SUPER OR MEGA?

The recent book, Supertall by Stefan Al is a recommended quick read. Maybe a little too basic for those professionally involved in the Tall Buildings arena, but it is lucid, informative, and detailed enough for the layperson with an interest in this typology. Illustrated with hand-drawn sketches, the chapters explore materiality, systems, as well as geopolitical and socio-economic repercussions of future towers in a simple but cogent manner.

Reviews in WSJ (Anthony Paletta) (https://www.wsj.com/articles/supertall-review-kissing-the-clouds) and NY Times (by Paul Goldberger) (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/12/books/review/stefan-al-supertall.html) are also worth a peruse for those overwhelmed with reading wishlists.

Not to be outdone, the soon-to-be-released book Megatall Supertall – how high can we go? by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill will presumably be targeted at architects, engineers, and other Tall Building wonks. AS+GG, along with firms like SOM, KPF, Gensler, Foster and Partners, and others are all taking this typology to new heights (pun intended) in the post-pandemic world, delving more into health and wellness consciousness, carbon emissions, exterior connectivity, and hybrid structural systems, rather than mere visual appeal.

The next generation of this typology will invariably embrace more biophilic attributes, mass timber potential, hybrid structural systems, and reinvent tall buildings as living-breathing entities. The jury is still out whether buildings of this magnitude are really necessary, serve a social or economic purpose, or are just manifestations of ego and one-upmanship. The one-kilometer-tall Jeddah Tower has been mired in a stagnating phase since 2015.

Love-em or hate-em, and regardless of XiJinping's mandates of no building taller than 500m or future "Pencil" towers in New York, there will be more of them around in the decades to come. Get used to them.