How is the first floor of a 100 story building able to hold all that weight?

Question

How is the first floor of a 100 story building able to hold all that weight?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Don’t think of it as the first floor holding the weight. The building has a skeleton, and each floor is “hung” on the supports of that skeleton individually. The core of the building is typically a grid of steel and concrete sitting on a concrete base underground, and is designed to distribute the total weight of the building evenly down to the foundation.