• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.129-136
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• 2023

Natural ventilation has proven to be an effective passive strategy in improving energy efficiency and providing healthy environments. However, such a strategy has not been commonly adopted to tall office buildings that traditionally rely on single-skin façades (SSFs), due to the high wind pressure that creates excessive air velocities and occupant discomfort at upper floors. Double-skin façades (DSFs) can provide an opportunity to facilitate natural ventilation in tall office buildings, as the fundamental components such as the additional skin and openings create a buffer to regulate the direct impact of wind pressure and the airflow around the buildings. This study investigates the impact of modified multi-story type DSFs on indoor airflow in a 60-story, 780-foot (238 m) naturally ventilated tall office building under isothermal conditions. Thus, the performance of wind effect related components was assessed based on the criteria (e.g., air velocity and airflow distribution), particularly with respect to opening size. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was utilized to simulate outdoor airflow around the tall office building, and indoor airflow at multiple heights in case of various DSF opening configurations. The simulation results indicate that the outer skin opening is the more influential parameter than the inner skin opening on the indoor airflow behavior. On the other hand, the variations of inner skin opening size help improve the indoor airflow with respect to the desired air velocity and airflow distribution. Despite some vortexes observed in the indoor spaces, cross ventilation can occur as positive pressure on the windward side and negative pressure on the other sides generate productive pressure differential. The results also demonstrate that DSFs with smaller openings suitably reduce not only the impact of wind pressure, but also the concentration of high air velocity near the windows on the windward side, compared to SSFs. Further insight on indoor airflow behaviors depending on DSF opening configurations leads to a better understanding of the DSF design strategies for effective natural ventilation in tall office buildings.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.127-140
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• 2018

The skylines of many cities worldwide are still defined by the dominant and ubiquitous office blocks of the twentieth century. While there is consensus stating that future tall building typologies should depart substantially from these past models, the inheritance of large and obsolete tall office building stocks presents a problem of global significance. Too old for present corporate models, but too new for gaining public historical importance, the twentieth-century office tower is a typology under threat of extinction. However, the need for a culturally informed strategy of preservation for that generation of tall buildings is seldom advocated. Drawing evidence from the case of Melbourne, Australia, this article presents a methodological pathway to overcome pitfalls of memory and interpretation, which commonly prevent an unbiased assessment of the value and urban contribution of late-twentieth-century skyscrapers.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.311-318
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• 2015

The ASHRAE Design Guide for Tall, Supertall and Megatall Building Systems was produced in collaboration with the CTBUH. The design guide outlines various tall building mechanical systems that are presently being designed or are planned for the future. Tall commercial buildings in particular present a series of design problems that set them apart from other functions. The Design Guide will be of interest to owners, architects, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and other specialized engineers and consultants. This design guide addresses design issues for tall commercial buildings, which are very often mixed-use, and commonly consist of low level retail, office floors, residential units, and hotel uses.

• Architectural research
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.13-21
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• 2005

Throughout history, buildings have been interrelated with certain indigenous characteristics such as regional climate, culture and religions. In particular, the control of regional climate has been primarily a concern for compatibility with nature. In our modern age, technologies to control climate have been successfully developed in architecture but the consumption of large quantities of natural resources can also produce environmental problems. This study is based on the proposition that this negative trend can be minimized with architectural design that is motivated to coexist with a regional climate. This study develops these design strategies for tall office buildings by analyzing various combinations of building design configurations based on regional climates. The objective is to determine the optimum architecture of tall office buildings during the initial design process that will reduce energy consumption for regional climatic conditions. The eQUEST energy simulating program based on DOE-2.2 was used for this comparative analysis study of the energy use in tall office buildings based on architectural design variables and different regional climates. The results are statistically analyzed and presented in functional architectural design decision-making tables and charts. As a result of the comparison of architectural design consideration for tall office buildings in relation to regional climates, buildings physically need less energy consumption when the architecture is concerned with the regional climate and it produces a more reasonable design methodology. In reality, imbalanced planning which is architectural design's lack of regional characteristics requires additional natural resources to maintain desired comfortable indoor conditions. Therefore, the application of integrated architectural design with regional nature should be the first architectural design stage and this research produces the rational. This architectural design language approach must be a starting point to sustaining long-term planning.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.307-320
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• 2023

