Narrator: Like giant exclamation marks,
Skyscrapers punctuate the story of our urban development.
People always want to reach.
There's something heavenly about it.
And people have wanted to race for height forever.
Narrator: Developed by the pioneers of architecture
In the late 19th century...
They were, at the time,
The equivalent of our going to the moon.
Narrator: ...These magnificently designed tower giants
Urbanized some of the greatest cities in the world.
It's about defying gravity and leaving a sign of humanity.
Narrator: From chicago to london,
From tokyo to dubai,
Skyscrapers have and continue to define
Our contemporary way of life.
-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com
Captions paid for by discovery communications
The skyscraper boom of the 1960s and 70s
Created a global backlash.
Everything started looking the same,
And cities no longer had their own iconic look.
Now, more than ever before,
City skylines were in danger of blending into the background,
With little regard to any real sense of place.
Armstrong: You know, we are living in a globalized, international age,
And it tends to reduce many of the differences among us
Culturally and socially.
Wood: For something that was predominantly
An american proposition,
There are now very few countries not building them.
Malott: When I give talks, I do this trick.
I show a skyline of a city.
I ask the audience, "what city is it?"
People might throw out some answers,
But then the catch is that it's three separate cities
Which had been stitched together.
And the point being is that
These are three different continents
With three different climates, three different cultures,
And yet the skyline is ubiquitous.
Naz: That's highly, highly concerning
Because our sense of belongingness
And our sense of being are derived from our environment.
Marfella: They consecrate the sky anymore.
They've become an homogenous landscape.
Wood: I think this is something we need to fight against.
Narrator: A major factor in building sustainability
Is making the structure work for the people,
Those inside and out.
In asia, this is of particular importance.
Ascher: Like everything else that seems to have been exported
From one country to another,
And many of them from the west to asia,
The skyscraper is a very big idea
That meant that a place had come of age.
Barr: The buildings themselves can be used
Not as a result of economic growth,
But to drive economic growth.
So, in many respects, many of the new, iconic buildings
In asia are used to say,
"hey, look, you know, we want to be icons.
We want to have global skylines like new york or chicago."
Narrator: And this is exactly what happened to malaysia
In the '80s and '90s,
When its burgeoning skyline grew at a record pace.
The country was consistently growing
Their gross domestic product, or gdp,
While keeping inflation low.
It would appear asia was launching
A very productive and successful skyscraper movement.
From its humble beginnings as a tin mining town
To colonial outpost,
The capital city of kuala lumpur
Only acquired its status as a city in 1972.
But it wasn't until the early 1990s
That it became a key player on the global economic stage.
You had the petronas towers in malaysia that went up.
That said something about those economies
That couldn't really have been said any other way.
Narrator: With nearly double the amount of floor space
Of the empire state building
And rising 33 feet taller than chicago's sears tower,
The petronas confirmed to the world that malaysia had arrived.
And we are happy about this project
Because first of all, it has a very unique shape.
It is a twin tower.
Architect can explain to you how the shape was inspired
By kuala lumpur itself.
Narrator: Viewed from above, the shape of each tower
Follows a geometric pattern widely used in islamic art,
Symbolizing unity, harmony, stability, and rationality.
Constructed in the shape of an "m",
The tower's exterior slanted edges
Resemble the weave of traditional handmade baskets,
A nod to the nation's cultural heritage.
Structurally, the petronas uses core
And cylindrical tube framing systems
Made from concrete mixed on-site.
The material was three times as strong as any composite material
That was previously used.
We can use a lot of local, available material,
Which is concrete in kuala lumpur,
Which is a reasonable price and the labor is available.
So, we are using a lot of concrete construction
Into that building design.
Narrator: The prefabricated sky-bridge
Connecting the two towers,
According to architect cesar pelli,
Created a portal to the sky, a door to the infinite.
At 190 feet long,
The structure is the highest two-story bridge in the world.
Poon: And it's connected by a bridge.
