• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.1-16
• /
• 2018

The emergence of tall buildings in the late $19^{th}$ century was possible by using new materials and separating the role of structures and that of non-structural walls from the traditional load-bearing walls that acted as both. The role of structures is more important in tall buildings than in any other building type due to the "premium for height". Among the walls freed from their structural roles, façades are of conspicuous importance as building identifiers, significant definers of building aesthetics, and environmental mediators. This paper studies dynamic interrelationship between the evolution of tall building structural systems and façade design, beginning from the early tall buildings of skeletal structures with primitive curtainwalls to the recent supertall buildings of various tubular and outrigger structures with more advanced contemporary curtainwalls.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.307-320
• /
• 2023

Tall buildings are built with an abundant amount of materials, including structural materials, coming from our limited natural resources. Tall buildings that began from about 10-story tall office towers have evolved to over 150-story tall mixed-use megastructures. As a building becomes taller, structural material requirement to resist lateral wind loads becomes exponentially larger. Therefore, it is crucial to employ efficient structural systems and optimize their design, which will contribute to sustainable vertical built environments through preservation of resources. Tube type structures with large perimeter diagonals are among the most efficient structural systems for tall buildings. Developments of braced tube, braced megatube, diagrid structures, and their optimal design strategies are reviewed. Superframed conjoined towers, produced by interconnecting multiple clustered braced tubes, are presented as a new design direction to achieve not only structural but also architectural and social sustainable design goals.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.261-271
• /
• 2020

The 2020 National Building Code of Canada (NBC) and the 2021 International Building Code (IBC) both include Tall Wood Buildings (TWB) and are hailed as documents responsible for the proliferation of Mass Timber construction. Mass Timber construction is critical to reducing the carbon footprint of the construction industry; a sector acknowledged as being one of the greatest contributors of global annual CO₂ emissions. Origine, a 13-storey multi-residential building erected in 2017 in a previously unsuitable site, is currently the tallest all-wood building in North America. This article describes the challenges overcome by the designers and client as they engaged with code officials, building authorities, and fire-service representatives to demonstrate the life-safety performance of this innovative building. It also traces the development of the "Guide for Mass Timber Buildings of up to 12 Storeys" published in Quebec and how it has enabled other significant Tall Wood projects across North America.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.3 no.3
• /
• pp.191-198
• /
• 2014

The tall building and super tall building has been a common building type in China, with multiple functions and complex geometry. Composite construction is broadly used in tall building structures and constitutes the mixed structure together with concrete and steel constructions. The mixture of the constructions is purposely designed for specific area based on the analysis results to achieve the best cost-effectiveness. New types of composite construction are conceived of by engineers for columns and walls. Material distribution is more flexible and innovative in the structural level and member level. However the reliability of computer model analysis should be verified carefully. Further researches in the design and build of composite construction are necessary to ensure the success of its application. Composite or Mixture Index is suggested to be used as a performance benchmark.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.29-36
• /
• 2019

Tall buildings are one of the most viable solutions to deal with the global phenomenon of rapid population increase and urbanization. While tall buildings are an essential building type to accommodate ever-growing urban population, as buildings become very tall they also produce many critical design challenges related to social interactions, emergency egress, structural systems, etc. While many different design solutions can be sought to resolve these challenging issues of tall buildings, this paper investigates potential of conjoined towers in producing more livable and sustainable megatall building complexes with an emphasis on their capability in efficiently providing exceedingly tall building structures.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.43-50
• /
• 2021

A tilted tall building is actively constructed as landmark structures around world to date. Because lateral displacement responses of a tilted tall building occurs even by its self-weight, reduction of seismic responses is very important to ensure structural safety. In this study, a smart tuned mass damper (STMD) was applied to the example tilted tall building and its seismic response control performance was investigated. The STMD was composed of magnetorheological (MR) damper and it was installed on the top floor of the example building. Control performance of the STMD mainly depends on the control algorithn. Fuzzy logic controller (FLC) was selected as a control algorithm for the STMD. Because composing fuzzy rules and tuning membership functions of FLC are difficult task, evolutionary optimization algorithm (EOA) was used to develop the FLC. After numerical simulations, it has been seen that the STMD controlled by the EOA-optimized FLC can effectively reduce seismic responses fo the tilted tall building.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.203-208
• /
• 2023

The implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) design for tall building structures is an essential solution for addressing critical challenges in the current structural design industry. Generative AI technology is a crucial technical aid because it can acquire knowledge of design principles from multiple sources, such as architectural and structural design data, empirical knowledge, and mechanical principles. This paper presents a set of AI design techniques for building structures based on two types of generative AI: generative adversarial networks and graph neural networks. Specifically, these techniques effectively master the design of vertical and horizontal component layouts as well as the cross-sectional size of components in reinforced concrete shear walls and frame structures of tall buildings. Consequently, these approaches enable the development of high-quality and high-efficiency AI designs for building structures.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.69-83
• /
• 1999

The most common used control device on tall buildings and high-rise structures is active and passive tuned mass damper (ATMD and TMD). The major advantages of ATMD and TMD are discussed. The existing installations of various passive/active control devices on real structures are listed. A set of parameter optimization methods is proposed to determine optimal parameters of passive tuned mass dampers under wind excitation. Simplified formulas for determining the optimal parameters are proposed so that the design of a TMD can be carried out easily. Optimal design of wind-induced vibration control of frame structures is investigated. A thirty-story tall building is used as an example to demonstrate the procedure and to verify the efficiency of ATMD and TMD with the optimal parameters.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.243-250
• /
• 2016

Today's architectural design trend based on the recognition of pluralism has led to multiple design directions for all building types including tall buildings. This contemporary design trend has produced many complex-shaped tall buildings, such as twisted, tilted, tapered and freeform towers. Among many different structural systems developed for tall buildings, the diagrid system, with its powerful structural rationale and distinguished aesthetic potential, is one of the most widely used systems for today's tall buildings. This paper studies structural performance of diagrid systems employed for complex-shaped tall buildings. Twisted, tilted, tapered and freeform tall buildings are designed with diagrid structures, and their structural performances are investigated. For the twisted diagrid study, the buildings are twisted up to 3 degrees per floor. In the tilted diagrid study, the angles of tilting range from 0 to 13 degrees. The impact of eccentricity is investigated for gravity as well as lateral loads in tilted towers. In the study of tapered diagrid structures, the angles of tapering range from 0 to 3 degrees. In the study of freeform diagrid structures, lateral stiffness of freeform diagrids is evaluated depending on the degree of fluctuation of free form. The freeform floor plans fluctuate from plus/minus 1.5 meter to plus/minus 4.5 meter boundaries of the original square floor plan. Parametric structural models are generated using appropriate computer programs and the models are exported to structural engineering software for design, analyses and comparative studies.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.27 no.6
• /
• pp.439-449
• /
• 2018

Wind loading of a tall building built amidst a group of buildings in urban environment is always greatly affected by shielding effects. Wind tunnel tests were carried out to assess the shielding provided by a row of low-rise or medium-rise buildings upstream a square-section tall building of height-to-breadth ratio 6. Mean and dynamic wind loads on the tall building were measured at different wind incidence angles and presented as interference factors (IFs). It is found that presence of a row of upstream buildings provides significant shielding to the tall building. At normal wind incidence, the mean along-wind loads and all components of fluctuating wind loads on the tall building are always reduced by shielding. Vortex shedding seems to still occur on the upper exposed part of the tall building but the vortex excitation levels are largely reduced. The degree of shielding is found to depend on a number of arrangement parameters of the row of upstream buildings. Empirical equations are proposed to quantify the shielding effect based on the wind tunnel data.