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The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

nytimes.com

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Re: The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

#141

Post by Schiendelman »

dathinab wrote: post #130
Schiendelman wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m seeing you fall into a common fallacy when discussing buildings. “Two buildings are cheaper than one” - sure, if you ignore the land, and all the processes of zoning, permitting, and construction management. If you want to understand all this better, start learning about those!

Ouch, First I explicitly excluded the ground price so it should be obvious that I'm well aware of it. Second if zoning and permitting make it more economical to build buildings which on itself are fundamentally problematic than maybe zoning and permitting needs to be changed. Besides that the cost of construction management for one large building compared to multiple smaller buildings(1) should be larger because of a…

I get where you’re coming from, but the things you are hand waving away don’t just disappear. Two permitting processes really do cost twice as much to administer as one.

And I’m not even dealing with the fact that you need twice as much road, twice as much water and sewer pipe, your city becomes slightly lower density meaning walking and driving distances are longer, etc. etc.

At the end of the day, higher density is significantly more efficient, which is why cities get dense.

Re: The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

#142

Post by sershe »

cm2187 wrote: post #8

Noise is what turns me off from high rise residential buildings. When you watch the construction, many don’t event have concrete walls between apartments on the same floor, and I am ready to guess the concrete floors are as thin as required to keep the weight of the structure down. Add to that all-glass external walls, and I only heard stories from friends who live there that you hear everything your neighbours do, p…

I think it's more typical for apartments.. I've only rented a concrete condo once (in Vancouver), and I distinctly remember getting out of the elevator and feeling like I just walked into a heavy metal concert, then getting into my unit next door to the source and hearing... nothing. It was pretty amazing. But the apartments at the same price point had no noise isolation.

Re: The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

#143

Post by ggm »

melq wrote: post #31
ggm wrote: post #2

Schadenfreude but.. also not. Nobody wants to have a home beset by a ticking clock you can't stop, rich or poor its the minor irritation which nags. For the poor it's the constant hunt for newspaper to wrap themselves in over a steam vent. For the rich, it's losing your free breakfast in a Michelin starred restaurant you have to spend $15,000 pa in by contract, but which is closed by covid. Oh well. Anyway..

I get where you're coming from, but sheesh you could hardly have made a more tone deaf analogy. Aside from the fact that their private restaurant is almost certainly not closed, some billionaires being inconvenienced by what amounts to minor condo fees on their second (or third, or fourth) home is wildly different than a person with no home struggling to keep themselves warm at night. And 'wildly different' is an und…

Whoosh

Re: The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

#144

Post by finnthehuman »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #66
uxhacker wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am doing a restoration of an old palace in Poland, the biggest issue is often the contractors do not understand the architect’s drawings. The drawings are more for the regulators such as building control than actually for the people working on site. Talking to the constructors it is normal for architects to specify the impossible, leaving it to the constructor to actually make it up on the job. Somebody said to me…

> Talking to the constructors it is normal for architects to specify the impossible If the drawings are indeed for regulators, then architects should be sued when they prove to be impossible impossible. Failing that, we should get rid of architects to begin with (if they draw impossible things, what good are they?), and have actual engineers draw something that can actually be built. (Of course, the engineer should r…

>and have actual engineers draw something that can actually be built. (Of course, the engineer should risk a lawsuit if something goes wrong).

The engineers put a note in the drawing that basically tells the contractor to overrule their drawing if it isn't up to building code. Somehow this lets them wash their hands of liability if the contractor builds to specifications that don't meet building code.

Re: The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

#145

Post by londons_explore »

m4rtink wrote: post #98
londons_explore wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concrete floors with multiple thin layers of foam embedded in the concrete end up stronger and lighter than concrete without foam, and are way better at sound insulation. The downside is it's logistically harder to arrange everything in the mould. When someone figures out a process to do it without so much labor, it'll become standard practice, because it'll save concrete and weight.

Won't the foam deteriorate over time, possibly faster than the concrete ?

Yes, but it doesn't matter. The foam really acts as a spacer to convert a single block of concrete into two blocks separated by a few millimeters.

