Essays on Skyscrapers

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Introduction The Empire State Building is an engineering and architectural feat of its time. One of the most remarkable landmarks in New York City, the Empire State Building is the tallest building that was built in the 1930s and held that position for more than 40 years until it was surpassed by the World Trade Center building in 1972. The Empire State Building was constructed as the backdrop of the Great Depression that happened right after the stock market crash of 1929. But despite the economic challenges, the builders were able to finish the construction in a ...

Many Americans today tend to believe that Chicago is among the top cities that have developed and used its territory wisely to create not only comfort for its residents but also amazing and great possibilities, with the new era of technology and architecture. Windy City, that is how Chicago is nicknamed, had extended its territory drastically, especially the territory of downtown. The city now is full of amazing glass skyscrapers which may be seen almost from all parts of the city. This amazing city annually welcomes millions of tourists, who come to see and discover the best Chicago attractions ...

Ningbo’s newly completed Central Business District (CBD) belies its status as one of China’s oldest cities. The austere downtown landscape is the equivalent of architecture’s white-washed wall: a place of erasure, forgetting, and dubious progress. With the completion of Wang Shu’s Ningbo Museum in 2008, however, the Ningbo of the present is confronted by the forgotten landscape of its not too distant past. A craggy mountain of a building inspired by the region’s natural topographical features as well its unique crafts and architectural traditions, the Ningbo Museum is not simply an obligatory nod to ...

Introduction

Civil engineering and its related fields are very diverse and entail both structural design and architectural work. Structural engineering as we can deduct from the term ‘structure’ deals with the physical components of a given design. For example, in the house construction process, the structural engineer considers all the aspects of materials to be used and consults with the architect to ensure the durability of the home. On the other hand, architectural engineering refers to the technology of incorporating the basic functional aspects of a given design to make sure that an ambient environment has been created. My journey ...

Visual Literacy: Thomas Hoepker 9/11 Photograph

According to Liu, the rapid advancement of science and technology is influencing significant transformation in human communication systems (1259). The visual element of communication is now being utilized widely with images, color, and other multimodal resources being used for more than entertainment and illustration (Harrison 46). Visual messages are being used to convey significant meaning (Liu 1259). The visual culture is becoming popular due to its ability to communicate instantly and universally via the Internet (Bamford 2). As such, people should be able to decode and interpret the various visual images that are exposed to them every day to ...

Critical Assessment of an Intervention for Sustainability

Characteristic of the Place I’ve chosen Hong Kong as a site for this paper. Its total territory is around 1 108 square kilometers that is twice less than the territory of Tokyo or Moscow (Central Intelligence Agency, 2016). At the same time, more attention is paid to the region of Kowloon peninsula as the most densely populated area in Hong Kong (more than 7000 people per square kilometer) (Central Intelligence Agency, 2016). The Kowloon City is more specific site of Hong Kong for analysis in this paper. The chosen region differs by the high population density, ecological and ...

Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest building and was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architects, who have been bestowed with the “Global Icon” award. The design of the high-performance building makes use of cutting edge technology and carries cultural and historical influences. The architects faced several challenges when building a tower of this height such as wind, heat, humidity, gravity and earthquake forces. The essay looks at the advanced technical and engineering skills used to create Burj Khalifa and how a skyscrapers’ design should respect cultural values and make the best use of space utilities and add to ...

Overview

The Burj Khalifa boasts the accolade as the tallest structure in the world (Baker, 2009). The construction of this building surpassed several construction records that had been set by previous record holder skyscrapers. The recording-holding height is not the only interesting aspect of the structure. The construction of the building took six years. The construction of the building required the input of more than thirty contracting companies and over twelve thousand workers drawn from over one hundred countries. A construction project of this magnitude is faced with various challenges (Baker, 2009). In additional, sound geotechnical, structural, and economic aspects ...