The end of the high-rise?

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Indianapolis had always been a burg. No skyline. My guess is that this was true for most cities beyond NYC, Chicago, LA and a few more. It was even true of world-class cities like London and Paris.

Locally, this began to change in the 70s and much more-so in the 80s. Again, I'd bet that the typical city threw up (pun intended) many high-rises in the 80s.

Altho much construction occurred here downtown in the 90s, none of it was high-rise. I thought that curious since we were in a booming economy.

Then I thought hey, maybe high-rises are going out of fashion due to the Internet, do to their impracticality in cities that are not cramped for space, due to many economic and convenience factors.

I mean who really wants to live and work in these clautrophobic places. Who wants to spend 2 hours a day waiting in line for elevators if you are in a vertically arranged corporation that requires frequent visits between people on different levels. I believe Sears moved its HQ out of Sears Tower some years ago for precisely this reason.

As far as living in a high-rise, no way. It's inconvenient to leave your concrete home to go to the street level and the street noise is amazingly intense even at the 80th floor. I would have enjoyed living in such a place for a few years, when I was young and single.

So, IMO, high-rises were already on their way out except in places like Manhatten. After every medium-size city's local banks built their high-rise prestige monument with their name and a rotating restaurant, who needs 'em?

Then came Tuesday. WTC may be the coup-de-grace of the high-rise. They are now recognized as extraordinarily dangerous. If there is a big enough fire, whatever the cause, they may collapse. They are no place to get a heart attack (imagine calling 911 for a person on the 97th floor of the John Hancock building (whose upper stories are residential). What fun to live in the clouds and in the lightning. What fun to wait for the towering inferno, for the earthquake, for the mugger/rapist in the elevator or parking garage.

High-rise subsidized housing projects, touted by the know-it-all "planners" in the 50s and 60s are being imploded all aver the country. A grand and expensive failure.

Why did the WTC collapse? Wasn't it built to withstand earthquakes, fire, tsunamis and flood. Below is one analysis.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yahoo Sept 14

Twin Towers Couldn't Sustain Attack

By SHARON L. CRENSON, AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - The World Trade Center's twin towers were two of America's most visible symbols of engineering prowess, so when they crashed to the ground in an avalanche of ash, many asked how it could have happened.

Experts in skyscraper design and construction say it was probably simple: The 110-story towers were conceived to withstand powerful impacts, but their steel skeletons couldn't protect them from thousands of gallons of flaming jet fuel.

``Steel melts, and 24,000 gallons of aviation fluid melted the steel. Nothing is designed or will be designed to withstand that fire,'' said Hyman Brown, a University of Colorado civil engineering professor and the Trade Center's construction manager.

``If they did it lower in the building, the fire department could have gotten to it sooner. In its simplicity, it was brilliant,'' he said.

Masoud Sanayei, a civil engineering professor at Tufts University, said the fire's heat may have disconnected one of the towers' concrete floors from the tubular steel columns ringing the buildings. If one or two floors collapsed, it would have created a pancake effect of one massive floor caving into the next.

``In my opinion, the fire weakened the connection between the floor system and the columns on the higher floors and caused a couple of the floors to collapse,'' Sanayei said. ``The floors are very heavy, made of reinforced concrete, so when one hits the next, they cause a domino effect ... and it can go all the way down to the first floor.''

He said no one could be expected to survive such a catastrophe.

Brown, too, noted that although the twin towers had staircases in all four corners for evacuation, video clips led him to believe those escape routes were cut off for people on higher floors long before the buildings collapsed.

Architect Minoru Yamasaki, who died in 1986, worked with engineers John Skilling and Leslie E. Robertson to design the twin towers, once the world's tallest buildings.

In his 2000 book ``Building Big,'' architect David MaCaulay described the towers' engineering as ``a series of load bearing exterior columns spaced 3 feet apart and tied together at every floor by a deep horizontal beam, creating a strong lattice of square tubing around each tower.''

The core surrounding the elevators inside was much the same, with a giant lattice work of steel covered by poured concrete connecting the interior columns to the exterior ones. The design was free enough for each of the towers to hold 4 million square feet of space unencumbered by columns or load bearing walls.

Sections of exterior wall were wrapped around the outside in 24- and 36-foot high sections, creating a sort of patchwork so that not all the floor joints would meet walls at the same height, according to MaCaulay.

Minoru Yamasaki Associates issued a statement saying the firm was in contact with authorities and had offered assistance.

``We believe that any speculation regarding the specifics of these tragic events would be irresponsible,'' the statement said. ``For obvious reasons, MYA has no further comment at this time.''



-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 14, 2001

Answers

Lars,

Take a look at this piece from the Chron about war & architecture:

"GROUND ZERO Demolished by design Powerful symbols of America's power now reflect its weaknesses"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/13/MN216641.DTL

I love skyscrapers. It will be interesting to see how the landscapes change from here on out. {'Return of the Mole People'?}

-- flora (***@__._), September 14, 2001.


I love skyscrapers too. IMO, the Chrysler builng is the most beautiful building in the world.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 14, 2001.

As the offspring of an intense engineer, it's hard to fathom how fatoring in terroristic forces will affect future design. We can physically adjust for earthquakes, etc. I imagine we'll have to adjust our use of airspace instead. Might that entail an overlap of domestic an military responsibilities? Interesting times ahead.

Further OT - I'm suprised to see no rumblings about absoute power on the board yet.

You're right, the Chrysler is a beaut.

-- flora (***@__._), September 14, 2001.


with hinges on chimneys for stars to get by

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 14, 2001.

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