It has to be independent from the tower and the two towers
So when the two towers move,
The bridge will not be affected by the towers' movement.
Narrator: Spherical bearings located in the hinges
In the middle of the arch system supporting the bridge
Kept the bridge from swaying.
Poon: When we work on the petronas tower,
Tower area in kuala lumpur is not a very booming area.
But since the completion of the tower,
That becomes a signature of the city.
All of a sudden, it sort of became the image of k.L.,
The image of malaysia,
And that was extremely powerful.
Poon: The petronas tower signified the booming
Of super-high-rise building.
Because they know how successful
These super-high-rise mixed-use complex
Becoming an iconic and a great economic driver for a city.
♪
Narrator: In asia, capturing a sense of place
Is crucial to properly reflecting
A region's cultural dna.
And now, that fundamental concept
Was quickly becoming an important consideration
For architects and engineers worldwide.
♪
If you look at these cities, these countries, these cultures,
Many of them have hundreds,
Sometimes even thousands of years
Of local tradition in architecture
And grew up because of its relationship
To its local setting.
As a result, the world has a tremendous diversity
Of architecture
Because it was rooted to its place.
You know, if you look at the asian house,
Which is built upon stilts with steep roof and narrow windows,
This was a response to getting airflow under the building,
Steep roof to carry the monsoon rains away.
So, architecture for thousands of years
Evolved differently in different parts of the world
Because the climate was different,
Because the social structures were different,
Because the terrain was different.
Malott: So, if we return to that idea of place,
It's this specificity to the problems of a place,
And that design is a solution to those problems,
Then we can come up with more unique designs.
Narrator: In order for a building to contribute
To the identity of a particular city,
It needs to reflect the local culture
To connect and inspire the people that will serve.
Architects have a number of different ways of responding
To culture and a tall building.
We can use numbers, we can use icons,
Or we can use slightly more abstract ideas
That touch on local traditions,
But are still interpreted in a contemporary way.
Naz: We can -- the color scheme, how the patterns are designed.
There should be some local connection
With a very modern feel to it.
Brooker: For us as designers, integrating buildings
Into their surroundings and place
Is absolutely fundamental.
It's how it relates to the places and spaces that it makes
Are an absolutely essential part of that conversation,
And that's something for the designers
To bring into the design. It's a total design.
Narrator: As innovation continued to enable aesthetics,
A new race for the sky was gaining momentum.
Motivated by changes and its economic structure
And growing population,
China was on the verge of an epic construction boom.
As urban land became increasingly more valuable,
So did the demand for high-rise buildings in central locations.
It was clear that china was determined
To place more skyscrapers on its urban skylines
Than any other country in the world.
Narrator: In the past few decades,
China has undergone rapid urbanization.
In 1979, only 17.6% of the population lived in urban areas.
As a result, land developers
Had an incentive to intensify development.
Barr: China's the shining example of another nation
That embraces skyscraper construction,
And that is fundamentally driven by its rapid economic growth
And the movement of people
From agricultural parts of the country to the urban part.
Watts: China isn't just building for its population
And for its population which is developing, urbanizing,
And becoming wealthier.
It needs to build those buildings to house them,
But also these buildings are the building blocks of wealth.
Barr: It's fundamentally urbanization,
Is what drives skyscrapers.
Narrator: Since china embraced free market principles
More than 30 years ago,
The country's economy has been growing
At an average of almost 10% each year,
Three times the global average.
Watts: They're the economic engines of the country,
So they're creating cities.
They're not just creating buildings,
They're creating whole cities,
Many of which are very high-rise.
Howler: It was certainly a desire to sort of fit in,
And there was certainly an aspiration
To find a new "chinese" expression
For what was previously a western building type.
Narrator: Between 1980 and 1995,
China was adding more skyscrapers to the skylines
Than any other city in the world,
And leading the charge
Was the country's largest city -- shanghai.
