Advance Construction Hihg Rise
Advance Construction Hihg Rise
Advance Construction Hihg Rise
Diagrams illustrate the effect of belt truss and outriggers in stiffening a core-frame structure. On
the right, the bending moment decreases in response to increasing stiffness provided by the belt trusses.
Myron Goldsmith Superframe 80+ story high rise
The research on tall buildings at IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) under Mies van der Rohe and Fazlur Khan of SOM led to new
concepts on how tall buildings might efficiently resist lateral forces. Myron Goldsmith’s thesis project proposes a super structural
frame, detached from the envelope, and capable of resisting all the lateral forces at the perimeter of the building where it can do so
more effectively.
Chestnut-Dewitt Apartment Building Brunswick Building
framed tube tube in tube
The Chestnut-Dewitt apartment building (Chicago, 1961-65) and the Brunswick Building (Chicago,
1962-66) were the starting points for Fazlur Khan and SOM’s application of the concept of a framed
tube structure for high rise buildings.
One Shell Plaza Skidmore Owings & Merrill Houston, Texas 1971
52 story office block “tube in tube” structural type. All lightweight concrete. Matt foundation.
Alcoa Building (Truss frame) Skidmore Owings & Merrill San Francisco, CA ca 1965
Effect of increasing building height on weight of structure per unit area.
Effect of perimeter trussing to stiffen structure. John Hancock Building, Chicago, USA
John Hancock Center SOM / Bruce Graham / Fazlur Khan Chicago 1970
Office level floors 26 - 33
Street level
Apartment level floors 82 - 92
Bank of the Southwest Helmut Jahn and Wm LeMessurier Houston, Texas 1982
IFC2 Rocco Yim, Cesar Pelli Hong Kong 2002
Design Issues Tall Buildings
• Structural system selection: for a given height, certain systems will be more efficient.
shear frames and core structures: 0 - 30 floors
truss-frames: up to 40 floors
modified shear frames (belt-outrigger systems) and partial tubes: 50 - 100 floors
pure cantilever tubes and mega-structures: > 100 floors
• Formal considerations
core centered versus displaced cores (Hancock vs. HSBC)
orthogonal straight or stepped profile versus tapered profiles (Hancock versus Sears)
self-contained enclosure versus interior voids (Hancock versus National Commercial Bank of
Jeddah)