As soon as the concrete is set into place, the foam has done its job and can degrade all it likes.

Re: The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

#146

Post by m4rtink »

londons_explore wrote: post #145
m4rtink wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't the foam deteriorate over time, possibly faster than the concrete ?

Yes, but it doesn't matter. The foam really acts as a spacer to convert a single block of concrete into two blocks separated by a few millimeters. As soon as the concrete is set into place, the foam has done its job and can degrade all it likes.

Interesting! But what holds these blocks at the separation once the foam is no longer load bearing ? Some external bracing ?

Re: The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

#147

Post by londons_explore »

m4rtink wrote: post #146
londons_explore wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it doesn't matter. The foam really acts as a spacer to convert a single block of concrete into two blocks separated by a few millimeters. As soon as the concrete is set into place, the foam has done its job and can degrade all it likes.

Interesting! But what holds these blocks at the separation once the foam is no longer load bearing ? Some external bracing ?

Typically the foam is only in the middle of the concrete slab, so there are still a few inches of attachment all around all the edges with contact. There is rebar in those edges too.

Re: The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

#148

Post by shalmanese »

throw0101a wrote: post #119
uxhacker wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am doing a restoration of an old palace in Poland, the biggest issue is often the contractors do not understand the architect’s drawings. The drawings are more for the regulators such as building control than actually for the people working on site. Talking to the constructors it is normal for architects to specify the impossible, leaving it to the constructor to actually make it up on the job. Somebody said to me…

> The drawings are more for the regulators such as building control than actually for the people working on site. It would also depend on the architect, primary contractor, and what kind of relationship they have. Sometimes plans are just thrown over the wall, but other times there is more collaboration. I watch the YouTube channel of Matt Risinger, a building science focused contractor in Austin, Texas, and he seems…

Residential construction exists in an entirely different universe from commercial construction. The team sizes allow for much easier collaboration and generalists who can paper over impedance mismatches between groups.

Re: The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

#149

Post by dathinab »

Schiendelman wrote: post #141
dathinab wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch, First I explicitly excluded the ground price so it should be obvious that I'm well aware of it. Second if zoning and permitting make it more economical to build buildings which on itself are fundamentally problematic than maybe zoning and permitting needs to be changed. Besides that the cost of construction management for one large building compared to multiple smaller buildings(1) should be larger because of a…

I get where you’re coming from, but the things you are hand waving away don’t just disappear. Two permitting processes really do cost twice as much to administer as one. And I’m not even dealing with the fact that you need twice as much road, twice as much water and sewer pipe, your city becomes slightly lower density meaning walking and driving distances are longer, etc. etc. At the end of the day, higher density is…

> significantly more efficient, which is why cities get dense.

But it's not.

Look at most cities in the world besides a few which are well know to have a broken/unhealthy local economic...

Do most of them have sky scrapers all over the place?

Or do they mostly have 5-10 Story buildings with a view ~80m buildings, even less 80-150m buildings, and hardly any building larger then that?

Then look at all the large 200+m sky scrapers, how many of them do have unused space? How many are all office space and only profitable due to broken tax regulations? And how many stopped being profitable when they became older? Also look at the cost of tearing down (replacing) or reconstructing a sky scraper compared to a regular building and look into how often the company which build the sky scraper did carry the cost?

Also look at all the super high sky scrapers and consider how many where purely build to show power?

I don't have anything against sky scrapers, but there is a point at which they stop making sense and as far as I can tell it should be somewhat but not much above 150m, or maybe even lower.

And yes without question there are cities in which huge sky scrapers are always economical the best choice, but I believe most of such cities have a broken/unhealthy.

Sure, even for this there are exceptions. Like in countries where (flat, accessible) land is generally a sparse resource, like Singapore.

Re: The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks

#150

Post by m4rtink »

londons_explore wrote: post #147
m4rtink wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! But what holds these blocks at the separation once the foam is no longer load bearing ? Some external bracing ?

Typically the foam is only in the middle of the concrete slab, so there are still a few inches of attachment all around all the edges with contact. There is rebar in those edges too.

Interesting, do that's how it works - thanks for the explanation! :)
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