By the 1990s, economic reforms
Introduced by politician deng xiaoping
Resulted in a revitalization of the city.
Referred to as "the head of the dragon",
Shanghai set the tone
For development into the 21st century.
The pudong district is home
To some of the tallest skyscrapers in the world.
Located on the east side of the city,
The area has become a national symbol of prosperity.
Oldfield: Deng xiaoping was 88 years old
When he said, "this is the future
Of china's kind of financial institutions here in pudong.
Narrator: In chinese culture,
The number eight is associated with wealth and success,
So deng xiaoping's timing to expand city skylines
Was right on the money.
Deemed by some as the shining pearl of the east,
Located at 88th century avenue, the jin mao tower proved to be
A structural embodiment of the numeric concept.
♪
The building evolved on an octagonal kind of floor plate,
With eight sides, eight mega-columns,
And 88 stories.
Narrator: Even less obvious structural elements
All revolved around the number eight --
The eight steel and eight super-columns of concrete
Surrounding the tower's core.
The 88 floors are divided into 16 separate segments,
Each of which is 1/8th shorter than the 16-story base.
But I think the tower is about more than just number.
The architect, adrian smith,
Talks about how the design is inspired by a pagoda,
Which is a vernacular chinese structure
That staggers back with height, and the jin mao reflects that.
For me, the most impressive space in the jin mao
Is it's 40-story atrium,
One of the most vibrant, exciting spaces
In the world for me.
Narrator: The postmodern jin mao tower pays homage
To the ancient structures
That were built to honor buddha,
But's structural harmony is demonstrated
Through its use of feng shui.
It's glass and steel façade
Evokes the art deco corner of shanghai.
Howler: So, this question of image-making,
I think became really important --
Image-making in terms of creating an icon
That was legible to the general public.
Cultural identities are being formed
Between buildings and skylines and emerging sort of culture
With these kind of images as their symbols.
Narrator: This architectural concept
Dominated asia's skylines in the 1990s,
But thailand took this blended design concept
To a whole new level.
Thai culture is deeply influenced by religion.
With around 95% of the country being buddhist,
This culturally spiritual country tied architecture
To its peoples' sense of community, values,
And belief system.
In ceremonial name alone, bangkok's view on design
Was heavily influenced by tradition.
For many tall buildings, shape and form is everything,
And how do you display a piece of local culture,
A piece of local history, to a global audience?
Well, with the elephant building,
The building is the elephant, the national animal,
And so why not make the whole shape of the building
Look like an elephant.
Narrator: Completed 1997, this 335-foot-high tower
Was designed as an iconic symbol
That has been an integral part of thai culture, industry,
And religion for centuries.
Designed with features that resemble ears and eyes,
This 32-story elephant tower
Connects the nation's rich mythology and religion
To its visual arts.
But some people felt that the building,
While playful in design, didn't accurately represent
The capabilities of thai architecture.
Howler: All architecture anticipates an audience,
It anticipates interpretation,
And I think it should offer many interpretations.
It shouldn't sort of focus on a singular one.
In my mind, they allow kind of global practice,
But also find ways to become site-specific
Without resorting to images.
Even if the outcomes are something we might not like,
They are still an expression of the place.
Narrator: Still loved by the locals,
The elephant building has, over time,
Become architecture's elephant in the room,
The structure to some that went a little too far
In its quest to connect culture with its environment.
♪
By the late '90s, some countries in eastern asia
Found themselves in a financial crisis.
Due to sudden shifts in market expectations
And local currency depreciation,
Investors began to lose their confidence
In doing business with the region.
The result sent thailand's economy crashing,
Forcing the construction industry to an abrupt halt.
But as one country was struggling
Through an economic downturn, another was thriving.
Narrator: The iconic elephant building
Reflected the nation's rich mythology and religion.
Ironically, the same year it was built,
The country devalued its currency
Against the u.S. Dollar,
Triggering a financial crisis that swept across east asia,
Slowing economic growth and development in the region.
