phyre & water: My Favourite Skyscrapers

Hmm...even though this blog is supposed to be about my favourite skyscrapers, I'm not sure I have any...I mean, it's not the same as having a favourite colour or book. Oh well. I'll do my best.

The first skyscraper that I liked was the extremely tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai at over 828 metres tall. Incredible. It is the tallest skyscraper in the world, the tallest free-standing structure in the world (recently beating out the CN Tower), has the tallest elevator service and the longest travel distance in an elevator in the world...and many more. The entire building stands on a concrete mat multiple metres thick, and it's spiralling design "confuses" wind: as the building's shape changes, wind cannot get organized around it, so the spiral minimizes the effects of wind.

Another one of the tallest skyscrapers that I liked was Taipei 101. It stands 509 m tall, as well as being 5 stories deep, and was built to resemble a pagoda. Taipei 101 contains an 800-ton pendulum to reduce swaying and can withstand severe earthquakes and typhoons. It is flexible enough to handle strong winds but must remain rigid enough to protect the people and structures inside it. Because Taipei 101 is so tall, it contains additional features like 380 "piles" driven straight into the ground, making it very stable. This stability was tested when it was being built in March 2002, when a 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Taipei and the building itself was not structurally damaged.

(This picture has a nice physics reference as well :] )

Although the Bahrain World Trade Center in Manama, Bahrain, is not one of the tallest skyscrapers out there, it caught my attention because of its eco-friendliness. The BWTC is the first large-scale skyscraper to incorporate wind power into its structure, with 3 wind turbines attached to bridges in between the two sail shapes of the building. The sail shapes help to funnel wind and increase the efficiency of the turbines, which generate enough to satisfy about 13% of the tower's energy needs.