This research investigated in which ways the material environmental impact of the main load-bearing structure of a high-rise building can be reduced. To determine this material environmental impact, the shadow price for each material and product has been determined by using ten environmental impact categories. One of these categories is global warming potential.

In this research the material environmental impact of the main load-bearing structure for the building for the European Patent Office has been determined and optimized. The originally designed main load-bearing structure for this building consists mainly of steel columns and beams, and Slimline floors.
The optimisation has been done for a design lifespan of 50 years and for 200 years. Additionally, a higher live load that creates more flexibility for the 200-year scenario is examined. The original function for the building is “office” and the other considered function is “meeting”.
As alternatives for the beams and columns, steel, concrete, and timber elements have been considered. Hollow core slabs and Lignatur floors were explored as alternatives for the Slimline floors.

In this research it has been found that it is beneficial to prolong the design lifespan of building. The environmental impact per year is much lower for a lifespan of 200 years than for a lifespan of 50 years. In order to increase the chance of a longer lifespan, it is wise to create flexibility concerning the function of the building. A higher live load will result in slightly more material needed, but still, the environmental impact per year is much lower than for 50 years.
Additionally, there can be looked at choosing the best material for each application. For a design lifespan of 50 years, the difference between the materials is such small, that no preference can be determined. For a lifespan of 200 years the differences are still small, but an entire steel structure or a combination of steel beams and concrete columns result in the smallest environmental impact. For floors, no matter the lifespan, with a big span and where no in-situ concrete can be used, hollow core slab floors proved to be the best choice.

The trend of the slender and high-rise building has made the structure prone to dynamic loading. This thesis is focused on the dynamic behavior of the high-rise building subjected to wind action. The acceleration becomes a limiting criterion in designing such structure which can be categorized as the comfort criteria of the building. Nausea and motion sickness from the acceleration of the building has been studied by human experience, and numerous building code has included this in the design criteria [6]. The tuned mass damper (TMD) comes from the basic vibration absorber theory by Frahm in 1909; then the studied continued and applied in a building. At present, the TMD is a well-known technology to mitigate vibration, but it is not always applicable in every building case. Therefore a study of the interaction between the building properties also the soil structure interaction (SSI) is made in the application of the TMD.This thesis aims to study the dynamic behavior of a high rise building with the implementation of TMD and to take into account the SSI, also to indicate which type of building is preferable to apply a TMD. The model for the high-rise building is an analytical one-dimensional model which is validated by the finite element program (FEP). The analytical model can give a good fit for the building response but due to the model of the wind load is a random load, it is challenging to match precisely the TMD performance due to the comparison of different load phase. The physical characteristic and tendency of the TMD performance to different building parameter still can be studied in this analytical model. It is shown in this study that the damping plays an important role not only to reduce the acceleration of the building but also influence the effectiveness of TMD. The acceleration is drastically reduced in the lower damping ratio area, which makes theTMD more effective if the building has lower damping ratio contributed from the material, structural joints, and SSI. The reducement of the acceleration by increasing stiffness and mass is very limited compared to the application of TMD. There are two building data for the base of the analysis; the first is the European Patent Office EPO building which is designed by Zonneveld Ingenieurs and the new proposal of slender high rise building in Rotterdam. The EPO building has a unique geometry which the contribution of torsional vibration is high. The slender high rise building shows that the TMD is more effective in reducing the acceleration in this case. The reason is the slender high rise has higher acceleration compare to EPO building when the required building stiffness for the deformation limit is applied.