Would a mile-high skyscraper ever be possible? Explore the physics behind some of the tallest buildings and megastructures in the world.
I’m a confirmed City Kid and love skyscrapers and how they make a city’s skyline beautiful or less so. So there’s a fascination for the idea of a mile high skyscraper. But is it just a lack of desire/money or physics that prevents it from happening?
A little of both. Given the right site and design, there’s no doubt a skyscraper that tall could be built, (it’s just mostly more of the same technical challenges that face the building of modern ones.) but the costs probably pretty much go up as the enclosed volume fo the building. Filling such a building with paying tenants is another thing entirely, because you will need a LOT of them. And building it will require a gargantuan up-front investment, likely an order of magnitude greater than what the tallest building today cost.
OTOH, I remember back in the 70’s discussions about how the entire population of our city could be comfortably housed in a cubic arcology a mile on a side, which would free the several hundred square miles of the metro area for parkland.
“You can do it, but it’s not a good idea or worth the trouble” describes … most urban planning “solutions”, I find.
No. And that’s because it’s simply an inefficient concept. Elevators would take up too much interior real estate to make the remaining, usable sqr footage more expensive than the surrounding market.
Unless you have a tycoon with endless capital, an ego bigger than 5,280 ft., and the brain of a fruit fly, then perhaps, yes there could be a mile-high building.
I worked at 1 Liberty Plaza for a number of years. It’s 54 floors high; our office comprised the 21st floor. I remember the first time I noticed it actually rocking back and forth during a very windy day. It was unsettling, to say the least.
Mile-high buildings? What are we compensating for?