In a world of ever-reducing space, a skyscraper is an efficient way to create homes and offices without too large a footprint. It is interesting, then, that so many skyscrapers are full of hot air. In the race for the biggest buildings, architects have fallen back on antennae and pointed spires – with the result that skyscrapers are not so much efficient uses of space, but overblown vanity projects.

Take the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It’s impressive at 828 metres tall, but nearly a third of that (29%) is unoccupiable, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The Burj al Arab, also in Dubai, is much worse in this respect, with 39% of the entire building unusable. In fact, Dubai has five towers listed as the tallest buildings in “vanity height” – unusable height for the sake of it. Across these five, some 31% of total space is completely wasted.

Vanity height: how much space in skyscrapers is unoccupiable? 

It’s clear that 2015 was a banner year for skyscrapers: Across the globe in that year alone, 106 tall buildings (above 200 meters, or 656 feet in height) were finished, surpassing 2014’s previous record of 99. The past decade has also seen over 650 tall buildings rise—a huge increase from the global total of just 265 back in 2000.

As the graphs below show, the vast majority of new skyscrapers have gone up in Asian nations—especially China. The United States is all the way down in sixth place. With just two skyscrapers completed in 2015—the same as Malaysia, Mexico, and Panama—America’s lagging performance caused the economist Tyler Cowen to jokingly refer to its “great skyscraper stagnation.”

The Relationship Between Skyscrapers and Great Cities – Tall buildings can add a great deal, but they also have their limits by Richard Florida

The unexpected stories behind 10 skyscrapers that were actually built. As long as there have been buildings mankind has sought to construct its way to the heavens. From stone pyramids to steel skyscrapers, successive generations of designers have devised ever more innovative ways to push the vertical boundaries of architecture. Whether stone or steel, however, each attempt to reach unprecedented heights has represented a vast undertaking in terms of both materials and labor – and the more complex the project, the greater the chance for things to go awry.

Op donderdag 19 januari 2017 heeft ARCAM een debat georganiseerd over hoogbouw in Amsterdam. Hoe zou de skyline van Amsterdam, een stad met een historisch centrum, eruit moeten zien? Architecten en stedenbouwers zijn met elkaar in debat gegaan.

In het gepresenteerde stedenbouwkundig plan van de Sluisbuurt is er ruimte voor een basisbouw met een hoogte van 20 tot 30 meter en hoogbouw tot 143 meter. Dit resulteert in een basisbouw vergelijkbaar met de Sumatrakade (Java-eiland), in combinatie met vijftien Wolkenkrabbers (Rivierenbuurt), vier maal een slanke versie van De Nederlandsche Bank en vier Rembrandttorens.

Jaap Huisman, journalist, heeft het artikel ‘Een kuil met een rand van torens‘ geschreven. Artikel is gepubliceerd in De Groene Amsterdammer op 19 januari 2017.

Im internationalen Vergleich kann Berlin in Sachen Skyline nicht punkten. Zwar gibt es ein paar hohe Häuser, und es sollen noch einige mehr werden, doch von einer Skyline mit echten Wolkenkratzern wie in Shanghai oder New York wird die deutsche Hauptstadt wohl noch eine ganze Weile weit entfernt sein. Dennoch könnte sich Berlins Stadtsilhouette bald deutlich verändern, wenn es nach einigen Architekten und Investoren geht. Hier sind neun konkret geplante Projekte im Überblick.

Past hoogbouw wel bij een stad als Amsterdam? De plannen voor een complete hoogbouwwijk op Zeeburgereiland maken discussie los bij bouwers en buurten. Jaap Modder: ‘Ja, voor iedereen’
Voorzitter Stichting Hoogbouw ziet ruimte voor verdichting in Amsterdam. Met hoogbouw kan Amsterdam binnen de huidige gemeentegrenzen uitbreiden. En bij een hoge stedelijke dichtheid gaat de kwaliteit van scholen, winkels en parken omhoog, vindt Jaap Modder. Hij is voorzitter van de Stichting Hoogbouw, die sinds 1984 Nederland enthousiast probeert te maken voor hoogbouwprojecten. Modder is het ermee eens dat hoogbouw niet de enige manier is om die hoge dichtheid te krijgen.
Lex Boon in Het Parool Wel of geen hoogbouw: ijdelheid of noodzaak om te kunnen wonen?

Though it might seem that each recent generation attempts to take credit for the rise of the futuristic “skyscraper” buildings that rise ten floors or higher were born with the Gilded Age. “Ten & Taller: 1874-1900,” on view through April 2017 at the Skyscraper Museum in Battery Park City examines every single building 10 stories and taller that was erected in Manhattan between 1874 through 1900 (h/t Curbed). Beginning in the mid-1870s, the city’s first ten-story office buildings rose on masonry to 200 feet high with spires that stretched 60 more feet. By 1900 New York City could boast of 250 buildings at least as tall; the world’s tallest office building was the thirty-story 15 Park Row; framed with steel, it soared to 391 feet. As technology brought elevators and new methods of construction, the vertical expansion was becoming a forest of tall towers.

At the beginning of each year, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) publishes a study and report (download PDF) that examines all 200-meter-plus tall buildings that were completed during the previous year. Click the tabs below to see charts related to each topic. The charts and descriptions are interactive. You can click on them to view more information on The Skyscraper Center, our tall building database.

Presented for the first time in Scandinavia, ‘Sky’s the Limit’ takes you into the realm of skyscrapers and large building structures designed by the internationally renowned architecture and engineering firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM). Founded in Chicago in 1936, SOM has completed more than 10,000 projects in over 50 countries including a number of iconic buildings such as Lever House, Willis Tower, John Hancock Center and the world’s tallest building – Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Among the firms current projects, Karlatornet in Gothenburg will be Scandinavia’s tallest building when completed in 2020.

Presented through sketches, renderings and scale models of notable skyscrapers, the exhibition captures SOM’s innovative integration of structural expression and architectural design that is a defining tenet of the firm’s work. This close collaboration has produced distinctive engineering solutions to contemporary architectural challenges—expanding the parameters of building construction.