Skyscrapers as built today seem to have reached a 'height limit'. Many super tall buildings are going up all over the world, especially in Asia, but none of these substantially exceed the height of the previous world's tallest building.
We know that this is not due to structural reasons, so why is there this 'limit'?

• ID# 103.2 (reply to #103.1) - 12 Feb 1999
  Don't know much about the issue or the "true" reasons, but the tallest ones built and immediately planned are indeed around the 450-meter mark. I haven't followed the subject of the Height Race, in fact, at all, but there have been rumours about Mahareshi Mahesh Yogi (of The Beatles fame ;^)) planning a building in India reaching the height of 666 m. Talk about meditating high...
  The reasons for the "modest" heights may be, again, economical. Although the much greater heights are possible to achieve, the cost of structurally strengthening the whole building especially against the force of wind can exceed the immediate benefit of the upper floors -- especially if the tower is tapering and the rentable floor area diminishes upwards. The possibility of earthquakes in certain parts of Asia (where the new behemoths would most likely rise) doesn't make the task any easier.
  It is also possible that the tower doesn't get enough tenants and the developer thus income to pay for the cost of construction, not to mention operation and maintenance, of the building. Otherwise it's dumping time...
  But if there's enough will, the new breed of super-tall structures will most definitely rise. ED
  • ID# 103.3 (reply to #103.2)
    From: Hermin ([email protected]) - 18 September 2001

    doesn't weight have something to do with it as well. I once heard an engineer on TV talking about the fact that they have basically reached the limits of steel. Any much higher and the steel would melt under the intense heat generated by the weight it holds up.

    • ID# 103.4 (reply to #103.3) - 18 September 2001
      Don't know about that, but the structural limits of steel are still to be reached. I guess that, in theory at least, even the "Mile-high tower" conceived by Frank Lloyd Wright is reachable -- the sanity of such an undertaking is another thing altogether... ED