WEBVTT - Skyscrapers and Vertical Cities: Part One 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:15.600 Forward Thinking. Hey that everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.680 the podcast that looks at the future and says, new 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:22.680 cities by the sea, skyscrapers are winking. I'm Jonathan Strigling, 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.400 I'm Lauren talk about and I'm Joe McCormick. And today 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:27.480 I think we need to start with the fact that 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.480 it's something that we've talked about on this podcast before. Sure, 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:32.840 it's it's something we come back to a lot because 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.640 it is one of the big trends that's influencing the 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:39.920 way human civilization develops, and that is the urbanization trend, 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.960 which has been going on since the Industrial Revolution. Really yeah, well, 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.639 I mean one might argue it's basically been going on 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.200 since the what would you say, like the major last 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:53.320 civilizational collapse. Would that be the collapse of the Roman Empire. Yeah, 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.640 but you know, you really saw a move from pastoral 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:02.200 to urban once mechanization really started taking all. Yeah, at 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:06.200 any rate, that's the trend we're talking about to launch 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:10.600 this episode. Well, it's certainly taken off in the past centuries, 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.760 so definitely you can you can definitely say it's then 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:18.920 For example, according to the twenty fourteen World Urbanization Prospects Report, 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:21.560 and that's put out by the United Nations, in nineteen 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.360 fifty thirty percent of all the people alive were urban 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:29.639 living in cities. By twenty fourteen, that number was fifty 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.080 four percent. So that's a pretty big jump, right, more 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.080 than half now, right, And by twenty fifty they are 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.560 expecting that a full two thirds of human beings, sixty 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.200 six percent of all the people alive, are going to 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.640 be living in cities. Which, on one hand you might 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.200 be like, yeah, so I know cities are more populated 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.560 than the country side, but just think about it for 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:52.680 a second. How many people are going to be alive 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.720 in twenty fifty. I think they've predicted about what nine 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:58.560 to ten billion? Yeah, in that Yeah, the prediction ran 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.040 vary quite a bit, but yes, somewhere more than we 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:04.280 have now. Yeah, so two thirds of that nine to 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:08.600 ten billion going to be living all in less than 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.360 one percent of the surface area of the planet. Right. 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.880 And so we're seeing not just a lot of people 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.040 moving to cities, but obviously cities, certain cities are growing 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:21.280 very rapidly, some of which have reached a level that 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.280 we now refer to as megacity. We actually did a 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:29.280 podcast on the rise of megacities in When did we 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.600 do that? That would have been in twenty fifteen July 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.400 of twenty fifteen, and there were two episodes, really what 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.400 one was called the Mega City Era and the other 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.240 was called Will Earth Become coarsont Oh. That one was 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:43.480 a lot of fun where we looked at the planet 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.440 on Star Wars that's just one giant city and said, 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.600 is that even possible? Is that? Is that desirable? Is 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:54.600 that physically Okay, yeah, yes, it's desirable. No, it's a 0:02:54.639 --> 0:03:01.120 city boy right, yeah, city mouse right. So but if 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:03.480 you're interested in those topics, you can go check out 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:06.560 those things. Essentially, the idea is that the number of 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.680 cities with more than ten million inhabitants in the same 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:13.480 city has been going up. In nineteen fifty, I think 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.640 there were only a couple cities on the whole planet 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:17.760 that met this criteria New York City, which was in 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.120 the lead, then was followed up by Tokyo, and then 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.200 if you look at today now there are twenty five 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.960 total cities that have more than ten million people in 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.160 THEMLOW Now is that a questionable number because what counts 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.880 as the city or yes, because like, for example, if 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.920 we were to take Atlanta, the city of Atlanta is 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.280 one particular area, right, it's not that it's not even 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.520 everything that's within what we call the perimeter RH two 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:48.640 eighty five. It's a highway that encircles part of the 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:52.600 metro Atlanta area. Yes, but the actual legal municipality of 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.680 the city of Atlanta is a place with boundaries, and 0:03:55.880 --> 0:04:00.160 only a certain number of Atlanta's population in giant air 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:04.280 quotes which you can't see because this is radio, only 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.680 only a small portion of that population lives within those 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.400 city limits. Right, But I either one would qualify as 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:11.440 a mega city. No, no, no, even if you even 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:13.560 if you looked at the entire metro Atlanta area, it 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:15.560 would not qualify as a mega city. Mega cities have 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:19.000 to have more than ten million people. But if you, 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.120 you know, depending on how you define it, you've got 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:23.919 about twenty five cities that make that list. Topping the 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.480 list now is Tokyo. Tokyo has more than left New 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.960 York behind. Oh yeah, Tokyo. If you look at the 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:36.080 Greater Tokyo area, which no one really agrees on what 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:40.800 that means, Like it that you have political divisions. On 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:42.919 one hand, you have the idea of well, where do 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.880 people live versus where do they commute into from to 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:47.520 go to work, that kind of thing. A lot of 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.680 different considerations to make there. But in general, you're talking 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.559 around thirty four million people in the Greater Tokyo area. 