Why does it take so much more time to construct a building today than years ago.? Example : freedom tower 10 years, empire state bldg.1 yr 45 days. No tower cranes in 1930
Are we sure there’s an actual trend here? Two data points isn’t much to go on. This page points out that the tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa, is 2,722 feet tall and was built in only five years, ending in 2010. That’s 18 inches per day. Whereas the Prudential Tower, opened in 1964, is 749 feet tall and took 4 years to build. That’s only 6 inches per day.
The Empire State Building went up quickly because they wanted it to go up quickly and were willing to spend the money to make it go up that quickly. While they did not have tower cranes back then, they did have cranes that sat on top of the building. As the floors went up, so did the crane. It was a huge logistical effort, with many parts being fabricated off-site and then put into place in one big chunk on-site.
Interesting fact - They were making steel and transporting it to site so quickly that the steel for the Empire State Building was still warm when it went up onto the building.
Modern builders often don’t want to spend the extra money to make it go up so quickly, which is why it takes longer. Modern buildings can go up faster.
For example, here’s a skyscraper in China that went up in 19 days.
(the foundation was probably poured ahead of time and probably doesn’t count in that 19 days, but still, that’s quick).As I recall, the Freedom Tower had endless design changes after ground was broken. That couldn’t have helped it’s progress.
Why assume that height is the only measure to take into consideration? There are a gazillion factors to look at.
A slim, simple tower will go up faster than a design with curves, or with various compartments, or a very large base. The location alone creates different problems, from distance to sources of materials, marshaling yards, ability to bring in supplies, and restrictions on noise and work times.
Buildings are inherently more complex today than 80 years ago, with far more internal systems, creation of mass dampers, sophisticated electronics, green measures, and experimental claddings.
Politics and funding can create huge problems that have little to do with putting up steel. The Freedom Tower is the ultimate bad example.
Every building is different and is built in a different environment. Some aspects can be compared, but comparing the Empire State Building to anything today is unreasonable.
Also, 1 WTC took 8 years and six months (3,112 days), not 10 years as stated in the OP. Empire State Building took 410 days.
Shanghai Tower is 2073.5 ft tall, 4.1 million sf, built in 2107 days, completed 2014
Willis Tower (a.k.a. Sears Tower) is 1450 ft tall, 4.48 million sf, built in 25 months (approx. 750 days?), completed 1973
At first glance, it looks to me like the Empire State Building might be an outlier and there really isn’t a trend of speed vs. decade.
To be fair, the Freedom Tower only took six years to build, and a year of that was preparing and pouring the foundation. It took four years of planning, design, changes, permitting and other miscellaneous paperwork to get to the point where they could actually build it.
The Chrysler Building was constructed between 1928 and 1930, so the Empire State Building, while slightly faster, wasn’t a huge outlier for the time.
It is probably a function of complexity, costs, building regulations, health and safety law, restrictions on noise and working hours, access and all the other problems of building in the last few decades.
The Empire State was somewhat of an outlier, because the conditions were unusual. As the last major supertall building of the Hoover era it was able to get the best work crews because there was no competition. Former governor Al Smith greased all the political wheels. The processes for moving men and material were well established and the project managers honed efficiencies to a peak of perfection. Nothing about the building was really new or different; it just had a few extra stories. They wanted to set the record and did.
Most people forget about the construction of Rockefeller Center because none of the individual buildings were so tall. But the Music Hall went up in a year and so did most of the others. Again, they benefited by being the only major construction work done in the mid-30s. That’s a huge advantage, but only those who study those things realize it ever happened.
Also, that was during the Hoover Depression – people were really desperate for jobs then, and worked quite hard to be sure they kept their jobs.
Code enforcement.
Everything needs to be inspected and meet more stringent building codes today. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.
Another big factor is steel vs. concrete. Steel framing goes up much faster (two or even three floors per week for a small simple floorplate), but is generally a bit more expensive. It also requires a design that compensates for structural drift (sway), and that may still be too disturbing for residential towers. Residential towers these days are nearly always concrete, which generally rises about a floor per week for a simple repetitive design.
Also When the ESB was built it was standard for NYC office leases to start on May 1 so they made a fast schedule to get it ready by that date.
This is a little hard to swallow. The steel was made in Homestead (Pittsburg) Pa., shipped all the way to the American Bridge Company and the McClintic-Marshall Company storage yards for prefabrication (cutting-riveting), then shipped to the construction site.
While the steel may have been loaded warm for shipment via barge or rail in Pittsburg, there is no way it was still warm from the mill when erected. Sorry.
not sure that was serious
Really?
Good for you.:rolleyes:
A little off topic, but I’m curious: if the building sways, what is the difference between a residential tower and a commercial tower.?
I assume that any visible swaying would be upsetting to a lot of people.
Probably because people in residential buildings sit around and look at the view. In commercial towers, people are working – they are looking at papers on their desk or at computer screens. In fact, generally the desks are arranged with their backs to the windows. Even in the boss’s corner offices, the desk usually has its’ back toward the windows. It’s just too distracting otherwise.
My mother used to work near the top of the Foshay Tower, back when it was the highest building in Minnesota. She said that they posted notices in the elevator lobby on days when the external window washers would be working on that floor. Otherwise an employee would see a shadow fall on her desk, turn around and be startled to see a man outside the window, and would usually scream – disturbing herself & other workers.
A lot of it is engineering and administrivia - building standards and bylaws; but then, much more is politics and settling on designs. Shanghai for example built a huge, modern subway system in a matter of a few decades and is still expanding. Plus, they’ve built elevated expressways over top of the bigger, wider roads downtown to speed traffic. Here in North America, you’d have 2 to 3 years of environmental studies for any large construction project before any construction even starts.
(Plus, there was an interesting article - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html - New York is a special case because there are extra construction costs to help pad the bank accounts of organized labour and organized something-or-other…)