But the middle east remained unaffected,
And while other countries were pushing for higher oil prices,
Dubai became a hotspot for investment.
Lavery: So, there was a decision made quite some time ago
That we needed to diversify the economy,
Which dubai has managed to do in quite a spectacular fashion.
The amount of tall buildings here is very, very limited
To this kind of narrow structure along shaanxi road.
A place which was a fishing village in the 1960s and '70s
Very rapidly became a high-rise location.
Narrator: Dubai opened its doors to the world, tax-free,
And in the blink of an eye, transformed.
So, they made a claim for commerce.
They made a claim for tourism.
They made a claim to build a city and the people will come.
Watts: To attract tourists to the region,
But also to create destinations for businesses, as well.
The view was that this would be a hub
Between the east and the west.
Lavery: Everything started happening.
We had this change in ownership laws,
Which meant that from not being able to purchase property,
That was opened up, and as soon as we saw that,
Then we saw a lot of people rushing in to invest.
What better way of demonstrating that than a seven-star hotel
Built on its own manmade island?
♪
The intent of burj al arab was quite clear --
Build a building that displayed opulence and success.
And the idea that it would stand out as a luxury item,
Like a yacht.
Narrator: Designed to resemble the sail of a yacht,
The burj al arab was a hotel that radiated luxury.
Oldfield: What's quite interesting about the building
Is despite the fact it's super-tall,
It's over 300 meters high,
Is it only houses 28 stories,
What we would expect in a 150-meter-tall building,
And that's because each floor's double-height
To fit in these luxury, opulent hotel rooms
That cost thousands and thousands of dollars
To stay in each night.
Narrator: And the interior was just as majestic as the exterior,
With intricate glass chandeliers,
Marble columns from Italy,
And custom-made carpets and rugs from south africa and india.
The interiors of the burj al arab
Contained the finest materials
Sourced from locations worldwide.
Lavery: It has this interesting mix of materials and systems.
You got fabric mixed in with, you know,
Exposed steelwork on the perimeter.
Narrator: A steel skeleton braced with trusses
Gives the burj al arab its sail-like shape.
Its multi-layered fabric façade
Provide the necessary thermal properties
To diffuse light and heat.
Lined with a geotextile membrane
And hydraulically filled with sand,
The structure is located on an artificial island
Held in place by 255-foot-diameter columns
And anchored nearly 150 feet underwater.
♪
Morris: It transcended what a building was
By what it was and what it represented,
And really, that building put a country on the map.
Barr: I mean, the larger plan
Is not just build the skyscrapers and then come,
But you also have to sort of encourage businesses to come.
Armstrong: Who heard of dubai
Before all these tall buildings existed in dubai?
Very few people knew dubai even existed.
But now it's certainly on everybody's radar,
And it's become, overnight almost, an international city.
Narrator: By the turn of the century,
Designers had met every conceivable challenge
In the race to build to the sky,
Blending innovative engineering techniques
And design features, architects and engineers
Were building structures stronger and bigger than ever
So that they could withstand the elements.
But in 2001, a new threat emerged
That would change the skyscraper industry
And the world forever.
The minute those towers came down,
People felt that something had been pulled from their hearts.
They felt that new york's skyline had been so defined
By those two buildings being on the tip of manhattan.
Narrator: September 11th, 2001,
Forced the world into a state of panic.
A flight loaded with 20,000 gallons of fueled
Crashed into one of new york city's
Most iconic landmarks --
The world trade center.
Today our fellow citizens, our way of life,
Our very freedom came under attack
In a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.
Narrator: In addition to the emotional damage,
A new threat to the skyscraper industry emerged.
At 110 stories, respectively, the north and south towers
Were demolished by the event.
Aminmansour: Those buildings were originally designed
To resist the direct impact of an airplane,
The largest airplane at that time,
Which was much smaller than the planes
That actually hit the building.
And in both cases, the structure actually performed very well.