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:57.080 I think you can be sure you've left the Tokyo 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.600 area when people are speaking like Russian or and not 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.719 Japanese anymore, unless you're in Little Russia in Tokyo, in 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:07.440 which case you might actually still be there. But no, 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:08.840 there are a lot of other cities that are in 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:16.000 that list as well, Seoul, Shanghai, Guangshu, Delhi, Mexico City, Beijing, 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:19.560 lots of others. So in New York City, by the way, 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:25.520 the only really US city that is commonly referred to 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:27.840 as a mega city. Yeah, a lot of this urbanization 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:29.800 that we've seen in recent years. I mean, it's happening 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:33.800 all over the world, but especially in Asia. Yeah, and 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:39.719 so the massive flow of humankind into these geographically centralized, 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:47.160 sort of small areas is not without its challenges and concerns, right, No, yeah, sure, 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:50.520 I Mean the biggest one I would argue is the 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.160 idea of sprawl, like we were talking about with Metro Atlanta, 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.280 that it sprawls out over multiple counties. Now, to be fair, 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.080 Georgia has about as many counties there are people living 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:05.800 in the state, but the Metro Atlanta area covers tons 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:10.480 of counties in Northern Georgia. And because of that sprawl, 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.280 you start to ask yourself questions. You say, well, if 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:17.599 Atlanta were to go on a similar uptick in population 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.200 the way some of these cities are projected to, huh, 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.760 where would the people go? Would we just continue to 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.680 grow outward Well, there's some reasons that the cities obviously 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.719 don't want to just continue to outwardly expand like to 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.800 grow horizontally. I mean, one of the fungus exactly what 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.920 one would be the impact on the natural landscape. Yes, 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.760 so we have an interest in preserving earth to a 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.400 certain extent. I mean, we do like to see ourselves 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:47.279 as the conquerors of nature. But yeah, I mean we 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:50.159 don't want to just swallow up the landscape around the 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.120 city with just more and more and more city. Yeah, 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:54.760 which is one of the things that we talked about 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.160 in the in the Coracant episode. Yeah, right, and it 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.880 also kind of defeats the purpose of what a city is. 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.000 I mean, the city's supposed to be getting all your 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:05.440 people and your resources and your brains together in a 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.359 close by area. I mean, if you've spread out to 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.240 be one hundred miles across, is this still a city? 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.320 Does it function the way a city functions well? And 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:18.280 especially concerning like like the quality of life for the residents, 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.680 because first of all, it's going to make getting food, 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:23.680 getting local food at any rate, a little bit more 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.120 difficult because you can't grow farms in the middle of 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.720 a city block. You could have an urban garden, certainly, 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.400 but that's not really the same thing. Yeah, well, yes 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:33.960 you could. And one of the solutions to that, of course, 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.720 could be vertical farming, which we've talked about on the 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:38.960 show before, but is going to relate to the main 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.920 topic of today's episode. Well. And also we in that 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.520 episode on vertical farming, we brought up the fact that 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:46.560 you can't be certain that you would be able to 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.800 produce enough to meet the needs of your population. Yes, 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.320 so that's a big concern. So even with vertical farming 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.200 and little urban gardens and things of that nature, you 0:07:56.280 --> 0:08:00.000 still have a very strong need for agriculture, which means 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.640 you cannot continuously sprawl out with your city or else 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:07.000 you'll suck to impact your ability to grow food. Yeah. Sure. 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:11.440 Another problem with sprawl being that eventually, like you're in Atlanta, 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.280 it's relatively common for people who live far out in 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.000 the suburbs to work in the city and have commutes 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:22.520 of a couple hours each way. Before we moved to 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.200 are the offices that we're in now, my commute was 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:27.680 sometimes an hour or an hour and a half, and 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.559 that was only I'm guessing right now, like maybe seven 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.200 miles away from the office. Yeah, maybe, I mean, it 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:35.480 really wasn't that far. I mean, yeah, it's a problem 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.240 of of surface streets and traffic is closer to my 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.280 house and now it takes me an hour to get here. 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:45.880 In an hour, well you're taking foot Yeah, yeah, you're talking. 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.199 You're the foot power of the future. At our old office, 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:52.839 I took public transportation, so it took me forty five 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:54.760 minutes door to door, and now it takes me an hour. 