Vertical Vanity
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architects.
Kingdom Tower, Saudi Arabia
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architects.
Greenland Financial, Wuhan, China
Skidmore, Ownings, Merrill (SOM) Tianjin Tower, Tianjin, China
“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person maybe proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.”
The emergent economies of the world are urbanising and developing at a rate unprecedented in human history and as such, they have sought new monuments to solidify their place in this brave new world. It has been clear that in the last thirty years, there has been “the increasing trend towards extreme spires and other extensions of tall buildings that do not enclose usable space” (CTBUH, 2013). The recently completed Burj Kalifa standing with a total height of 828 metres has a vanity height of 244 metres, 29% of the building is in fact unusable space devoted solely to achieving the height (CTBUH, 2013).
The top ten recently completed super skyscrapers with their relative vanity heights,
noting also that almost all of these are in emergent economy countries (CTBUH, 2013).
There is in fact great yet unfortunate pride in how much material is being used to construct these modern super structures. The website for the Burj Kalifa celebrates these figures, noting that a total of 330,000 cubic metres of concrete and 39,000 tonnes of steel were used in its construction (Burj Kalifa, 2014). Arguably the most worrying fact is of course that close to 1400 tonnes of aluminium was used (based on their note that “five A380 aircraft” in weight) for the window frames. Based on the 1995 Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) and 2011 University of Bath Inventory of Carbon Energy estimations are that the embodied energy for aluminium is between 155 MJ/kg - 170 MJ/kg (Graham, 2008, p. 58; Circular Ecology Ltd, 2014). Taking the approximate midpoint then, 160 MJ/kg, we discover that in fact the window frames required 224,000,000 Mega-joules of energy. This is equivalent to 62.22 million KWh of electricity generation, an extremely worrying figure of consumption and definitely not something we should necessarily be proud of.
Indeed, of the top ten tallest structures currently under construction in the world, three are located in China and two in Saudi Arabia. (Foster, 2013). The current award for vanity since the 1990s goes to the Burj Dubai Hotel, with an un-occupiable spire accounting for 39% of the building’s overall height (CTBUH, 2013). On the other hand, set to break the 1000 metre mark is Kingdom Tower designed by Anthony Gill architects (ArchDaily, 2013), topped with an anticipated 200 metre spire and additional upper floor services, bringing the anticipated vanity height of 30%.
While there is certainly no apparent desire to stop this trend, perhaps one day instead of valuing taller and larger structures, we may be able to value reducing waste, minimising materials and truly embrace Mies Van Der Rohe’s mantra: “Less is More”.
A Dangerous trend - almost all of the high-ranking vanity height buildings constructed recently have been since 2010. (CTBUH)
References
James Taylor Foster. (6 September 2013). “Vanity Height: How Much of a Skyscraper is Usable Space?”. ArchDaily. Accessed 18 April 2014 via: http://www.archdaily.com/425730/vanity-height-how-much-of-a-skyscraper-is-usable-space/
Peter Graham. (2008). Building Ecology: First Principles for a Sustainable Built Environment. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Burj Khalifa. (2014). “Building a Global Icon”. Accessed 18 April 2014 via: http://www.burjkhalifa.ae/en/
Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Height. “Vanity Height: the Use-less Space in Today’s Tallest”. (September 2013). Accessed 18 April 2014 via: http://www.ctbuh.org/Publications/Journal/InNumbers/TBINVanityHeight/tabid/5837/language/en-US/Default.aspx
Circular Energy Ltd. (2014). “Embodied energy and embodied carbon - The ICE database”. Accessed 18 April 2014 via: http://www.circularecology.com/ice-database.html#.U29m4Vf0wVA