October 13, 2024 • 41 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Over the last five years, the number of giant buildings
over three hundred meters tall has doubled. These are today's
super skyscrapers. I want to uncover the secrets inside these
mega structures. From the outside, they may be changing the landscape,
but what about the hidden worlds behind these vast glass walls.
(00:25):
They look set to change the way we live and work.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
One might see the period in which we are now
as a kind of golden age of the high rise.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
It's an incredibly exciting time because boundaries are always being
pushed and new innovations and technologies are allowing us to
build taller and taller.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
So it's a great revolution to be a part of.
From the Egyptians to the Romans and the Greeks coming
all the way up to modern times, humans have always
been aspiring to build tall.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Super skyscrapers are revolutionizing the way that we use tall buildings.
I'm starting my journey at a building which represents what
the last generation of skyscrapers were all about. Work built
in nineteen ninety one, One Canada Square in London's Canary
Wharf held the crown as Britain's tallest building for twenty years.
(01:22):
Every single inch of this building was conceived to make
it the most coveted office space in London. Until that
is you get to the very top. Hey, yeah, I've
been picked up. Obviously this is a highly secure area.
(01:43):
There are not many people who get permission to come
up here, but fortunately today I have been given permission,
so it's up with you. And not many people get
to see inside the iconic pyramid at the top of
this skyscraper. Reason this is the only space in the
building that isn't habitable. This feels like very restricted access
(02:07):
to be standing here right now. This building is more
about maximizing the space on the inside than the height
on the outside. It's the very last step to reach
the highest points here at number one kind of the
square there. It is right above me where the whole
(02:29):
building comes to a point. This feels amazing on two
hundred and thirty five meters above the ground, and my
heart feels it definitely. There's excitement up here. There's a
bit of adrenaline being up this high. Traditional skyscraper design
like this building here tend to make use of every
(02:51):
available space to cram in all that infrastructure that you
need to support life up in the sky, but more
modern design, tending to take a slightly different view on
what should be going on right at the top. In
today's generation of super skyscrapers hide a guilty secret. Large
(03:11):
parts of the building are for appearance only.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
It's a bit of a controversial topic of how tallest
skyscraper is where you're measuring it from the top of
the useful part of the skyscraper or the top of
the decorative part.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Nowhere is this more evident than in Dubai. This city
has five towers listed as the tallest buildings in vanity
height unusable height just for the sake of it. Across
these five, a remarkable thirty one percent of space is
completely wasted, and the most wasteful of them all the
(03:46):
world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. It stands at eight
hundred and twenty eight meters, but two hundred and forty
four meters of that is unoccupied. To put that into context,
that's the height as fifty London Route Master buses. These
vanity spires are just the tip of how the insides
(04:07):
of the old and new generation of super skyscrapers are
conceived completely differently.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
I just look at that youw.
Speaker 6 (04:16):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Fast forward twenty years and One Canada Square lost its
crown to Britain's very first super skyscraper, the Shard, completed
in July twenty twelve. The Shard has a total floor
space of twenty seven acres and I'm about to get
a glimpse of the secrets inside. This building was designed
(04:44):
to look like a shard of glass, hence the name,
but the use of glass in such abundance was about
far more than just aesthetics.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
So I think the skyscraper brings together people in a
different way than smaller buildings do. I also think the
way that modern skyscrapers are designed, with these very open
planned spaces, means that it's a much more social experience.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
What instantly hits me about the insides of this super
skyscraper is that this is no longer just about work.
It's all about offering an unprecedented view of the world
around it, from the observation deck on the seventy second
floor to a range of restaurants and bars. Do you
think restaurants and hotels in taller buildings that are becoming
(05:33):
more and more popular. Definitely, to a luxury hotel where
the rooms occupy floors thirty four to fifty two. This
building is no mere office space. It's a vertical city
with its own twenty four to seven economy. So what
(05:54):
does it take to support this hugely complicated infrastructure. And
whilst it's glass facade may offer the best views in town,
what are the secrets that stop these luxurious flaws becoming
a giant greenhouse?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
The holy grail of some high rise designers and builders
is to make a vertical city, to make a building
not only of the office or the residents, but to
incorporate so many of the functions which we know make cities,
which is really everything under the sun.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
As we increasingly begin living or working in these vertical cities,
I want to discover the secrets behind a successful life
in the clouds. These buildings are designed to work, rest,
and play, and I want to start with the workers.
How are super skyscrapers set to change the way we
(06:47):
all work?
Speaker 4 (06:49):
So the way we work has been evolving and changing
over time so incredibly quickly, and skyscrapers have kind of
contributed to that effect by accommodating a lot of people
in quite a small place. So in some ways, what
it's doing is increasing the density of workers in particular
parts of the city.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
This story began with the very first skyscrapers. The birth
of the skyscraper in the nineteenth century in New York
and Chicago gave factory owners and workers' space that was
both more humane and more efficient. Skyscrapers were designed to
be a better place to work. They've always been forward thinking.
(07:33):
The latest generation of super skyscrapers are designed to operate
twenty four hours a day and to allow it's workers
to find all their needs met in one building, even
if that means bringing the outside in.
Speaker 7 (07:46):
Local planners will take into account the projected numbers of
people that will come to the skyscraper over its lifetime
and factor that into the design of local public transport links.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Today's super skyscrapers need constant fear So how do you
provide goods needed by tens of thousands of workers without
gridlocking the streets. The answer you go underground. Beneath the
world's most famous super skyscrapers are miles of subterranean tunnels,
(08:17):
guaranteeing that thousands of goods are delivered every day. These
buildings are so sufficient and self contained, with entire transport
systems built around them.
Speaker 7 (08:28):
A new skyscraper obviously brings a lot of new people
into an area to work and to live and to play,
and those people need to have access to public transport
to get them to and from the building. They are
often located near major transport hubs, and sometimes the two
are integrated together into a major city intervention.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
But with super skyscrapers, it's not just about getting your
workers to the building. You need to give them an
incentive to come inside. I've come to a building which
has been nicknamed the Walkie Talkie, a structure with a
distinct bulge as it swells above its neighbors. Why there's
unusual shape, or part of the reason, is the astonishing
(09:12):
space right at the very summit, a space which possibly
gives us an insight to the future of working in
super skyscrapers. Twenty Fenchurch Street in London, or the Walkie Talkie,
was designed in two thousand and four. This thirty six
story building provides six hundred and ninety thousand square feet
(09:35):
of office space, and it tells a remarkable story about
how super skyscrapers must constantly innovate to keep their workers happy.
Speaker 7 (09:44):
As for modern world changes and we're able to work
from anywhere we want. Skyscrapers are having to change how
they operate and what they're for.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
The walkie talkie has been a controversial addition to London's Skyline.
But on the top floor there's a truly breath taking sight.
And this is it. This is the sky Garden. Boy,
(10:13):
is it impressive? Effectively? This is a public park one
hundred and fifty meters up in the air, and there
are elements of it here that have been designed to
be like the figurehead on the prow of a ship,
reaching out and giving you views right across the city
and even for those in the offices down below, as
(10:34):
a pack of the.
Speaker 8 (10:34):
News have you had?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
This is one of the highest landscaped gardens in the world.
Over one and a half million people have visited the
Sky Gardens since it opened, and I can see why.
