A TV series examining the world’s most innovative skyscrapers begins next week with an examination of the $5bn One World Trade Center building in New York, designed to be the tallest and “safest” building in the western hemisphere.
The five-part Channel 5 series Super Skyscrapers looks at how the planet’s tallest buildings are breaking boundaries, not just in terms of height and speed of construction, but also with their advanced engineering and technology designed to make them greener, stronger, smarter and more luxurious than any of their predecessors.
Episode one airs on Monday at 7pm and follows the final year of exterior construction on 1WTC, the controversial replacement for New York’s Twin Towers, devastated during the tragic 9-11 attacks in 2001. The programme will include interviews with Ground Zero master planner Daniel Libeskind, and head of construction for the building’s owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Steve Plate, plus scientists, engineers, iron workers and curtain wall installers.
Episode one of Channel 5’s Super Skyscrapers focuses on New York’s One World Trade Center
1WTC will rise 124m taller than the Twin Towers and its deceptively simple faceted facade will conceal a high strength structure and sophisticated anti-terrorist measures.
It stands atop a 57m high, windowless concrete base with blast-proof walls strong enough to withstand an enormous 680kg truck bomb. The base twists upwards to form an elongated square anti-prism cloaked in highly blast-resistant glass. Its road-facing windows are made from even stronger blast-resistant plastic.
Emergency stairwells will be very wide with 9m thick reinforced concrete walls and their own air supply, designed to provide fast and safe exit. Other fire safety measures include concrete protected sprinkler systems and biological and chemical filters throughout the ventilation system.
Even the interior design is prepared for terrorist attack, with specialist wallpaper able to withstand the impact of a wrecking ball and curtains that can absorb the impact of a blast and provide a shield from incoming debris.
Episode two of Super Skyscrapers will look at the Leadenhall Building, better known as the Cheesegrater, designed by Sir Richard Rogers and built by main contractor Laing O’Rourke for client British Land and Oxford Properties.
Episode three is about the Shanghai Tower in China
The 224m-high tapered diagonal tower is the tallest of its type to feature a steel mega structure on the outside. Its distinct asymmetrical shape meant irregular settlement in the foundations and compression in the structure, which meant designing the building to be erected slightly off vertical so it would settle in its correct form.
When the building reached the 19th floor, steel along the sloping face was tensioned to pull the structure back to the vertical, this process was repeated every seven storeys. The tower also stands on stilts designed to accommodate an open air courtyard at the base and the site’s remarkably tight footprint led Laing O’Rourke to build much of the structure off-site using its in-house developed Design for Manufacture and Assembly system, including the cores, basement and building services.
Every element of the structure was modelled in BIM software, including material properties, and put through simulations, the final design going through 37 iterations.
Episode three will examine Shanghai Tower in Pudong, billed by Channel 5 as “the world’s most luxurious skyscraper”, which at 632m high is the tallest building in China. It was designed by US architect Gensler and is currently under construction by Shanghai Tower Construction Company.
Episode four will examine the pioneering environmental technologies installed in the One57 tower in Manhattan, being built by Lend Lease Project Management & Construction based on designs by French architect Christian de Portzamparc.
