Determinant of Skyscraper Height

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the height pattern and height determinant factors of Chinese skyscrapers. A skyscraper is a habitable structure that is taller than 150 meters, with more than 50 percent of the space occupiable (CTBUH, 2019). It is a widely used building typology around the world, especially in countries and areas with rapid economic growth. This is due to the ability of skyscrapers to accommodate a large amount of the population and activities in a single location, where it is also an efficient building design for areas with high demand in land, and locations with high land prices. Building tall is one of the characteristics of a skyscraper, and Height could be used as a tool to allocate city population and improve city efficiency. Thus Skyscraper distribution and height pattern is important to understand for city development.

In general, from the results, one infers that building height does not have a significant relationship with city-level height determinants. Looking into the height distribution around the country, skyscrapers in China mostly cluster around 200 meters, this, on one hand, shows that “building higher” is not the main focus regarding most of the construction in China. On the other hand, it also shows that lands in the urban area are not used efficiently. This is also proven by a wide range of height and the expansion of cities in China. According to the theory stated in the literature review, skyscrapers are first designed to provide more space in a location due to high land prices and a limited amount of land, but China has large amounts of empty land around. This may be the reason why there are more skyscraper development projects that stay around 200 meters.

Some of the results in this research show similarity to previous research, including the connection between skyscraper development and economic situation; there are also results that contradict the previous research results, including height competition and location-specific factors. This shows that skyscraper development in each country could be different due to many reasons. Some Specific characteristic could largely influence the construction pattern. Also, skyscraper development connects with height and also the number of buildings. This research focuses on height, the results derived also from the perspective of height, so more studies could be done on the connection between the amount of skyscraper and height.