But how much of this is for show and how
much is really about the working environment for the people
in the floors below? Hey, this is sas face, isn't
(10:56):
it it is? Can we go another a closer look?
All the way around? Ben Abel is one of the
team behind this remarkable space. There's a massive variety of
plants now, yes, yeah, so all the planting was done
by IQ Gardens. Wow, So tell me about this enormous
skygarden you've got up here. How important do you feel
that this is to incorporate spaces like this into the
(11:18):
design and build of new skyscrapers.
Speaker 9 (11:21):
It's really important because otherwise it's just a very uninteresting building.
It's just a workspace.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
You know.
Speaker 9 (11:28):
It's not just about getting as many people into an
office space as you can now, it's about making them productive.
It's all about wellness, about you know, making an environment
where people want to come and live and work. The
healthy you are, the more productive you are, you take
less sick days. So you can get all that into
your own design. People are going to be happier in
their workplace. Happier people are more productive. It's a it's
(11:50):
a simple formula really.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
The walkie Talkie was sold for a record breaking one
point three billion pounds in twenty seventeen. Super Skyscrapers are
big business, and the offices beneath the sky garden are
all fully let. Super Skyscrapers aren't just about making a
statement on the outside, they also need to match that
(12:13):
on the inside.
Speaker 10 (12:14):
There's a huge draft for the public to be able
to also experience skyscrapers, to be able to see the
cities from a different vantage point.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
I think they can act as big tourist attractions, for example,
because I know when I go on holiday, I always
like to go somewhere up high and look over the city,
get a feel for what the place is like. And
you know, by having bars and skyscrapers, it's attracting people
to come in there, go look at London, go look
at Shanghai, wherever you might be, and experiencing the city
(12:45):
from a completely different perspective that you just simply don't
get if you're standing on the ground.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
These high rise giants can be extraordinary places to work
or visit, but now for many it's becoming an entire
way of life. With more and more people choosing to
live their lives up in the sky and around the globe,
towers are getting ever taller to accommodate the demand. So
(13:22):
what are the secrets to living in super skyscrapers. One
building that gives us an idea is the super skyscraper
of the Moment, four three to two Park Avenue in
New York, the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere.
Speaker 11 (13:37):
Four three to two Park Avenue is completely remarkable because
it's so slender and it has all its structure on
the outside of the building. A thing that makes it
stand up is completely what you see the outside is
the concrete. There is no cladding. It's just a fantastic
conception of a super slender tall building.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Taller than the Empire State and the Chrysler Building. The
penthouse at the top of this super skyscraper sold for
ninety five million dollars. The developers are enticing big spenders
with luxury in the clouds. If you can afford it,
you'll have your own gain rooms and cinemas, swimming pools
(14:24):
and gyms. For what you're really paying for is an
extraordinary bird's eye view of New York from the massive
ten foot by ten foot windows.
Speaker 10 (14:35):
The ability to look out your window and see for
miles and miles as an appeal for a resident, and
the ability to be up in the clouds will certainly
draw very very luxurious type of development.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
But if money is no object, how luxurious could high
rise living get you? Imagine if you could create your
very own super skyscraper to become your dream home in
two thousand and six, Manchester's Beetham Tower was the tallest
(15:11):
residential building in Europe and when building it, architect Ian
Simpson saw a unique opportunity.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
When I first designed this building, I didn't know whether
I was going to live in it, but very quickly
once we got planning permission, I decided that yes, I
was going to occupy this top two floors. It was
an opportunity for me to create my own environment, which
is really important.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
To me, and Ian has certainly proved.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
That quite often with tall buildings and with apartments, you
don't have a garden inevitably, so I felt it would
be interesting to try and create my own garden at
level forty seven.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
But this ambitious conservatory in the clouds presented certain logistical issues.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
What I wanted in there were trees that were Mediterranean
and I love olive trees. We hoisted these thirty two
olive trees up from the ground and dropped them through
the roof before we sealed the top of the building up.
It was a completely mad notion to do that, but
I do like walking through the olive trees here on
(16:20):
a sunny day. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
The Beetham Penthouse is an extraordinary achievement, but is life
in the clouds only an option for those who can
afford it. I see these super skyscrapers as marvels of
modern engineering and design. That love them or loathe them.
They're here to stay and this is only the beginning.
(16:52):
Staggeringly sleek and towering tool, London Skyline's about to change
once again, with a host of new gigantic structures soon
on their way. I'm on my way to get a
private view of a development in the heart of London
which aims to find the balance between luxury, convenience and space.
(17:15):
The capital's highest residential skyscrapers are about to be usurped
by the arrival of another taller kid on the block,
One Crown Place. It will be a seven hundred and
seventy one feet high rise promising five style lifestyle amenities
across its two hundred and forty six apartments in its
early stages. This is a vast project headed up by
(17:39):
architect John Bushell after being reasy, what are we going
to have here? What we'll be occupying all of this space?
Speaker 12 (17:46):
Well, it's nearly a whole city block and it's a
mixed use schemes. There's lots of different things in it.
We have a terrace that we've repaired that will have
a fantastic hotalan retail around the base office and then
in the town as residential and at the between the
two lounges, terraces and things all for the residents who
live above. So there'll be lots of different things happening.
(18:08):
The owner's vision is this is busy all of the time.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I'm going to get a peek at what living here
might be like. So this is a showroom of a
typical apartment in their development.
Speaker 12 (18:18):
This is typical spacing. Big thing is to always make
sure enough covered space, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Maximizing the use of all the space you've got. Despite
its compact feel, this new development is once again about
selling the ultimate in sky high luxury. Who do you
envisage living here?
Speaker 12 (18:37):
The two people we're targeting are people who are working
in the city and want somewhere convenience right next to
what and people who have been living out of the
city who want to come back to the city to
relive their youth in the middle of the city.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Do we know roughly how much an apartment in this
development might cost.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (18:57):
I mean, the first thing to say is that this
is a lot cheaper than many tower locations right next
to the city here. I think probably about a third
of the units are under a million pounds and are
very nice.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So the big secret behind the new generation of super
skyscrapers is that they're turning more attention to wooing luxury homeowners.
The world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, offers more than
nine hundred apartments, and with expected completion in twenty twenty,
(19:34):
the Kingdom Tower in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, will stand at
one thousand meters tall, with the highest apartments on the
one hundred and fifty sixth floor. Meanwhile, the highest homes
in Britain are currently the ten apartments between floors fifty
three and sixty five of the Shard.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
So super tall structures for residential use are a fairly
new phenomenon and it's really interesting to see how this
is going to develop over time. I think humans we
just have a real fascination for height, We have a
real fascination for views, and I think that living in
these really super tall structures perhaps has that sense of aspiration.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Buildings like the shard the walky talkie in One Crown
Place offer us a glimpse of how these structures operate
as vertical cities. But now I want to take my
journey a step further to strip away the glamorous facades
and luxurious apartments to reveal the secret workings of these
super skyscrapers. From the fastest lifts in the world. Oh
(20:35):
my word, up to the forty fifth floor in just
thirty seconds. Ah that's affected my ears. Ah wow, that
is truly impressive. So the technology needed to transport water
a thousand meters up in the air. What does it
(20:56):
take to make these dreams a reality? Since the dawn
of time, man has reached for the skies, and today's
innovations and construction and technology are making those dreams a reality.
