Tall buildings and their expansion in time and space

Abstract

A significant growth in the development of tall buildings has taken place within the past two decades, during which approximately 75% of the total existing tall buildings has been constructed. This construction boom has happened in alignment with the phenomenon of the increasing urbanization of cities worldwide. A tall building offers the capability to accommodate large volumes of people and satisfy both their residential and business needs in cities with limited margins of horizontal expansion. Consequently, tall buildings can act as a solution to the phenomenon of increasing urbanization. This thesis enriches the pool of existing knowledge with additional quantitative data, from a global viewpoint. Main objective is to understand what determines the development of tall buildings and especially their height. A quantitative research methodology is employed, where a database of 4826 tall buildings is created. This includes tall buildings taller than 150 meters, constructed after 1960 and still standing, worldwide. Factors that determine the height are investigated with the use of Multiple Linear Regression, having four perspectives as guide. These are: economic-related, building-related, location-related and height competition. The effects of space and time are also taken into account with appropriately constructed variables and the regression models created turned to have moderate explanatory power. Findings suggest that the decision to develop a tall building is based on the location itself, complemented by the current economic conditions and depending on the function the building is designed to serve.