, Léon Krier
presents sustainable urbanism as “an ethical and civilizing vision
of universal stature”
Sustainability offers an inclusive framework represented in its
three conceptual pillars (the social, the economic, and the
environmental) or the “3Ps” of people, profit, and the planet,
where:
• “people” represents community well-being and equity;
• “profit” represents economic vitality; and
• “planet” represents conservation of the environment.
These pillars or dimensions are also expressed by the “3Es” of
equality, economics, and ecology or what is known as the triple
bottom line (TBL or 3BL).
Sustainability seeks to balance these three dimensions across
geographic scales—from individual habitats to neighborhood,
community, city, region, country, continent, and the planet at
large—and according to both short and long-term goals.
Therefore, the centrality and comprehensiveness of
sustainability suggest using it as an “umbrella” term that
captures a wide-spectrum of practical projects under
different agendas—“ecological”, “environmental”, “green”,
“social” and “economic”—which all share the common thread
of reducing harmful impact on the environment while
delivering economically viable, healthy, and comfortable
human habitats