Tall buildings: search for a new typology

[N.B. Online version contains abstract and supporting narrative only due to copyright restrictions.] Tall building design, despite 130 years of development, has not advanced to a satisfactory state, especially on environmental/sustainability grounds. Most Tall Buildings historically seem to have been designed as either vertical extrusions of an efficient floor plan (the ‘commercial’ approach), or as stand-alone pieces of high-rise urban ‘sculpture’ (the ‘sculptural-iconic’ approach). In both cases the main relationship with the urban setting is either a commercial or a purely visual one, with the tall building usually dominating. This has led to the syndrome of tall buildings as ‘isolationist’ architecture – stand-alone, non-site specific models that are readily transportable around the cities of the world. This has served to create an alarming homogeneity across global urban centers – a creation of a ‘one size fits all’ skyscraper ‘mush’ which rejects, in some places, thousands of years of local vernacular traditions. This is especially true of cities in developing nations, where to import all things ‘western’ is often to be seen as progressive and modern. Thus the vast majority of tall buildings internationally follow the standard template of the rectilinear, air-conditioned, western ‘box’. In addition, tall buildings have become synonymous with the greatest excesses of energy expenditure – in both embodied construction and operation. Though there are definitely advantages tall buildings can offer, both in creating more sustainable patterns of life through higher density and also through the potential for greater renewable energy generation at height, there is no doubt that in their current form, most tall buildings are energy-profligate. In short then, many of these tall buildings are contributing to the degradation of both the local (cultural) and the global (climate change) around the world. It does not, however, need to be this way. Tall Buildings have the opportunity to reinvent themselves as the typology for a sustainable urban future – focused centers of live, work and recreation with innovative forms, technologies and environments to face the challenges of the future climate-changed world, whilst also contributing to the continuing local culture of a place. This new typology needs be inspired by the cultural, environmental and vernacular traditions of the location. This is important in maintaining the cultural integrity and continuity of any urban domain, but especially in developing countries which are at risk of adopting wholesale western urban models (and mistakes) at the expense of more appropriate local solutions. In short, tall buildings and cities need to be inspired by the specifics of place – physically, culturally and environmentally. This submitted ‘PhD by Publications’ – consisting of a Narrative and six published papers – explain how the author’s research has contributed to this central thesis; the quest for a new typology for tall buildings which are appropriate to the local, the global and the major challenges of the age

Multi-storey residential buildings and occupant’s behaviour during fire evacuation in the UK: Factors relevant to the development of evacuation strategies

Purpose – The paper aims to investigate human behaviour during fire evacuations in multistorey residential buildings through a focus on the challenges and obstacles that occupants face. Any variations in response behaviours that are relevant to the evacuation strategies/plans in the UK context of occupancy typical of multi-storey buildings in large cities. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review was conducted to identify the factors occupants face and also the decision-making of occupants regarding methods of egress. A mixed research method was adopted using interviews and a questionnaire survey. The findings from the interviews and survey are benchmarked against the information gathered from the literature review. Findings – The paper identifies various challenges that occupants face when evacuating a multi-storey residential building. In terms of the decision-making process, the research results evidence that occupants could be given more information on the evacuation procedures within their specific building. The paper also finds that occupants remain reluctant to use a lift during evacuation in fire event, irrespective of any signage clearly stating that is appropriate to do so in the context of modern lift technology. Originality/Value – This paper contributes to the body of knowledge available on the evacuation of multi-storey buildings located in large cities within the UK, outlining potential areas for future research, focused on providing an insight of the behavioural decisions made by the occupants make when evacuating a building in the event of a fire

THE LACK OF FIRE SAFETY KNOWLEDGE AND IMPLEMENTATION THE CASE OF HIGH-RISE BUILDINGS

High-rise buildings are growing rapidly in number around the world. They are becoming important landmarks that mark out certain geographical areas. The fires of high-rise building have many characters not found in traditional low-rise buildings, like the variety of blazing factors, ways of fire spreading, and difficulty of evacuation. Hence, the protection features of conventional fire methods are not sufficient in designing towers. The paper, at first, summarizes the characteristics of high-rise buildings and fires, the unique features of Tall Buildings and the special life safety requirements for the high-rise buildings. Consequently, the topic of fire and life safety codes implementation during the design and construction phases should be brought to the forefront into the building design process, in order to improve the skills of architectural engineers concerning the integration of safety and fire protection methods. Then, case studies have been selected from PETRONAS tower Malaysia, MARINA tower Beirut, and BURJ KHALIFA ,UAE; which are designed by various legislations. This shows that there is a direct link between design outcomes and the legislation of buildings

Modelling the impact of sky-bridges on total evacuation for high-rise buildings

This study examines the impact of sky-bridges, as an egress component, on total evacuation of a high-rise building by using an evacuation model named Pathfinder. Five scenarios, with different combination of aspects such as height of the building, number of sky-bridges (and the subsequent inter-distance between them), and people allocation have been simulated. The comparison between the results from the simulations indicates that sky-bridges significantly shorten the total evacuation time if used by all occupants above or at each refuge floor. Furthermore the comparison between the scenarios with different heights and the same inter-distance between the sky-bridges shows that the total evacuation time is approximately the same, as the buildings are divided in zones containing equal number of floors. However the comparison between two buildings with the same height but different inter-distance between the sky-bridges point out that the total evacuation time increases with increased inter-distance between the sky-bridges and vice versa

