Why are skyscrapers built thin, instead of stacking 100 arenas on top of each other?
In: Engineering
Lack of access to windows and natural light has a severe negative effect on people’s mental health.
Air speed impact that,
The wider the building more air pressure will be on walls. It is one of reasons buildings have curved structure,
Plus if you stack arens on each other the weight on lower walls will be too much (even with reinforced steel).
Because it would not be useful. Simply put, you have to think beyond the structure. How about water, sewage, heating and cooling, ventilation. How do you provide emergency services in case of fire? How about if the power goes out – can people easily leave. Will people get stuck in the middle of a huge building with no way out?
How will people get in and out in emergencies and in normal times? How do you make enough parking for vehicles. Can someone get from one side of the building to another without walking miles? How do you deliver heavy goods to the very inside of the building?
Buildings must serve a purpose and must do so with some efficiency and benefits. Simply building “bigger and bigger” does not make sense.
The entire point of skyscrapers is to wring out the maximum amount of available square footage in a given plot of land. Since the cost of the land is generally based on the two dimensional footprint, the more floors you add the more you offset an otherwise prohibitive land cost. Taxes might also play a factor here as well.
An arena sized skyscraper would kind of be the worst of both worlds; expensive in both land cost and prohibitive in terms of engineering since it would be immensely heavy. Usually a big wide building such as a warehouse or factory are built in places where land is cheap in which case it’s more cost effective to make the building longer/wider than taller. Tall thin buildings are constructed in high density areas where commercial/office real estate is very expensive and so will be tower shaped to get as much usable space available.
Look into “air rights” in NYC. Not a lot of people know that cities have made rights to air space and how tall buildings can be. These right don’t just pertain to the building itself but those around it too in regards to accessibility to light and “space pollution”
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I haven’t seen anyone mention it yet, but Wind. When you get the real tall skyscrapers, they are designed to sway and flex in the wind. When you get broad structures like an arena, not only does it catch a lot more wind, it can’t flex nearly as well. A large rigid structure that can’t respond to winds is a recipe for disaster.
Because real estate is priced in square feet but buildings are built in cubic feet
And so little real estate has contiguous ownership
The real reason that none of these people have mentioned is that it would require a foundation unreasonably large to stop the building from toppling over or sinking into the ground that it would be impossible to build
Most skyscrapers are used for either residential, office or hotel space. Something that people highly value when using buildings is having windows and natural light. You can’t charge as much for windowless rooms, even if they are in areas with high real estate prices.
The other element is land acquisition. Acquiring enough land for a stadium footprint is very difficult. It’s insanely difficult in expensive city centres where skyscrapers make economic sense.
Structurally it would be a lot easier to build a wide building. Many of the issues with tall buildings relate to how slender they are; being wider would make things like wind and earthquake loads a lot less critical.
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