Speaker 11 (21:12):
Skyscrapers can go quite a bit higher than they are now,
but the limitations are going to be probably that structure,
and I think it's going to be the vertical transportation.
Speaker 13 (21:20):
Is going to be the limit on how high you
can go.
Speaker 14 (21:22):
Lifts are a vital part of skyscrapers and their success.
What's the point of having the area of a building
that's three hundred meters from the floor if you can't
get to it efficiently and safely.
Speaker 15 (21:35):
Manufacturing of lifts is a multi billion pound industry and
it all started with mister Otis who created this safety
lift in the middle of the nineteenth century. The safety
lift demonstrated if the cable broke, it wouldn't fall down
to the bottom of the ground.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
From the endeavors of mister Otis to the modern lifts
of today, it's a fascinating story of a race to
build them taller. And so how do the new generation
of super skyscraper lifts work. There's one extraordinary building in
London which reveals the secrets behind the latest in super
(22:14):
skyscraper lift technology. Opened in twenty fourteen, the Leadenhall Building,
affectionately known as the Cheese Grater, is home to the
world's largest and fastest suite of panoramic lifts. Now this
(22:40):
building is crammed full of lifts, twenty eight of them
in total, and most of them are these glass lifts.
They travel at eight meters per second from the lobby
where I was, Oh my word, up to the forty
fifth floor in just thirty seconds, and you only have
to look outside to get impression of that speed. Ah,
(23:03):
that's affect of my ears.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Ah Wow, that is truly impressive.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
These lifts are fast, but the real stunner is the
mold breaking design. Nothing comparable has ever been attempted before.
You can literally see the inner workings of the very
latest lift technology getting us even higher, even faster.
Speaker 7 (23:28):
One of the ways that we're looking to push lift
technology is to start using modern materials in the cables
and systems that move the lifts around.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
This innovative high tech lift technology has recently been spectacularly
employed in the world's second tallest building, the Shanghai Tower,
has just set three Guinness World records. This Chinese skyscraper
has the world's fastest elevator, the fastest double deck elevator,
(23:58):
and the tallest elevator are all in one building.
Speaker 7 (24:01):
One of the things that's limiting how high lifts can
go is how long you can make steel cables.
Speaker 13 (24:08):
By introducing carbon into cables, that become lighter, which means
you can have much longer links cable That obviously means
the list could travel further.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
The Kingdom Tower in Jedda, Saudi Arabia is expected to
become the world's tallest building when completed in twenty twenty
and a structure. This tool naturally requires an exceptional lift system.
In the past, the maximum possible length for a steel
lift cable was five hundred meters because of its weight.
(24:39):
But with a tower standing a kilometer tall, a radical
solution was required. Finished lift manufacturers kne have risen to
the challenge and developed the Ultra Road its secret carbon fiber.
This lightweight innovation means lift cables can now travel up
to heights of a thousand meters, carry heavier loads, and
(25:03):
last longer. It's a game changer. This new generation of
lifts is not only enabling super skyscrapers to reach new heights,
They've become an essential feature of the design works of
art in their own right and back here in Britain.
There's a secret behind the lifts at Leadenhall. To achieve
(25:25):
this level of high end design, the construction team opted
for an unusual approach. They built the lifts off site,
which were then installed in one piece. In fact, an
amazing eighty percent of this building was constructed off site.
This kind of prefabrication is changing the way the insides
of super skyscrapers are being created. I've come to a
(25:50):
construction site using a radical new building technique which sees
towers grow at the incredible rate of one story pole.
They're pushing skyscraper technology to the limit here at the
East Village project just outside London, with a process that's
known as a jump factory. An assembly line is housed
(26:12):
within a massive ten story tent. It controls every aspect
of the building's construction floor by floor. But the real
secret behind such rapid and efficient construction is pre fabrication.
Ninety eight percent of this giant structure is pre cast,
and everything else, from the bathroom pods to the utility
(26:35):
cupboards are made off site and then assembled here at
extraordinary speed. Mike Jennings is the operations director.
Speaker 8 (26:44):
Okay, Rob, here's one of the utility cupboards now one
level twenty four. Yeah, this is actually being connected up
as you can see, so it's a work in progress.
We've got all the comms, we've got the consumer unit,
and then underleath we've got the space for the washing
machine and the tumble drive.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
How many of these are being delivered to this building?
Speaker 8 (27:06):
Then, Mike, there's four hundred and eighty two of these
utility cupboards, one per apartment. We anticipate it takes about
three weeks less to actually construct this. In the factory,
you have specialists and all they do is actually build
one component on this.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
But the beauty of that as well is that you
know the space and access up here. You're not having
to bring all those people right up into the sky
to do this. They're doing it in a factory where
they can go from one to the next, to the next.
Speaker 8 (27:33):
To the next. One of the things about this, and
I think the beauty of actually getting some like to
be fabricated, is the tall buildings tend to have a
smaller footprint because they build in a stack fashion, and
so space is an absolute premium. So if you can
imagine something like this and you'd have a cast of
(27:54):
thousands all visiting this a different time, you haven't got
that because it's all done off sie in a real
saving forest.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
For this and for super skyscrapers under construction around the world,
it's a method that's incredibly fast. Completely pre built and
assembled bathroom units are craned up to each level and
simply slotted in.
Speaker 8 (28:17):
So here's the finished bathroom pod.
Speaker 16 (28:24):
I can't reladers gets the limited like that.
Speaker 8 (28:26):
It gets delivered exactly like that.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Building a completely fitted floor of a skyscraper in just
fifty five hours is incredible. So prefabrication and a factory
style environment is the secret to the future of super
skyscraper construction. It shaves months off the build time and
has minimum impact on the surrounding community and environment.
Speaker 15 (28:51):
The environmental concerns around skyscraper the amount of energy it
takes physically to construct them, and then the amount of
energy that you throughout their lifetime.
Speaker 7 (29:02):
Skyscrapers use a lot of material to go high. Environmentally,
we want to start thinking about how we use material
most effectively in our cities, and we need to start
asking the question is this appropriate in a sustainable age.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
With all this to consider, it's no surprise super skyscrapers
are not only competing for the title of the tallest,
but also the greenest. With one hundred and one flaws
and five basement levels, the Type A World Financial Center
is one of the tallest buildings in Asia. But equally
impressive is what's going on inside. This smart skyscraper has
(29:42):
an automated internal system that constantly monitors and adjusts its
energy supply, monitors its water flow, and evaluates system performance.
But as important as this technology is, it's unlikely to
be seen.
Speaker 10 (29:56):
One of the fundamental design issues within a skyscraper is
for it to be able to function and keep all
of the elements that are required for it to function
out of view. The skyscraper is an experience. It's a
journey from the street up into the sky, and it's
one that you want to be able to make as
(30:17):
seamless as possible, hide away things like power plumbing.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Skyscrapers often have secret flows in them which the users
of the building will never know even there. There's usually
one every about thirty stories in a skyscraper, and this
is where all the mechanical services are stored.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I've been invited to take a glimpse at one of
these secret floors at the Leadenhall Building. We may now
be able to construct the inside of these mega structures
more efficiently than ever before. But feeding a building that's
so high with power and water that takes some serious engineering.
Angelo Christu is the man responsible for Leadenhall's giant pump rings.
(31:00):
How are you good to see? Where have I come
into here? This is all very different. Suddenly, this is.
