24 THE FUTURE OF TALL BUILDINGS
“Which aspects of the post-Grenfell safety regime do you think requires the highest focus?”
Jeddah Tower, planned in Saudi Arabia, to a design by the Burj architect, Adrian Smith. However it seems to have been indefinitely stalled thanks to local political turmoil. China has been instrumental to the mushrooming of tall buildings in the past decade, and the first time in five years that the tallest completed building was not in China was 2020, when the accolade went to the skinny residential scheme by architects Adrian Smith, Robert Forest and Gordon Gill – Central Park Tower in NYC, at 472 metres the US’ tallest building. A total of 26 supertall buildings were completed in 2019 alone, with 30 Chinese cities adding supertall buildings since 2000, but will this ‘race to the top’ continue? We surveyed our readership of architects in order to find out where they saw the future of tall buildings design leading. These findings reveal the factors driving the likely makeup of future structures in terms of use classes and tenants, design challenges such as around acoustics and glass facades, and whether passive design approaches are suitable. It also looked at the future viability of supertall buildings, and the accountability agenda for building safety post-Grenfell.
UK architects & tall buildings A handful of UK practices have seen heavy involvement in the design of tall buildings worldwide, such as Atkins and Foster + Partners, with individual UK architects
making their presence increasingly felt in prosperous locations like Dubai since the middle of the 20th century. Atkins alone has designed and engineered over 50 buildings over 250 metres tall, most of which are in the Middle and Far East, with architects like Tom Wright from the firm coming to prominence (he was the man behind the 321 metre sail-like Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai). In 2008 he designed the Bahrain World Trade Center as a more sustainable tall structure, two towers joined by bridges holding large turbines.
Fosters is now about to complete 425
Park Avenue, in New York, a stunning 262 metre boutique residential scheme. Rogers Stirk Harbour recently completed a typically stylish, 23-storey tapered steel office building, the practice’s first residential building in NYC. In the UK’s major cities, and particularly London, the urge for high-rise is continuing at an exponential pace, largely unabated by Covid and climate change. According to New London Architecture’s 2021 annual review, a startling 587 buildings over 20 storeys were proposed for the capital, and there’s a continued presence of overseas architects in tall building design in the capital.
Introduction Tall building designers arguably face a critical crossroads – will they continue to be a major focus for investment in the difficult
context developers now face? What is the realistic case for widespread urban tall buildings post-Covid, and in a climate change-averse world? ADF and Edge Insight surveyed architects to find out their views on the future of tall buildings (33% of respondents being at director level, and 26% architects currently practicing).
Challenges Mixed use
Our survey homed in on some of the key factors which were facing architects looking at tall buildings design in the coming years. One of the simplest and yet most impactful recent changes which looks set to continue is the move to a emphasis on mixed use rather than purely commercial space in a post-pandemic future.
According to 85% of our respondents, tall buildings would be ‘predominantly mixed use’ in future, which will continue the current trend of mixed use in many schemes across the UK and worldwide. However, it wasn’t just being driven by an economical sustainability argument of maximising expensive land (58% said this was a ‘very important driver’), combined with a ‘post-pandemic move away from urban office space’ (28% – very important). Of our respondents, 54% said that a ‘very important’ factor was that mixed use could offer better and more attractive design at street level. Respondents also
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ADF NOVEMBER 2021
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