The structure stood,
So the impact did not bring down the towers.
The downside was the impact
Dislodged quite a lot of the internal fireproofing.
Aminmansour: And then you have tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel
Burning at thousands of degrees.
Steel is very susceptible to high temperatures,
And as steel gets hot, it loses its strength and stiffness.
There was the intensity of the fire from the fuel load,
Obviously the fuel from the contents of the offices,
And the lack of fire protection
To some of the structural members
That did actually ultimately lead to the building collapse.
♪
Aminmansour: When a column fails, it suddenly buckles,
And when it buckles, it pops,
And that's why you see each floor popping,
And there's a wave that goes down the building
And demolishes the rest of the structure.
All the connections that were in the buildings
Of all of the lives, of all the history,
Of its place in history on the skyline
Were suddenly tragically transformed.
Ascher: The minute those towers came down,
People felt that something had been pulled from their hearts.
They felt that new york's skyline had been so defined
By those two buildings being on the tip of manhattan.
Willis: And so, the meaning of skyscrapers in the culture,
Which is never uniformly one thing or another,
By some cataclysmic event like this,
Will change its identity.
♪
Narrator: In the years that followed the 9/11 attacks,
Many aspects of life in america changed.
One of the most immediate responses -- building safety.
Now more than ever, engineers were compelled
To make new and existing structures safer.
We still don't design buildings to resist the direct impact
Of a 757 jetliner and not be damaged
Because that's just not possible.
We need to prevent those things in a different way.
Watts: But you can make that design in a way
That makes it more difficult to enter the building
Or come close to a building in the first place.
Narrator: In the aftermath of the attacks,
The international code council,
The association that enforces policy change
Throughout the construction industry,
Revised their building safety codes and standard practices.
New rules pertaining to elevator installations,
Additional stairways,
More robust fireproofing for buildings,
And impact-resistant wall installation
Were just a few of the policies put into place.
Ascher: So, your lobby has changed.
It used to be people walked in, they got to the elevator,
They went up. Now, largely,
In any office building of any size,
You have to be let through security.
♪
Narrator: The first tall building to emerge in new york after 9/11
Was norman foster's dramatic hearst tower.
There was no need to break ground
To create this groundbreaking structure.
The building was designed to make use of the structure
Already on-site.
Foster: Randolph hearst's vision in the 1920s
Was always that this would be the area
Of extraordinary media focus
Of which this building would be a part.
So, when we had the opportunity
Of seeking to create a tall tower,
It was an opportunity to preserve that base.
Narrator: The hearst tower was the first tall building
In the united states to use cutting-edge diagrid technology.
Aminmansour: Diagrid system is a diagonal grid structure.
Instead of having octagonal beams and columns
In the structure, you have diagonal members
That make up the beams and columns.
Ordinarily, they're on the surface of the building,
So that provides the vertical gravity support
As well as lateral load resisting.
And it makes the exterior wall very stiff again,
And you can use glass.
And it creates a nice aesthetic expression, also.
Narrator: The result of this
And other similarly new construction technologies
Meant that buildings no longer needed
To be supported by their bases,
And in this case, that allowed foster the ability
To repurpose the original hearst building.
So, by gutting that and making that the community heart --
The restaurant, the exhibition space --
Where everybody would meet,
The tower would somehow float above the base,
And the base was the anchor,
And you wouldn't confuse the old and the new.
Very, very clear differentiation.
This is 1928, that's art deco, this is today.
Narrator: Finding innovative ways to blend the new with the old
Is a constant challenge for architects,
Even those working in modern, urbanized cities like new york.
But in areas that are not as progressive,
Developing skyscrapers designed to embody the future
Is an even more difficult task.
Narrator: In the next 40 years,
The urban population across the world is expected to double,
So it is essential
That cities undergo meaningful transformations
In order to allow for sustainable change.
However, the challenge for architects and engineers
Is how to modernize without compromising on preservation.