Speaker 16 (31:07):
The Chilip plant room ultimately the heart of the building,
the coolest room. Low pun intended.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Water is crucial to the way we live. The average
family home might use around three hundred and fifty liters
per day, but inside skyscrapers things are very different. They
can use over a thousand times that amount, with up
to thirty miles of piping to pump it round the building.
Speaker 7 (31:29):
You can have a think.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
Look absolutely help.
Speaker 16 (31:34):
So just to give you an idea of the pressure
that needs punks and pipes are holding. I think the
nuts and bolts from the collars are a pretty good
indication of the pressure.
Speaker 8 (31:44):
That's go improving.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
So actually, if you feel that as well as a vibration,
that's solut and that's water being pumped through there at
twenty five bar.
Speaker 16 (31:52):
It seems I mean, if you think that your home
boiler operates just over one one and a half bar,
this is twenty five times.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
So these are the pumps and what these are the
These are the chillers.
Speaker 16 (32:05):
These these children will tell us.
Speaker 12 (32:08):
Let's taken look round.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
In a house, the focus is on heating, but I
want to know why the emphasis in skyscrapers is on
keeping them cool.
Speaker 16 (32:17):
There's potentially up to five and a half thousand people
in the building, plus visitors, plus our own team of
one hundred plus. So first and foremost, you have body heat.
You only if you think about you have desktop pieces
which generate heats. You have printers, you have tea points,
you have kettles. The list goes on. If you lose
your chillers, the building could potentially shut down.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
That high tech can't work without these. Probably it's only
by peeling back the layers of vast super skyscrapers that
you appreciate how cleverly these buildings hide away the secrets
of their inner workings. The cheese greater shape of this
building is not just a quirk of the architect The
(33:01):
section I'm stood on here is called the north core,
and beneath me is where all the pipes cable work,
where the guts of the building are contained. Typically you'd
have all of that running through a central core in
a skyscraper. Separating it allows for an unprecedented amount of
(33:24):
usable space. Back inside the gesgrater.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
The most important part of skyscraper is definitely the core.
I like to think of it as the spine of
the building. It's the part that's crucially structural for helping
the building to stay up.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Within just a few generations, skyscrapers have gone from flights
of fancy to an everyday reality. But I want to
know what the future might hold for these cities in
the sky. How could our lives be set to change
as a result of these mega structures. Super skyscrapers will
be the next big game changes.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
I find it really interesting to think about the evolution.
So we look back one hundred and fifty years and
our skyscrapers were quite blucky. They were fairly ordinary, shaped
in a rectangular square and so on. We are now
starting to see some interesting geometry coming in, and I
think as time goes on, we'll see more wild and
wacky forms. They might get more sculptural kind of more
(34:29):
works of art.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Perhaps there's always an element of competitiveness between skyscraper developers
of who can build the tallest building, But whoever holds
that title, it's always such a short lived victory because
there's bound to be someone else that comes along soon
and builds an even taller building.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
So if I'm trying to make a prediction for what
the skyscrapers of the future will look like, I think
one trend. We're just starting to see the seeds of
are having really tall and skinny skyscrapers.
Speaker 6 (35:03):
Our brilliant architects and engineers will allow us to build
almost anything that we can imagine, and indeed many things
we can't yet imagine. There is talk of building complete
cities in skyscrapers, where you have a city in the clouds.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
And there's one continent that's changing the way we live
and work in these megastructures more than any other.
Speaker 13 (35:24):
I think if you look at, for example, skyscrapers in Asia,
a lot of that is due to the fact that
there is a mass population movement from the countryside into cities.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Skyscrapers are the best way of providing dense housing right
in the heart of cities where we need it, and
they're actually a really efficient way of using a very
small plot of urban land.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Asia now hosts seven of the ten tallest buildings in
the world and has more super skyscrapers than the rest
of the continents combined. So how is this part of
the globe leading the way? The Shanghai Tower is a
good place to start. Costing an estimated two point four
billion dollars, it stands six hundred and thirty two meters
(36:06):
tall and has one hundred and twenty eight stories every
single day are staggering. Sixteen thousand people can be accommodated
by the tower, and this is the future of super skyscrapers,
a bustling vertical world geared towards sustainable living. Forty different
energy saving measures have cut thirty four thousand metric tons
(36:28):
from its annual carbon footprint, making it the greenest super
high rise building on Earth. Throughout history, the most memorable
structures have been the grandest and the largest, but in
a future of tool buildings, architects will be buying for
a new title, the most efficient.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
We have high rise buildings which are more responsible in
the materials they use to have a smaller carbon footprint.
We have the potential for energy generation of solar and
wind power into our buildings.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
So one way that we might see skyscrapers actually being
a bit more self sufficient is that they might generate
their own energy. And one way that we could do
that is that we could actually clad the skyscrapers with
windows that are also photovoltaic cells or solar panels, and
so the skyscraper with lots of surface area could absorb
all this energy from the sun and then use that
(37:25):
energy for its own operation.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
And there's a surprising new twist in super skyscraper design
on the horizon.
Speaker 15 (37:32):
One of the latest skyscrapers to be proposed is a
huge one. I think at least seventy stories, and it's
going to be clad entirely in timber. That is probably
more sustainable than using steel in its construction. Well, how
you maintain a timber facade, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Timber has been used to make homes for more than
two thousand years, but it's now being heralded as a
life weight and sustainable way to build super skyscrapers. This
is the oak Wood Timber Tower. This revolutionary design is
still only a proposal, but if plans go ahead, the
(38:14):
eighty story tower could be the world's tallest wooden structure.
Oak Wood would provide over a thousand residential units in
the heart of London. But it's not just the materials
that could revolutionize the design of the next generation of
super skyscrapers. Designers are looking at how these giant structures
could now connect with each other. I begin to wonder
(38:37):
if the future of our cities might be about two
parallel worlds living side by side, a life on the
ground below a life up here in the sky.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
And I think where we start to see these super
tall clusters of skyscrapers coming together, you might actually have
multiple layers of skybridges connecting them up, so you actually
spend most of your day kind of at high leans
rather than having to come down to the ground very often.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
One of these new breeds of super skyscraper is in China,
which is looking to set new world records with the
highest horizontal skyscraper, the Raffle City, Chong King. This will
feature an extraordinary feat of engineering, a skybridge, the highest
(39:23):
in the world and measuring three hundred meters in length,
connecting four colossal towers. If we're set to live in
cities of high rises, then this design could give us
a glimpse of the future.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
The Harra's building is perhaps a vehicle for us to
incorporate and express some of our greatest advances in society
and our aspirations for our world.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
In cities so much of the land has already been
developed on, there's an increasing pressure on developing to provide
open spaces and public realms at the bottom of skyscrapers.
So I think in the future you're going to see
a lot of floating skyscrapers with very minimal structure at
the bottom.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
So from the next generation of wooden plyscrapers and cities
full of skybridges to extraordinary towers a thousand meters up
in the sky. These extraordinary super skyscrapers are defining our
twenty first century cities. There's an engineer. I'm not just
(40:31):
in awe of the sheer scale an ambition of these structures.
It's how they work that intrigues me too, the inner
machinery of these colossal giants. When new milestones are being set,
new ideas are coming to life, and where a brand
new way of living awaits us, all up here in
(40:52):
the sky.
