skyscraper news: shanghai tower, vertical skyscraper races, is LEGO the future?

skyscraper news: shanghai tower, vertical skyscraper races, and will skyscrapers of the future be built like LEGOs?
above: the shanghai tower by gensler
image courtesy weber shandwick

as prefab houses continue to enrapture the public imagination, from container buildings to pop-up stone homes, something much bigger is going on beneath the architectural surface. modern technological methods are combining with innovative design strategies towards the prefabrication of entire skyscrapers. in these buildings, entire floors and structural elements are developed at ground level in factories and shipped onsite to be assembled. prefab architecture is exponentially cheaper, faster, and safer than conventional building techniques, and the materials are arguably stronger and of better quality. designboom takes a look into a few of the biggest innovations in prefab architectural techniques, and why the skyscrapers of the future just might be built like LEGOs.

first let’s take a look at some of the breaking news in skyscraper architecture this week:

 
gensler’s shanghai tower

hundreds of runners in china sprinted their way up 82 floors and more than 2000 stairs as the country’s first ever ‘vertical run’ was held in a beijing skyscraper two days ago. the german thomas dold emerged on top of the 330 metre (1080 feet) tall china world trade center tower 3, beijing’s tallest building, just 10 minutes and 22 seconds after setting off from its ground floor to take the men’s title.

drawing attention on a very physical level to just how towering our skyscrapers are becoming, the athletics event coincided with even bigger news in the country: the shanghai tower, china’s tallest building and the world’s no. 2 in height at 127 stories, just held a topping-out ceremony, more than four years after the start of construction in 2008. shanghai tower is organized as nine cylindrical buildings stacked one atop the other. the inner layer of the double-skin façade encloses the stacked buildings, while the exterior façade creates the building envelope, which rotates 120 degrees as it rises and gives the tower its distinctive, curving appearance. its interior and exterior skins are transparent, establishing a visual connection between the tower’s interiors and the urban fabric of shanghai.  read more here.

‘vertical run’ winner thomas dold can rest easy, though: shanghai tower will have the world’s fastest elevators, designed by mitsubishi and using innovative technologies designed specifically for the building. shanghai tower elevators will feature pressurized cabins and converters that regenerate electricity, reducing energy use by 30 percent. they’ll be the world’s fastest, with a top speed of more than 40 miles per hour—twice as fast as usual. seven of the 106 elevators will be double-deckers.

shanghai tower: wind tunnel study scaling models (left) and wind tunnel study rotation models (right).

dubai’s burj khalifa is the world’s current tallest skyscraper but innovations in prefab technologies are set to outpace the building in almost every metric…

all this skyscraper news might sound like a lot for one week, but that’s actually a timeframe to which we’ll be rapidly adjusting. prefabrication technologies, alongside innovations in 3D printing and materials research, are allowing us to design taller and taller skyscrapers that can be constructed in a fraction of the time and for a minimal percentage of the cost of conventionally built towers. these buildings are generally safer to construct and more structurally sound than skyscrapers of years past, so in the face of an expanding population and rapidly developing urban centers, skyscraper development may become of increasing importance in our architectural reality.

the proposed ‘sky city’ in china, which would become the world’s tallest building at 3000 feet

china’s ‘sky city‘ brought the notion of prefabricated buildings to the mainstream with their much-publicized announcement that its developers would build the world’s new tallest building, sky city, in 90 days. while later extended to 7 months, both numbers are incredible compared to the construction period of the world’s current tallest building, dubai’s burj khalifa, which was already an achievement at five years.

although ‘sky city’ is indefinitely on hold in the midst of legal uncertainties, the construction practices behind its design are making their way forward into architectural projects worldwide. broad sustainable building group, the firm behind ‘sky city’ already successfully built the 30-storey ‘tower hotel’ in shanghai in 15 days using modular prefabricated parts. australian company klik offers ‘pre-engineered, pre-designed and pre-assembled supertowers and hotels’ through their modular building system.

even 3-D printers have played a role in accelerating the skyward building boom. zurich-based architects michael hansmeyer and benjamin dillenburger are exploring an entirely other possibility that could shake the foundations of contemporary architecture with their 3D printed columns and rooms. the first successful grotto, ‘digital grotesque’, has just been completed and suggests ways that prefab construction could be used even for finely detailed aesthetic finishes. see more in designboom’s original coverage of ‘digital grotesque‘.

detail of the 3D printed grotto developed by michael hansmeyer and benjamin dillenburger

 
smith + gill’s design of the 116-story imperial tower which will dominate mumbai’s skyline shows how architectural advances come full circle to affect the design process. the cut-out pattern isn’t ornamental—it’s a crucial structural detail that alleviates the negative pressure formed by wind buffeting the elongated structure.

prefabrication strategies tend to vastly reduce the cost of building constructions, with their reliance on repetitive manufacturing processes and reduced needs of infrastructure for workers. ‘tower hotel’, for example, was assembled by bolting modules together rather than welding them, requiring no scaffolding or water usage and generating just 25 tons of waste as compared to the average 3,000 tons. moreover, prefab skyscrapers can use much less concrete and structural steel, greatly diminishing both its weight and price.

another argument for pre-fabricated buildings is that factory environments provide more routine inspects, creating materials that are actually of higher quality than those prepared on site. it also improves project safety for construction workers who work at skyscraper heights,  by increasing the amount of advance preparation that can be done on-ground.

as buildings rise ever higher, logistical demands rise with them. the sheer weight of the steel cable that hoists today’s elevators has prevented them going any higher than 500 metres in one go. people in the 828-metre-high burj khalifa tower, for example, currently have to switch lifts to go above the 500-metre mark. with at least 20 buildings more than 500 metres high on architects’ drawing boards around the world, ‘ultrarope’ may prove an important breakthrough in skyscraper lifts. skyscrapers of the future could rocket to twice the height of the world’s current tallest building as the result of the invention of a carbon fibre reinforced elevator rope, by finnish elevator company KONE. it matches the strength of steel cables while being much lighter, reducing the weight of cabling by about 90 per cent. read more here.

australian company klik offers customizable modular prefab designs for everything from houses to supertowers