Wood: Europe has, in some places, hundreds,
Maybe even thousands of years of tradition
And physical presence in a city
That a lot of american cities don't have
And a lot of asian cities don't have.
A significant tall building in a european city
Might take literally 15 years to come to fruition.
It'll be subject to public inquiry,
It'll be subject to everybody's views,
And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Narrator: Many have argued that the regulations and restrictions
In london have a direct correlation
With its low-rise building infrastructure,
Its legislation written to protect buildings
With historical significance.
Oldfield: The history of tall buildings in london
Has always been quite checkered.
They've always been quite controversial,
And over time, a series of legislations
Have been put in place to protect
Historic viewing corridors.
In london, for example, there's a tremendous amount of attention
To how that tower meets the ground.
You're kind of surgically inserting this tower
Into a very historic fabric.
Wood: Also respecting hundreds of years of tradition
And often physical restrictions on site.
Take the '50s and '60s, it was about social housing.
It was about where we housed people.
It was a solution to a problem, if you like,
But it's kind of changing now.
When I was a student,
When I was going into architectural practice,
It was a transition between keeping everything traditional,
And then the younger architects such as richard rogers
And norman foster who were diametrically opposed to.
They wanted modern, they wanted clean, contemporary architect.
They wanted abrasive but really forward-thinking architectures.
A building is a response to a need,
And if you think through some of those needs,
Maybe question what's been done before,
Then perhaps something comes out
In a way that is different from the past.
Narrator: The balance between the preservation of urban landmarks
And the acceleration of urban development
Is a global challenge,
And like most undertakings that affect growth,
Anything new or different comes with an array of critiques.
So it was no surprise when norman foster + partners'
Radical design for the 30 st mary axe building
Attracted its fair share of opposition.
The design philosophy behind that building
Is a personal passion in which permeates this practice,
And that is an awareness of the importance of sustainability.
And the building is an attempt with nature
That is naturally ventilated
For something like more than 70% of the times.
So it's the opposite of a sealed, glass,
Air-conditioned box.
Brooker: We're not just putting glass on building.
You're using glass that allows a lot of daylight
To come through it,
It filters out all of the heat-giving properties
That you don't want inside.
Narrator: Conceptually, 30 st mary axe
Incorporated both modern design elements
And technologically advanced structural features
On the interior of the building.
Morris: Inside, it was all about space,
About how these spaces interacted with each other,
So they weren't pure floor plates.
That comes from an architect
Who understands kind of the social aspect
Of how high-rise buildings interact.
Brooker: People absolutely responded to that.
They behave very differently in the same area
If it's closed in and tight, lower ceilings, pulled-in walls.
If it's open and taller and loftier and it's designed,
That's one of the great things that you are able to manipulate.
Narrator: On the exterior, the building was made
Of over 250,000 square feet of glass
Arranged in diamond-shaped panes.
Out of the 7,429 panes of flat glass
That covered the exterior of the building,
The only curved piece was located at the top.
The decorative gray-tinted glass
Was designed purposefully to draw the eye upward.
For the people on the outside, I think that's a very good thing
Because buildings are transparent.
You can see through them,
So they're not this mysterious closed cell.
It's quite a gentle curved form,
But it pulls in and tightens into the base.
The whole square -- open space is very precious
In the city of london. They don't have many of them.
So soon as the sunshine hits the space,
It's packed with people.
Narrator: Despite its unusual shape, the building has been recognized
As one of the most distinctive skyscrapers in london,
Its form so unique that it has even been given a nickname --
The gherkin.
Foster: That building became symbolic of the city of london
As a metropolis,
So it's captured something in the popular imagination.
And we can all try and psychoanalyze that,
But the reality is that it's symbolic of a place.
♪
Narrator: Like foster + partners, taipei provided architects
With free reign to build skyscrapers
That would draw up on the country's rich history.
But even though designers were thriving
In the lucrative region,
Engineers were met with earth-shaking challenges.