Over the last five years, the number of giant buildings
over three hundred meters tall has doubled. These are today's
super skyscrapers. I want to uncover the secrets inside these
mega structures. From the outside, they may be changing the landscape,
but what about the hidden worlds behind these vast glass walls.
(00:25):
They look set to change the way we live and work.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
One might see the period in which we are now
as a kind of golden age of the high rise.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
It's an incredibly exciting time because boundaries are always being
pushed and new innovations and technologies are allowing us to
build taller and taller.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
So it's a great revolution to be a part of.
From the Egyptians to the Romans and the Greeks coming
all the way up to modern times, humans have always
been aspiring to build tall.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Super skyscrapers are revolutionizing the way that we use tall buildings.
I'm starting my journey at a building which represents what
the last generation of skyscrapers were all about. Work built
in nineteen ninety one, One Canada Square in London's Canary
Wharf held the crown as Britain's tallest building for twenty years.
(01:22):
Every single inch of this building was conceived to make
it the most coveted office space in London. Until that
is you get to the very top. Hey, yeah, I've
been picked up. Obviously this is a highly secure area.
(01:43):
There are not many people who get permission to come
up here, but fortunately today I have been given permission,
so it's up with you. And not many people get
to see inside the iconic pyramid at the top of
this skyscraper. Reason this is the only space in the
building that isn't habitable. This feels like very restricted access
(02:07):
to be standing here right now. This building is more
about maximizing the space on the inside than the height
on the outside. It's the very last step to reach
the highest points here at number one kind of the
square there. It is right above me where the whole
(02:29):
building comes to a point. This feels amazing on two
hundred and thirty five meters above the ground, and my
heart feels it definitely. There's excitement up here. There's a
bit of adrenaline being up this high. Traditional skyscraper design
like this building here tend to make use of every
(02:51):
available space to cram in all that infrastructure that you
need to support life up in the sky, but more
modern design, tending to take a slightly different view on
what should be going on right at the top. In
today's generation of super skyscrapers hide a guilty secret. Large
(03:11):
parts of the building are for appearance only.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
It's a bit of a controversial topic of how tallest
skyscraper is where you're measuring it from the top of
the useful part of the skyscraper or the top of
the decorative part.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Nowhere is this more evident than in Dubai. This city
has five towers listed as the tallest buildings in vanity
height unusable height just for the sake of it. Across
these five, a remarkable thirty one percent of space is
completely wasted, and the most wasteful of them all the
(03:46):
world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. It stands at eight
hundred and twenty eight meters, but two hundred and forty
four meters of that is unoccupied. To put that into context,
that's the height as fifty London Route Master buses. These
vanity spires are just the tip of how the insides
(04:07):
of the old and new generation of super skyscrapers are
conceived completely differently.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
I just look at that youw.
Speaker 6 (04:16):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Fast forward twenty years and One Canada Square lost its
crown to Britain's very first super skyscraper, the Shard, completed
in July twenty twelve. The Shard has a total floor
space of twenty seven acres and I'm about to get
a glimpse of the secrets inside. This building was designed
(04:44):
to look like a shard of glass, hence the name,
but the use of glass in such abundance was about
far more than just aesthetics.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
So I think the skyscraper brings together people in a
different way than smaller buildings do. I also think the
way that modern skyscrapers are designed, with these very open
planned spaces, means that it's a much more social experience.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
What instantly hits me about the insides of this super
skyscraper is that this is no longer just about work.
It's all about offering an unprecedented view of the world
around it, from the observation deck on the seventy second
floor to a range of restaurants and bars. Do you
think restaurants and hotels in taller buildings that are becoming
(05:33):
more and more popular. Definitely, to a luxury hotel where
the rooms occupy floors thirty four to fifty two. This
building is no mere office space. It's a vertical city
with its own twenty four to seven economy. So what
(05:54):
does it take to support this hugely complicated infrastructure. And
whilst it's glass facade may offer the best views in town,
what are the secrets that stop these luxurious flaws becoming
a giant greenhouse?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
The holy grail of some high rise designers and builders
is to make a vertical city, to make a building
not only of the office or the residents, but to
incorporate so many of the functions which we know make cities,
which is really everything under the sun.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
As we increasingly begin living or working in these vertical cities,
I want to discover the secrets behind a successful life
in the clouds. These buildings are designed to work, rest,
and play, and I want to start with the workers.
How are super skyscrapers set to change the way we
(06:47):
all work?
Speaker 4 (06:49):
So the way we work has been evolving and changing
over time so incredibly quickly, and skyscrapers have kind of
contributed to that effect by accommodating a lot of people
in quite a small place. So in some ways, what
it's doing is increasing the density of workers in particular
parts of the city.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
This story began with the very first skyscrapers. The birth
of the skyscraper in the nineteenth century in New York
and Chicago gave factory owners and workers' space that was
both more humane and more efficient. Skyscrapers were designed to
be a better place to work. They've always been forward thinking.
(07:33):
The latest generation of super skyscrapers are designed to operate
twenty four hours a day and to allow it's workers
to find all their needs met in one building, even
if that means bringing the outside in.
Speaker 7 (07:46):
Local planners will take into account the projected numbers of
people that will come to the skyscraper over its lifetime
and factor that into the design of local public transport links.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Today's super skyscrapers need constant fear So how do you
provide goods needed by tens of thousands of workers without
gridlocking the streets. The answer you go underground. Beneath the
world's most famous super skyscrapers are miles of subterranean tunnels,
(08:17):
guaranteeing that thousands of goods are delivered every day. These
buildings are so sufficient and self contained, with entire transport
systems built around them.
Speaker 7 (08:28):
A new skyscraper obviously brings a lot of new people
into an area to work and to live and to play,
and those people need to have access to public transport
to get them to and from the building. They are
often located near major transport hubs, and sometimes the two
are integrated together into a major city intervention.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
But with super skyscrapers, it's not just about getting your
workers to the building. You need to give them an
incentive to come inside. I've come to a building which
has been nicknamed the Walkie Talkie, a structure with a
distinct bulge as it swells above its neighbors. Why there's
unusual shape, or part of the reason, is the astonishing
(09:12):
space right at the very summit, a space which possibly
gives us an insight to the future of working in
super skyscrapers. Twenty Fenchurch Street in London, or the Walkie Talkie,
was designed in two thousand and four. This thirty six
story building provides six hundred and ninety thousand square feet
(09:35):
of office space, and it tells a remarkable story about
how super skyscrapers must constantly innovate to keep their workers happy.
Speaker 7 (09:44):
As for modern world changes and we're able to work
from anywhere we want. Skyscrapers are having to change how
they operate and what they're for.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
The walkie talkie has been a controversial addition to London's Skyline.
But on the top floor there's a truly breath taking sight.
And this is it. This is the sky Garden. Boy,
(10:13):
is it impressive? Effectively? This is a public park one
hundred and fifty meters up in the air, and there
are elements of it here that have been designed to
be like the figurehead on the prow of a ship,
reaching out and giving you views right across the city
and even for those in the offices down below, as
(10:34):
a pack of the.
Speaker 8 (10:34):
News have you had?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
This is one of the highest landscaped gardens in the world.
Over one and a half million people have visited the
Sky Gardens since it opened, and I can see why.