Tall buildings are built with an abundant amount of materials, including structural materials, coming from our limited natural resources. Tall buildings that began from about 10-story tall office towers have evolved to over 150-story tall mixed-use megastructures. As a building becomes taller, structural material requirement to resist lateral wind loads becomes exponentially larger. Therefore, it is crucial to employ efficient structural systems and optimize their design, which will contribute to sustainable vertical built environments through preservation of resources. Tube type structures with large perimeter diagonals are among the most efficient structural systems for tall buildings. Developments of braced tube, braced megatube, diagrid structures, and their optimal design strategies are reviewed. Superframed conjoined towers, produced by interconnecting multiple clustered braced tubes, are presented as a new design direction to achieve not only structural but also architectural and social sustainable design goals.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.285-291
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• 2013

This paper proposes a framework for understanding the energy consumption differences between tall and low-rise buildings. Energy usage data from 706 office buildings in New York illustrates expected correlations from the framework. Notable correlations include: taller buildings tend to use more energy until a plateau at 30~39 floors; tall buildings in Manhattan use 20% more energy than low-rise buildings in Manhattan, while tall buildings outside Manhattan use 4% more energy than low-rise buildings outside Manhattan. Additional correlations are discussed, among which is the trend that the Energy Star program in New York City assigns higher ratings to tall buildings with higher EUIs than low-rise buildings with the same EUI. Since Energy Star is based on regressions of existing buildings, the Energy Star ratings suggest taller buildings have higher EUIs than shorter buildings, which is confirmed by the New York City energy benchmarking data.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.83-91
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• 2011

There are many researches to make low-energy building. Lots of them focus on facility systems and insulation performance of building materials. However, not only systematic solutions but also approaches in early design stages are important to reduce energy consumption. Using BIM(Building Information Modelling) is considered as an effective and efficient way to simulate building energy and decide alternatives than traditional energy simulation because BIM based energy simulation makes to reduce much time for energy modeling. This study focuses on development of optimized geometry for super tall office buildings in Seoul, Korea. Specifically, length to width ratio and building orientation are main topics of this study because these two topics are the most basic and preceding factors deciding mass design. In this study, Revit MEP 2011 and Ecotect Analysis 2011 are used to make case models and calculate energy load in early design stages. Energy properties of material abide by Korean Standards for Energy Conservation in Building, Korean Guideline for Energy Conservation in Public Office and ASHRAE Standard in USA. This study presents best length to width ratio of plan and optimized orientation by evaluating the case models. Furthermore, this study suggests what should be considered for each case to decrease energy load.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.323-326
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• 2017

Sustainability is becoming more and more important in our everyday lives. Thus, it is apparent that more sustainable initiatives are incorporated in a building design concept to reduce operation costs and environmental impacts. However, will the construction cost go up if the building is going green - especially if it is a tall building? This is the question on everyone's mind. In the following paragraphs, we will look into a case study of a skyscraper in Nanning, China. That 411-metre skyscraper, Nanning China Resources Centre East Office Tower, is currently under construction. Designed to LEED-CS Gold standards, the building has adopted a number of sustainable design elements and operation practice, which indeed only accounts for a small percentage of the total construction cost.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.315-321
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• 2013

This building is a first-class super-high office building. This article briefly introduces energy-saving technique and measures adopted in HVAC system, such as cooling and heat sources, water and air system etc.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.199-207
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• 2015

Abeno Harukas is the tallest building in Japan and is located in Abeno, which is one of the three main railway transport nodes in Osaka. This building has a height of 300 meters, and its lowest levels are 30 meters below ground. It contains a department store, museum, offices, a hotel, and an observatory. In this urban renewal project, a section of the department store that encloses the station was dismantled and replaced by a supertall building complex, while infrastructure was simultaneously constructed, including: upgrades to the station and the existing department store, improved connections to the subway and pedestrian bridges, and a new pedestrian walkway over the road. In this paper, the ingenious erection processes, newly developed technologies, and precise construction management techniques are introduced for Japan's tallest building.