Narrator: By the early 21st century, china's own liberty island,
Otherwise known as taipei,
Was in the middle of a massive skyscraper boom.
Since the economy was thriving,
The opportunity for designers to build taller
Was not just an aspiration.
It was encouraged.
Even though the economy was rock solid,
The weather created many engineering challenges.
Taiwan is very high-wind area with typhoons.
At the same time, it's high seismic region
With a lot of earthquake events.
Oldfield: When we build the tallest buildings in the world,
The wind pushes on tall buildings
And creates a lateral load
That we have to resist using additional structural material.
As you get super tall, kind of beyond 400, 500 meters,
It's wind that dominates the design.
That means working with the wind-tunnel laboratories
Quite a lot to test our ideas out.
What many people don't realize is that
When wind hits the surface of the building in this direction,
It's the movement of the building
In the perpendicular direction that is critical.
When wind hits the building,
It creates a pressure on the building
And pushes it back slightly.
But the air has to go around the building.
Baker: Generally goes around in a pattern
Where it goes first to one side and then the other, back again,
And as it goes by, it'll create these vortices in the air.
Lavery: If you've got the same structure all the way up,
It'll organize itself
And you'll start to get this dynamic movement,
Which really creates problems and amplifies forces.
Aminmansour: So, what you want to do is to confuse the wind
So that these vertices
Do not sort of have an opportunity to organize.
You and I cannot change the speed and direction of wind,
But we can design our buildings in such a way
That they are subjected to smaller loads.
Narrator: In addition to wind patterns,
The designers of taipei 101
Had to consider seismic activity
To design a skyscraper that can absorb the energy of the waves
Throughout the entire building.
Taipei 101 is a perfect example of a structure
That takes seismic activity into consideration.
To build up, the engineers had to drill down
Through 200 feet of dirt and over 66 feet of bedrock.
Poon: We developed a dual structural system.
We still work with a steel core.
We still mainly use a steel structure,
Which is an elastic structure better for earthquakes.
And steel structure is lighter than concrete structure.
It will reduce seismic load
Because the heavier the structure,
The more earthquake load you will absorb.
We also used a full perimeter of the building
To be part of the structure,
Working with the tower core with a perimeter mega frame,
And also with outrigger system
Tying, connecting the tower core with the exterior frame.
Narrator: In effect, the structure was strategically designed
To trick the wind.
To ensure stability, an 800-ton counterweight was added,
Which suspends between the 87th and 91st floors.
This is an 800-ton pendulum
At the top of the building over four stories,
Which is connected to a series of shock absorbers.
What happens in a typhoon scenario
Is the wind will blow on the building
And the pendulum will convert the movement energy of the wind
Into heat energy in the shock absorbers.
So it's a redundancy mechanism to protect the building
And to protect the occupants
In those very high wind scenarios.
When the wind blows in one direction,
The tuned mass damper will swing in the opposite direction
To counteract the building movement.
Oldfield: One of the problems with tuned mass dampers
Is they take up floor area at the top of the building,
So as a developer, you're losing four stories.
So what better way to try and make some of that money back
Than to hang that pendulum in an atrium
And to make that a kind of observation level?
Narrator: Proving to be a technological feat,
Taipei 101 drew inspiration
From the jin mao tower in shanghai
And the petronas in kuala lumpur
To become a cultural masterpiece.
Some suggested the skyscraper resembled an elongated pagoda,
Symbolizing protection and achievement.
Others believed it looked like a shoot of bamboo,
A plant admired for its strength and resilience.
And of course, the number eight is omnipresent
In its floor plan,
Bringing good fortune and abundance to all.
Taipei 101 set the bar high
For those seeking to build to the sky.
We're gonna find ways to go taller and taller.
We still got a long way before we need to worry about
Anything really bringing those to a stop
In terms of, you know, going as high as we can.
I'm often asked the question, you know, how tall can we go,
And technically, there's no limit.
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