But how much of this is for show and how
much is really about the working environment for the people
in the floors below? Hey, this is sas face, isn't
(10:56):
it it is? Can we go another a closer look?
All the way around? Ben Abel is one of the
team behind this remarkable space. There's a massive variety of
plants now, yes, yeah, so all the planting was done
by IQ Gardens. Wow, So tell me about this enormous
skygarden you've got up here. How important do you feel
that this is to incorporate spaces like this into the
(11:18):
design and build of new skyscrapers.
Speaker 9 (11:21):
It's really important because otherwise it's just a very uninteresting building.
It's just a workspace.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
You know.
Speaker 9 (11:28):
It's not just about getting as many people into an
office space as you can now, it's about making them productive.
It's all about wellness, about you know, making an environment
where people want to come and live and work. The
healthy you are, the more productive you are, you take
less sick days. So you can get all that into
your own design. People are going to be happier in
their workplace. Happier people are more productive. It's a it's
(11:50):
a simple formula really.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
The walkie Talkie was sold for a record breaking one
point three billion pounds in twenty seventeen. Super Skyscrapers are
big business, and the offices beneath the sky garden are
all fully let. Super Skyscrapers aren't just about making a
statement on the outside, they also need to match that
(12:13):
on the inside.
Speaker 10 (12:14):
There's a huge draft for the public to be able
to also experience skyscrapers, to be able to see the
cities from a different vantage point.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
I think they can act as big tourist attractions, for example,
because I know when I go on holiday, I always
like to go somewhere up high and look over the city,
get a feel for what the place is like. And
you know, by having bars and skyscrapers, it's attracting people
to come in there, go look at London, go look
at Shanghai, wherever you might be, and experiencing the city
(12:45):
from a completely different perspective that you just simply don't
get if you're standing on the ground.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
These high rise giants can be extraordinary places to work
or visit, but now for many it's becoming an entire
way of life. With more and more people choosing to
live their lives up in the sky and around the globe,
towers are getting ever taller to accommodate the demand. So
(13:22):
what are the secrets to living in super skyscrapers. One
building that gives us an idea is the super skyscraper
of the Moment, four three to two Park Avenue in
New York, the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere.
Speaker 11 (13:37):
Four three to two Park Avenue is completely remarkable because
it's so slender and it has all its structure on
the outside of the building. A thing that makes it
stand up is completely what you see the outside is
the concrete. There is no cladding. It's just a fantastic
conception of a super slender tall building.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Taller than the Empire State and the Chrysler Building. The
penthouse at the top of this super skyscraper sold for
ninety five million dollars. The developers are enticing big spenders
with luxury in the clouds. If you can afford it,
you'll have your own gain rooms and cinemas, swimming pools
(14:24):
and gyms. For what you're really paying for is an
extraordinary bird's eye view of New York from the massive
ten foot by ten foot windows.
Speaker 10 (14:35):
The ability to look out your window and see for
miles and miles as an appeal for a resident, and
the ability to be up in the clouds will certainly
draw very very luxurious type of development.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
But if money is no object, how luxurious could high
rise living get you? Imagine if you could create your
very own super skyscraper to become your dream home in
two thousand and six, Manchester's Beetham Tower was the tallest
(15:11):
residential building in Europe and when building it, architect Ian
Simpson saw a unique opportunity.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
When I first designed this building, I didn't know whether
I was going to live in it, but very quickly
once we got planning permission, I decided that yes, I
was going to occupy this top two floors. It was
an opportunity for me to create my own environment, which
is really important.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
To me, and Ian has certainly proved.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
That quite often with tall buildings and with apartments, you
don't have a garden inevitably, so I felt it would
be interesting to try and create my own garden at
level forty seven.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
But this ambitious conservatory in the clouds presented certain logistical issues.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
What I wanted in there were trees that were Mediterranean
and I love olive trees. We hoisted these thirty two
olive trees up from the ground and dropped them through
the roof before we sealed the top of the building up.
It was a completely mad notion to do that, but
I do like walking through the olive trees here on
(16:20):
a sunny day. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
The Beetham Penthouse is an extraordinary achievement, but is life
in the clouds only an option for those who can
afford it. I see these super skyscrapers as marvels of
modern engineering and design. That love them or loathe them.
They're here to stay and this is only the beginning.
(16:52):
Staggeringly sleek and towering tool, London Skyline's about to change
once again, with a host of new gigantic structures soon
on their way. I'm on my way to get a
private view of a development in the heart of London
which aims to find the balance between luxury, convenience and space.
(17:15):
The capital's highest residential skyscrapers are about to be usurped
by the arrival of another taller kid on the block,
One Crown Place. It will be a seven hundred and
seventy one feet high rise promising five style lifestyle amenities
across its two hundred and forty six apartments in its
early stages. This is a vast project headed up by
(17:39):
architect John Bushell after being reasy, what are we going
to have here? What we'll be occupying all of this space?
Speaker 12 (17:46):
Well, it's nearly a whole city block and it's a
mixed use schemes. There's lots of different things in it.
We have a terrace that we've repaired that will have
a fantastic hotalan retail around the base office and then
in the town as residential and at the between the
two lounges, terraces and things all for the residents who
live above. So there'll be lots of different things happening.
(18:08):
The owner's vision is this is busy all of the time.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I'm going to get a peek at what living here
might be like. So this is a showroom of a
typical apartment in their development.
Speaker 12 (18:18):
This is typical spacing. Big thing is to always make
sure enough covered space, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Maximizing the use of all the space you've got. Despite
its compact feel, this new development is once again about
selling the ultimate in sky high luxury. Who do you
envisage living here?
Speaker 12 (18:37):
The two people we're targeting are people who are working
in the city and want somewhere convenience right next to
what and people who have been living out of the
city who want to come back to the city to
relive their youth in the middle of the city.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Do we know roughly how much an apartment in this
development might cost.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (18:57):
I mean, the first thing to say is that this
is a lot cheaper than many tower locations right next
to the city here. I think probably about a third
of the units are under a million pounds and are
very nice.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So the big secret behind the new generation of super
skyscrapers is that they're turning more attention to wooing luxury homeowners.
The world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, offers more than
nine hundred apartments, and with expected completion in twenty twenty,
(19:34):
the Kingdom Tower in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, will stand at
one thousand meters tall, with the highest apartments on the
one hundred and fifty sixth floor. Meanwhile, the highest homes
in Britain are currently the ten apartments between floors fifty
three and sixty five of the Shard.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
So super tall structures for residential use are a fairly
new phenomenon and it's really interesting to see how this
is going to develop over time. I think humans we
just have a real fascination for height, We have a
real fascination for views, and I think that living in
these really super tall structures perhaps has that sense of aspiration.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Buildings like the shard the walky talkie in One Crown
Place offer us a glimpse of how these structures operate
as vertical cities. But now I want to take my
journey a step further to strip away the glamorous facades
and luxurious apartments to reveal the secret workings of these
super skyscrapers. From the fastest lifts in the world. Oh
(20:35):
my word, up to the forty fifth floor in just
thirty seconds. Ah that's affected my ears. Ah wow, that
is truly impressive. So the technology needed to transport water
a thousand meters up in the air. What does it
(20:56):
take to make these dreams a reality? Since the dawn
of time, man has reached for the skies, and today's
innovations and construction and technology are making those dreams a reality.