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.679 And as I joke about it, honestly, if I were 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:00.959 to drive, it would take me ten minutes skating, sure, 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.480 but that's aption in Atlanta yeah, oh of course, yeah, yeah, 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:06.960 we're very lucky to be able to do that. But 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.280 that does bring up another issue, which is pollution that's 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.120 caused by all of that commuter traffic. Right, So sitting 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.560 in your car for an hour and a half, you know, 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.200 crossing many miles of slow moving traffic stop and start. 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:24.760 This is not efficient. You're wasting energy resources and you're 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.079 creating a lot of carbon emissions in the process. Not 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.199 to mention stress, just the stress of having to navigate 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:34.240 through a city, trying to get through traffic. So of course, 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.440 the bigger the sprawl gets, unless you happen to be 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.200 fortunate where your place of work is close to where 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.720 you live, you have to deal with that, as does 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.920 everybody else, and all of that has a huge negative 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.920 impact on quality of life. As well as the pollution aspect. 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.800 You also start getting into issues of just a waste 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.960 of resources in terms of duplication of businesses that could 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:01.240 be serving a larger clientele than they currently are, which 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:03.480 which you know, kind of comes comes back around to 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:05.520 the concept of like sitting in a Starbucks and looking 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.760 across the street and seeing another Starbucks. That sort of 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:12.120 thing you start talking about having you know to to 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:18.000 create the water systems, the electrical systems, the sturdy outer walls, 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.360 to create all of these buildings that are that are 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.360 serving the same function. Yeah. So, I mean, like this 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.880 true story guys in my hometown, like where I grew up, 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.080 which is in rural Georgia, which is no longer rural 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.320 now it's developed, but back when I was growing up 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:35.480 it was there is now a It's a very similar 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:37.280 story to what Lauren was saying about being in a 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.520 Starbucks and looking across the street and seeing another Starbucks, 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:46.079 except it's not Starbucks, waffle house house. Look across five 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.280 lanes of traffic at another waffle house, and that's the 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.480 story of Georgia. It sure is. Oh well, I mean 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:54.920 there are some streets in Georgia where getting to the 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:58.160 other side of the street is a commute, that's true. Yeah, 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.160 and I'm not even kidding there streets. There are streets 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:03.679 in Atlanta where once you're on one side of them, 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:05.560 you just better stay there for the rest. That's where 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.679 you live now. Yeah. Yeah, we've we've talked about that 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.640 in another episode two where we were chatting about redesigning 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:15.400 cities to be better suited for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.560 that kind of thing. But all of this is why 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:23.360 the idea of sprawl is not very attractive. So if 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.000 people are in fact going to be moving into cities, 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.120 which we expect to see that trend continue, how do 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.959 we grow without getting bigger, like having our borders expand. Well, 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:36.840 if we can't grow out, then we have to grow 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.679 up or down. Hey, hey, we haven't talked about subterranean 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.480 life on this show. We can touch on that in 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.000 this episode. So the main topic of today, maybe we 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:52.560 should have announced earlier minutes ago, it is super tall buildings, 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.320 the upward expansion of our cities, and eventually the creation 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:58.520 of a vertical civilization. Now, one of the main things 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:01.120 we're going to be talking about is tall buildings growth 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.680 up from the ground. But it's also worth noting that 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:07.200 we could expand vertically in both directions. We could keep 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.600 going deeper into the ground as well, depending upon obviously, 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.640 depending upon the geography of the area you're talking about. Yeah, 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.719 it would work less well in Miami, Yeah, no, or 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.520 anywhere in Florida really, because you start digging down a 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.320 little bit too far and you start eating water. Yeah, 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:28.760 but the advantages of vertical expansion in cities, especially if 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:32.920 you want to increase occupancy efficiency, is quite obvious, and 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.160 I want to use a very brief analogy. Okay, let's 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:38.079 think about a Erubic's cube. Now, if you just got 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.640 one layer of a Rubics cube, it's three squares by 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.000 three squares. How many squares is that total? Not nine? 