Tall buildings: search for a new typology

[N.B. Online version contains abstract and supporting narrative only due to copyright restrictions.] Tall building design, despite 130 years of development, has not advanced to a satisfactory state, especially on environmental/sustainability grounds. Most Tall Buildings historically seem to have been designed as either vertical extrusions of an efficient floor plan (the ‘commercial’ approach), or as stand-alone pieces of high-rise urban ‘sculpture’ (the ‘sculptural-iconic’ approach). In both cases the main relationship with the urban setting is either a commercial or a purely visual one, with the tall building usually dominating. This has led to the syndrome of tall buildings as ‘isolationist’ architecture – stand-alone, non-site specific models that are readily transportable around the cities of the world. This has served to create an alarming homogeneity across global urban centers – a creation of a ‘one size fits all’ skyscraper ‘mush’ which rejects, in some places, thousands of years of local vernacular traditions. This is especially true of cities in developing nations, where to import all things ‘western’ is often to be seen as progressive and modern. Thus the vast majority of tall buildings internationally follow the standard template of the rectilinear, air-conditioned, western ‘box’. In addition, tall buildings have become synonymous with the greatest excesses of energy expenditure – in both embodied construction and operation. Though there are definitely advantages tall buildings can offer, both in creating more sustainable patterns of life through higher density and also through the potential for greater renewable energy generation at height, there is no doubt that in their current form, most tall buildings are energy-profligate. In short then, many of these tall buildings are contributing to the degradation of both the local (cultural) and the global (climate change) around the world. It does not, however, need to be this way. Tall Buildings have the opportunity to reinvent themselves as the typology for a sustainable urban future – focused centers of live, work and recreation with innovative forms, technologies and environments to face the challenges of the future climate-changed world, whilst also contributing to the continuing local culture of a place. This new typology needs be inspired by the cultural, environmental and vernacular traditions of the location. This is important in maintaining the cultural integrity and continuity of any urban domain, but especially in developing countries which are at risk of adopting wholesale western urban models (and mistakes) at the expense of more appropriate local solutions. In short, tall buildings and cities need to be inspired by the specifics of place – physically, culturally and environmentally. This submitted ‘PhD by Publications’ – consisting of a Narrative and six published papers – explain how the author’s research has contributed to this central thesis; the quest for a new typology for tall buildings which are appropriate to the local, the global and the major challenges of the age

Evaluating a holistic energy benchmarking parameter of lift systems by using computer simulation

At present, there are benchmarking parameters to assess the energy performance of lifts, e.g. one in Germany adopted by VDI (4707-1/2), one internationally published by ISO (BS EN ISO 25745-2:2015), and the other in Hong Kong adopted by The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government. These parameters are mainly checking the energy consumed by a lift drive without considering real time passenger demands and traffic conditions; the one in Hong Kong pinpointing a fully loaded up-journey under rated speed and the two in Europe pinpointing a round trip, bottom floor to top floor and return with an empty car, though including energy consumed by lighting, displays, ventilation etc. A holistic normalization method by Lam et al [1] was developed a number of years ago by one of the co-authors of this article, which can assess both drive efficiency and traffic control, termed J/kg-m, which is now adopted by the HKSAR Government as a good practice, but not specified in the mandatory code. In Europe, the energy unit of Wh has been used but here, Joule (J), i.e. Ws, is adopted to discriminate the difference between the two concepts. In this article, this parameter is evaluated under different lift traffic scenarios using computer simulation techniques, with an aim of arriving at a reasonable figure for benchmarking an energy efficient lift system with both an efficient drive as well as an efficient supervisory traffic control

Modelling of a rope-free passenger transportation system for active cabin vibration damping

Conventional vertical passenger transportation is performed by lifts. Conventional traction-drive electrical lifts use ropes to transfer the rotational motion of an electrical motor into a vertical motion of the cabin. The vertical passenger transportation system discussed in this paper does not use any ropes, the motor directly provides a driving force, which moves the cabin. This new propulsion is realized through an electrical linear motor. The use of the linear motor requires a new design of the passenger transportation system (PTS), which includes reducing the weight of the car through lightweight construction. The reduced stiffness of the lightweight design renders the construction more vulnerable to vibrations. In order to improve ride quality of the transportation system it is necessary to develop new concepts to damp the vibrations. One way to increase stiffness characteristics of the system is to introduce active damping components to be used alongside passive damping components. It is essential to derive a dynamic model of the system in order to design and also later control these damping components in the best possible way. This paper describes the fundamental steps undertaken to derive a dynamic model for designing and controlling active damping components for the new type of vertical PTS. The model is derived as a Multi-Body System (MBS), where the connections between the bodies are modelled as spring damper elements. The derivation of the MBS is demonstrated on a transportation system, consisting of three main components: a sledge, holding the rotor of the linear motor; a mounting frame, which is used to provide support for the cabin; and the actual cabin. The modelling of the propulsion system, thus the electrical part of the PTS, will not be the focus of this work