Speaker 11 (21:12):
Skyscrapers can go quite a bit higher than they are now,
but the limitations are going to be probably that structure,
and I think it's going to be the vertical transportation.
Speaker 13 (21:20):
Is going to be the limit on how high you
can go.
Speaker 14 (21:22):
Lifts are a vital part of skyscrapers and their success.
What's the point of having the area of a building
that's three hundred meters from the floor if you can't
get to it efficiently and safely.
Speaker 15 (21:35):
Manufacturing of lifts is a multi billion pound industry and
it all started with mister Otis who created this safety
lift in the middle of the nineteenth century. The safety
lift demonstrated if the cable broke, it wouldn't fall down
to the bottom of the ground.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
From the endeavors of mister Otis to the modern lifts
of today, it's a fascinating story of a race to
build them taller. And so how do the new generation
of super skyscraper lifts work. There's one extraordinary building in
London which reveals the secrets behind the latest in super
(22:14):
skyscraper lift technology. Opened in twenty fourteen, the Leadenhall Building,
affectionately known as the Cheese Grater, is home to the
world's largest and fastest suite of panoramic lifts. Now this
(22:40):
building is crammed full of lifts, twenty eight of them
in total, and most of them are these glass lifts.
They travel at eight meters per second from the lobby
where I was, Oh my word, up to the forty
fifth floor in just thirty seconds, and you only have
to look outside to get impression of that speed. Ah,
(23:03):
that's affect of my ears.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Ah Wow, that is truly impressive.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
These lifts are fast, but the real stunner is the
mold breaking design. Nothing comparable has ever been attempted before.
You can literally see the inner workings of the very
latest lift technology getting us even higher, even faster.
Speaker 7 (23:28):
One of the ways that we're looking to push lift
technology is to start using modern materials in the cables
and systems that move the lifts around.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
This innovative high tech lift technology has recently been spectacularly
employed in the world's second tallest building, the Shanghai Tower,
has just set three Guinness World records. This Chinese skyscraper
has the world's fastest elevator, the fastest double deck elevator,
(23:58):
and the tallest elevator are all in one building.
Speaker 7 (24:01):
One of the things that's limiting how high lifts can
go is how long you can make steel cables.
Speaker 13 (24:08):
By introducing carbon into cables, that become lighter, which means
you can have much longer links cable That obviously means
the list could travel further.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
The Kingdom Tower in Jedda, Saudi Arabia is expected to
become the world's tallest building when completed in twenty twenty
and a structure. This tool naturally requires an exceptional lift system.
In the past, the maximum possible length for a steel
lift cable was five hundred meters because of its weight.
(24:39):
But with a tower standing a kilometer tall, a radical
solution was required. Finished lift manufacturers kne have risen to
the challenge and developed the Ultra Road its secret carbon fiber.
This lightweight innovation means lift cables can now travel up
to heights of a thousand meters, carry heavier loads, and
(25:03):
last longer. It's a game changer. This new generation of
lifts is not only enabling super skyscrapers to reach new heights,
They've become an essential feature of the design works of
art in their own right and back here in Britain.
There's a secret behind the lifts at Leadenhall. To achieve
(25:25):
this level of high end design, the construction team opted
for an unusual approach. They built the lifts off site,
which were then installed in one piece. In fact, an
amazing eighty percent of this building was constructed off site.
This kind of prefabrication is changing the way the insides
of super skyscrapers are being created. I've come to a
(25:50):
construction site using a radical new building technique which sees
towers grow at the incredible rate of one story pole.
They're pushing skyscraper technology to the limit here at the
East Village project just outside London, with a process that's
known as a jump factory. An assembly line is housed
(26:12):
within a massive ten story tent. It controls every aspect
of the building's construction floor by floor. But the real
secret behind such rapid and efficient construction is pre fabrication.
Ninety eight percent of this giant structure is pre cast,
and everything else, from the bathroom pods to the utility
(26:35):
cupboards are made off site and then assembled here at
extraordinary speed. Mike Jennings is the operations director.
Speaker 8 (26:44):
Okay, Rob, here's one of the utility cupboards now one
level twenty four. Yeah, this is actually being connected up
as you can see, so it's a work in progress.
We've got all the comms, we've got the consumer unit,
and then underleath we've got the space for the washing
machine and the tumble drive.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
How many of these are being delivered to this building?
Speaker 8 (27:06):
Then, Mike, there's four hundred and eighty two of these
utility cupboards, one per apartment. We anticipate it takes about
three weeks less to actually construct this. In the factory,
you have specialists and all they do is actually build
one component on this.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
But the beauty of that as well is that you
know the space and access up here. You're not having
to bring all those people right up into the sky
to do this. They're doing it in a factory where
they can go from one to the next, to the next.
Speaker 8 (27:33):
To the next. One of the things about this, and
I think the beauty of actually getting some like to
be fabricated, is the tall buildings tend to have a
smaller footprint because they build in a stack fashion, and
so space is an absolute premium. So if you can
imagine something like this and you'd have a cast of
(27:54):
thousands all visiting this a different time, you haven't got
that because it's all done off sie in a real
saving forest.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
For this and for super skyscrapers under construction around the world,
it's a method that's incredibly fast. Completely pre built and
assembled bathroom units are craned up to each level and
simply slotted in.
Speaker 8 (28:17):
So here's the finished bathroom pod.
Speaker 16 (28:24):
I can't reladers gets the limited like that.
Speaker 8 (28:26):
It gets delivered exactly like that.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Building a completely fitted floor of a skyscraper in just
fifty five hours is incredible. So prefabrication and a factory
style environment is the secret to the future of super
skyscraper construction. It shaves months off the build time and
has minimum impact on the surrounding community and environment.
Speaker 15 (28:51):
The environmental concerns around skyscraper the amount of energy it
takes physically to construct them, and then the amount of
energy that you throughout their lifetime.
Speaker 7 (29:02):
Skyscrapers use a lot of material to go high. Environmentally,
we want to start thinking about how we use material
most effectively in our cities, and we need to start
asking the question is this appropriate in a sustainable age.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
With all this to consider, it's no surprise super skyscrapers
are not only competing for the title of the tallest,
but also the greenest. With one hundred and one flaws
and five basement levels, the Type A World Financial Center
is one of the tallest buildings in Asia. But equally
impressive is what's going on inside. This smart skyscraper has
(29:42):
an automated internal system that constantly monitors and adjusts its
energy supply, monitors its water flow, and evaluates system performance.
But as important as this technology is, it's unlikely to
be seen.
Speaker 10 (29:56):
One of the fundamental design issues within a skyscraper is
for it to be able to function and keep all
of the elements that are required for it to function
out of view. The skyscraper is an experience. It's a
journey from the street up into the sky, and it's
one that you want to be able to make as
(30:17):
seamless as possible, hide away things like power plumbing.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Skyscrapers often have secret flows in them which the users
of the building will never know even there. There's usually
one every about thirty stories in a skyscraper, and this
is where all the mechanical services are stored.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I've been invited to take a glimpse at one of
these secret floors at the Leadenhall Building. We may now
be able to construct the inside of these mega structures
more efficiently than ever before. But feeding a building that's
so high with power and water that takes some serious engineering.
Angelo Christu is the man responsible for Leadenhall's giant pump rings.
(31:00):
How are you good to see? Where have I come
into here? This is all very different. Suddenly, this is.