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.280 Now you just add two levels to that, and it's 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.040 not that you've doubled it, but so you've got cubed 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:53.360 now on one side of the cube. So they're twenty 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:57.680 seven squares in total. So it's quite clear how expanding 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:02.199 upward on an already existing city block really really increases 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.240 the amount of people you can get into a closed 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.959 space together. Right, You can create a lot more floor 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.880 space that way than you would if you were to 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:15.679 just try and build outward, especially considering things like geographic limitations, 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.560 whether it's you know, mountains or a river, anything along 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:22.520 those lines, Building up maybe a much better option. Can 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:24.560 I tell the folks at home that also, I'm just 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.240 holding a Rubik's cube right now. Yeah, we have a 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:29.760 studio Rubix cube. So it's actually driving me a little 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:33.360 crazy because it used to be solved and now it's not. Oh, 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:35.000 and I do want to put in here that that 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.839 super tall buildings don't solve all of the problems of 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.199 fitting people into an area, as say, traffic patterns will 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.200 tell you there's lots of infrastructure issues that you have 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:46.680 to work in there too. But yes, supertall buildings are 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:52.199 a great way to physically literally put people into a 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.920 small footprint of space. Oh, definitely, they come with plenty 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:56.560 of their own challenges, and we're going to have to 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.400 talk about those and later on in this episode. Sure. 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:01.480 I think I think one thing we can look at 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.880 is if we take an actual example from real life 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.320 and to use that as sort of a way of 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:12.200 talking about not just the challenges but also some of 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:16.040 the solutions that we've seen so far in designing buildings 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.800 that are really quite tall. Yeah, one place that I 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:22.000 think is a good place to look if you want 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.240 to see this already being implemented. Obviously, this isn't some 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.440 idea we just made up. Cities are already expanding upward, 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:30.760 and they have been for a long time, but they're 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:35.040 embracing this idea even more lately. There are I think 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.960 just a few years back, there were something like thirty 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.920 super tall buildings in the world, and now they're more 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:45.960 like ninety or something. So people are really embracing this idea, 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.080 especially in many of the cities of the Middle East 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:52.080 and Asia. But one place to look is Shanghai. So 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.480 I would like to encourage you if you have access 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.440 to a computer right now and just to go look 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.240 this up. There have been a couple of articles that 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:02.960 have compared these photographs, but you don't even have to 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.080 look at those. You can just Google search the images. 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:09.280 Look at Shanghai, the downtown area the city of Shanghai 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:13.440 in the nineteen eighties or early nineties or so, and 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:18.440 then look at it now. Yeah, it's very dramatic the change. Yeah. 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.480 And one of the most dramatic buildings, I would argue 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:25.600 in that new skyline is the Shanghai Tower. Oh yeah, 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.760 and it is currently the second tallest building in the world. Yes, 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.320 it is not the tallest, but the second tallest. It 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:36.280 began construction or they began construction on the Shanghai Tower 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:37.760 in two thousand and eight. Now that was after a 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:41.480 couple of years of you know, researching it, designing it, 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.920 you know, making certain that all the ducks were in 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.040 a row before they broke ground on construction, because if 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:53.640 you go online start looking up people having conversations about 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.160 this building, those go back to the early two thousands. Yeah, 0:15:57.200 --> 0:15:58.600 but in two thousand and eight that's when they actually 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.360 started construction, and it conclcluted just last year, in twenty fifteen. 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.840 But I think that design process really did help, because 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.200 the Shanghai Tower seems to me to incorporate a lot 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:13.200 of really smart design decisions that help give me a 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.520 better picture of what the future of super tall buildings 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.840 really does look like. Yeah, and it's a tall sucker. 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:21.880 I mean six hundred and thirty two meters tall, which 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.720 is two thousand and seventy three feet, and it has 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:28.720 one hundred and twenty one above ground floors, so they 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:30.480 did go below ground too. You've got you know, some 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.040 basement levels in there too, not where they keep the 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.400 trolls and the dungeons. That's right, that all of the 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:39.120 gelatinous cubes. Yeah, I love the D and D references. 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.640 So in total, the building has five hundred twenty one 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:48.359 thousand square meters of floor space, so half a million 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.840 square meters of floor space across those hundred and twenty 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.720 one floors. For our American friends. A meter is more 0:16:55.760 --> 0:17:02.200 than a foot asmous amount of space. It has one 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.760 hundred and six elevators which can move its speeds of 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.919 eighteen meters per second, which is terrifyingly fast. Yeah. I 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:12.400 bet that's fun for your ears. Yeah, that's fifty nine 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:16.120 feet per second. Yeah, so almost six stories, almost six 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:19.879 floors per second. Imagine going one one thousand and you've 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:22.919 just shot past six floors. You went from floor one 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:26.560 to six. And this is going to touch on something 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:28.800 that we will have to address later in the episode. 