Speaker 16 (31:07):
The Chilip plant room ultimately the heart of the building,
the coolest room. Low pun intended.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Water is crucial to the way we live. The average
family home might use around three hundred and fifty liters
per day, but inside skyscrapers things are very different. They
can use over a thousand times that amount, with up
to thirty miles of piping to pump it round the building.
Speaker 7 (31:29):
You can have a think.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
Look absolutely help.
Speaker 16 (31:34):
So just to give you an idea of the pressure
that needs punks and pipes are holding. I think the
nuts and bolts from the collars are a pretty good
indication of the pressure.
Speaker 8 (31:44):
That's go improving.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
So actually, if you feel that as well as a vibration,
that's solut and that's water being pumped through there at
twenty five bar.
Speaker 16 (31:52):
It seems I mean, if you think that your home
boiler operates just over one one and a half bar,
this is twenty five times.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
So these are the pumps and what these are the
These are the chillers.
Speaker 16 (32:05):
These these children will tell us.
Speaker 12 (32:08):
Let's taken look round.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
In a house, the focus is on heating, but I
want to know why the emphasis in skyscrapers is on
keeping them cool.
Speaker 16 (32:17):
There's potentially up to five and a half thousand people
in the building, plus visitors, plus our own team of
one hundred plus. So first and foremost, you have body heat.
You only if you think about you have desktop pieces
which generate heats. You have printers, you have tea points,
you have kettles. The list goes on. If you lose
your chillers, the building could potentially shut down.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
That high tech can't work without these. Probably it's only
by peeling back the layers of vast super skyscrapers that
you appreciate how cleverly these buildings hide away the secrets
of their inner workings. The cheese greater shape of this
building is not just a quirk of the architect The
(33:01):
section I'm stood on here is called the north core,
and beneath me is where all the pipes cable work,
where the guts of the building are contained. Typically you'd
have all of that running through a central core in
a skyscraper. Separating it allows for an unprecedented amount of
(33:24):
usable space. Back inside the gesgrater.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
The most important part of skyscraper is definitely the core.
I like to think of it as the spine of
the building. It's the part that's crucially structural for helping
the building to stay up.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Within just a few generations, skyscrapers have gone from flights
of fancy to an everyday reality. But I want to
know what the future might hold for these cities in
the sky. How could our lives be set to change
as a result of these mega structures. Super skyscrapers will
be the next big game changes.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
I find it really interesting to think about the evolution.
So we look back one hundred and fifty years and
our skyscrapers were quite blucky. They were fairly ordinary, shaped
in a rectangular square and so on. We are now
starting to see some interesting geometry coming in, and I
think as time goes on, we'll see more wild and
wacky forms. They might get more sculptural kind of more
(34:29):
works of art.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Perhaps there's always an element of competitiveness between skyscraper developers
of who can build the tallest building, But whoever holds
that title, it's always such a short lived victory because
there's bound to be someone else that comes along soon
and builds an even taller building.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
So if I'm trying to make a prediction for what
the skyscrapers of the future will look like, I think
one trend. We're just starting to see the seeds of
are having really tall and skinny skyscrapers.
Speaker 6 (35:03):
Our brilliant architects and engineers will allow us to build
almost anything that we can imagine, and indeed many things
we can't yet imagine. There is talk of building complete
cities in skyscrapers, where you have a city in the clouds.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
And there's one continent that's changing the way we live
and work in these megastructures more than any other.
Speaker 13 (35:24):
I think if you look at, for example, skyscrapers in Asia,
a lot of that is due to the fact that
there is a mass population movement from the countryside into cities.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Skyscrapers are the best way of providing dense housing right
in the heart of cities where we need it, and
they're actually a really efficient way of using a very
small plot of urban land.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Asia now hosts seven of the ten tallest buildings in
the world and has more super skyscrapers than the rest
of the continents combined. So how is this part of
the globe leading the way? The Shanghai Tower is a
good place to start. Costing an estimated two point four
billion dollars, it stands six hundred and thirty two meters
(36:06):
tall and has one hundred and twenty eight stories every
single day are staggering. Sixteen thousand people can be accommodated
by the tower, and this is the future of super skyscrapers,
a bustling vertical world geared towards sustainable living. Forty different
energy saving measures have cut thirty four thousand metric tons
(36:28):
from its annual carbon footprint, making it the greenest super
high rise building on Earth. Throughout history, the most memorable
structures have been the grandest and the largest, but in
a future of tool buildings, architects will be buying for
a new title, the most efficient.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
We have high rise buildings which are more responsible in
the materials they use to have a smaller carbon footprint.
We have the potential for energy generation of solar and
wind power into our buildings.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
So one way that we might see skyscrapers actually being
a bit more self sufficient is that they might generate
their own energy. And one way that we could do
that is that we could actually clad the skyscrapers with
windows that are also photovoltaic cells or solar panels, and
so the skyscraper with lots of surface area could absorb
all this energy from the sun and then use that
(37:25):
energy for its own operation.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
And there's a surprising new twist in super skyscraper design
on the horizon.
Speaker 15 (37:32):
One of the latest skyscrapers to be proposed is a
huge one. I think at least seventy stories, and it's
going to be clad entirely in timber. That is probably
more sustainable than using steel in its construction. Well, how
you maintain a timber facade, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Timber has been used to make homes for more than
two thousand years, but it's now being heralded as a
life weight and sustainable way to build super skyscrapers. This
is the oak Wood Timber Tower. This revolutionary design is
still only a proposal, but if plans go ahead, the
(38:14):
eighty story tower could be the world's tallest wooden structure.
Oak Wood would provide over a thousand residential units in
the heart of London. But it's not just the materials
that could revolutionize the design of the next generation of
super skyscrapers. Designers are looking at how these giant structures
could now connect with each other. I begin to wonder
(38:37):
if the future of our cities might be about two
parallel worlds living side by side, a life on the
ground below a life up here in the sky.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
And I think where we start to see these super
tall clusters of skyscrapers coming together, you might actually have
multiple layers of skybridges connecting them up, so you actually
spend most of your day kind of at high leans
rather than having to come down to the ground very often.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
One of these new breeds of super skyscraper is in China,
which is looking to set new world records with the
highest horizontal skyscraper, the Raffle City, Chong King. This will
feature an extraordinary feat of engineering, a skybridge, the highest
(39:23):
in the world and measuring three hundred meters in length,
connecting four colossal towers. If we're set to live in
cities of high rises, then this design could give us
a glimpse of the future.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
The Harra's building is perhaps a vehicle for us to
incorporate and express some of our greatest advances in society
and our aspirations for our world.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
In cities so much of the land has already been
developed on, there's an increasing pressure on developing to provide
open spaces and public realms at the bottom of skyscrapers.
So I think in the future you're going to see
a lot of floating skyscrapers with very minimal structure at
the bottom.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
So from the next generation of wooden plyscrapers and cities
full of skybridges to extraordinary towers a thousand meters up
in the sky. These extraordinary super skyscrapers are defining our
twenty first century cities. There's an engineer. I'm not just
(40:31):
in awe of the sheer scale an ambition of these structures.
It's how they work that intrigues me too, the inner
machinery of these colossal giants. When new milestones are being set,
new ideas are coming to life, and where a brand
new way of living awaits us, all up here in
(40:52):
the sky.
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