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:32.359 But some of the challenges of designing buildings this tall 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:37.560 is occupant flow. Sure. I mean yeah, once you start 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.040 making something that's more like a vertical city than just 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.840 a regular building, you have to think of its elevators 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.040 and up and down corridors, kind of like you would 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:51.160 design major thoroughfares in a city. We're in a nine 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.959 story building where our office is trying to get an 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.920 elevator at lunch occasionally. We have a bank of four 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.359 elevators that are in the main elevator space, right, and 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:04.840 another two that are off to the side. Off to 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:07.760 the side one of those two, one of those two 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.560 is operational for us, and the other one isn't and 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.320 there's a secret elevator that's operated by a strange man 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.159 who sort of resembles Steve Bashimi, and he speaks in 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.960 little coons. That's true. But sometimes Julie's in there and 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.080 she gives you important information about science. This is also true. 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:26.960 That hasn't happened in a long time. But the Bank 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.520 of four, one of the issues there is that often 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.400 they aren't all working, and we only have nine stories, 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.120 like only nine floors in this building. But if you've 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.240 ever tried to catch an elevator when those aren't working, 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.040 you wait a long time. Now, imagine that across a 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.280 one and twenty one floor building. Yeah, you might. You 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:49.840 might have to bring a lunch with you whenever you're 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.879 going to go and use the elevator, unless you have 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:56.480 really good elevator flow control. So this particular speed of 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.800 elevator means that you could go from the basement level 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.520 to the observation deck in less than a minute. Now, 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:05.600 I suspect, with one hundred and six elevators, although I 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.119 couldn't find any confirmation of this, that they probably have 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.040 certain floors where you would have to transfer from one 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:15.520 elevator to another, because, as we'll talk about later, if 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:19.520 you want a super long elevator shaft, there's some big 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:21.920 problems that come along with that. Yeah, so my guess 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:23.760 is that there are probably some floors where you have 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.680 to actually get off the elevator, transfer to a different elevator, 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.160 and continue upward. But that is just a guess. And 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:33.159 if you work in Shanghai Tower, please contact us and 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.240 let us know. I'm very curious about that. Yeah. Yeah, 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:38.760 it's also funny that they have fans to control the 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.639 atmospheric pressure so that you don't end up having too 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.200 many problems with your ears, not when you're going up. 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:46.960 They said that when you're going up, it's not so bad. 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:49.840 It's when you're coming down and the pressure's increasing that 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.920 there's a problem. So the fans actually pull air out 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.840 of the cabin wow as you descend, so that the 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.960 transition is more gentle on your ears. Otherwise it could 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:05.760 be uncomfortable. Yeah. Another really interesting aspect of the design 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.919 of this super tall building is the exterior. If you 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.560 look at a picture of Shanghai Tower, it's not just 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:15.600 a giant block going straight up. It twists. It looks 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.800 like like a little cinnamon twist. It's a twisty shape. 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.919 It's about one hundred and twenty degrees rotation on the twist. 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:24.560 And if you look to that, you might just think, well, 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:26.800 maybe they were just trying to be kind of quirky 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.600 and ye look eye catching and to like kind of 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:31.800 thumb the nose at the rest of the world. But no, 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:35.840 according to the architecture firm that designed it, that's very functional. Yeah. 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:40.800 Apparently it reduces windload on the building by twenty four percent, 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:43.440 which is obviously really important when you've got that much 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.880 surface area. Yeah, that the wind can push against and 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.920 you can sometimes get typhoon strength winds in that area. 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:53.040 You want to be able to make sure that you 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.720 minimize any risk to the building or its occuments. Yeah. 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:58.959 One thing I know I've read in one of our sources, 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:00.960 I can't remember which one, was talking about how the 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:03.160 higher and higher you go, when once you get into 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:08.159 super tall and megatall building territory, the forces of the 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.560 winds that you're dealing with applying pressure to the building 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:15.600 are as strong as dealing with earthquakes. Well, and I 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:19.280 just think about, like, if you were to hold a 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:24.639 read of some sort something a semi flexible like a ruler. Yeah. Like, 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:26.679 and you have something that's that's got a little bit 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.040 of give to it, and you you just do a 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:31.080 little motion at the bottom. You see how much it 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.560 gets magnified towards the top. Yeah. Well, again, if you're 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:36.840 working on the one hundred and twentieth floor of this building, 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:38.840 you don't want there to be that much sway. By 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:41.640 the way, I got seasick at the office today. Yeah. 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:48.480 According to according to that architectural firm Ginstler, the give 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:51.280 that would happen if they didn't have these measures in 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:55.800 place would be five feet of sway, which just pretty significant. Yeah, 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:58.800 that's horrifying. And it goes back to what we were 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.800 talking about in our episode about weather, our episodes about 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:05.320