00:00:00
Hey.
00:00:21
So we're going to start. I have lots of things I wanted to do, and this being the last one, it's like well, let's hit some of our high notes and invite some of our favorite speakers back.
00:00:29
That list includes Ernie Miller. Ernie is known for doing these soft talks, right? The ones that give you perspective and meaning and help you understand why we do things.
00:00:36
I asked Ernie if he would like to come back and talk, and he said absolutely. He asked what I would like to hear, and I said I would love to hear an actual technical talk from him. He agreed to do one on architecture, which I found fantastic.
00:00:59
He’s going to give a really detailed talk about systems architecture using a skyscraper metaphor. I am so excited. So, Ernie, thank you for coming back and allowing us to benefit from your insights.
00:01:24
Okay, hello! Let's start this timer because, God knows, I'm going to need to fit this into 45 minutes.
00:01:29
I hate to break it to you, but I want to start off with a quick disclaimer: this talk is not about skyscrapers. You may think, 'But Ernie, you just showed a slide a moment ago that said this is how to build a skyscraper,' and trust me, it’s not.
00:01:46
It's really important that we remember this as we go through the talk. I'm going to ask for your help. When you see this slide, I want you to read the text out loud. So let’s try it now: "This talk is not about skyscrapers." Okay, we've got it!
00:02:06
I do find it interesting, though. As I started researching for this talk, I stumbled upon some information. You know, Wikipedia is where you start research for all talks, after all.
00:02:30
The problems posed in skyscraper design are among the most complex encountered, as you have to balance economics, engineering, and construction management. I find that really interesting.
00:02:45
The first skyscraper that we are going to talk about is the Equitable Life Building. Technically, it doesn't even qualify as a skyscraper, but to be fair, the term 'skyscraper' was once used to describe very tall horses, tall men, or even very tall hats!
00:03:10
So I think we can give a seven-story, 130-foot-tall building a pass. Now, the Equitable Life Building was the tallest in the world from 1872 to 1884, and it was built and owned by the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States.
00:03:27
Equitable, being a life insurance company, were experts at assessing risk. It's important to note that they determined their building was fireproof.
00:03:47
We'll come back to that later. Its basement housed safes and vaults filled with several billions, and I do mean billions, in 1870s dollars of securities, stocks, and bonds. To put it simply, the Equitable Life Building was at the center of most of the wealth of the New York financial district.
00:04:12
The building was gorgeous, housing tenants that included bankers and lawyers. It even had an exclusive lawyers' club. However, it had one problem. Can you spot it? The problem was that it had stairs.
00:04:32
A lawyer on the seventh floor of a building would find he had no clients if they had to climb six flights of stairs to see him. Thankfully, a solution to this problem already existed.
00:04:53
A gentleman by the name of Elisha Otis, who had a beard to rival Mike's—I mean, really, it's a very nice beard—was a tinkerer along with his sons.
00:05:08
At age 40, in 1851, he was managing the process of converting an abandoned sawmill into a bed frame factory.
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While cleaning up, he looked into how he could get all the old debris up to the upper levels of the building. Hoists and elevators existed, but they had one important flaw: if someone cut the rope, then whatever was on it would either be broken or dead. Seemed like a problem.
00:05:45
So he and his sons designed what they called a safety hoist that wouldn’t fall to the ground if it broke. The interesting feature of it was that it had these teeth in the rail on either side of it, and there was a spring inside the top mechanism.
00:06:09
So when the rope was cut and tension was released, these pegs would shoot out and catch in those teeth. He didn’t think much of it at the time—he didn’t patent it, he didn’t try to sell it, and he didn’t even ask his managers for a bonus for this invention.
00:06:25
But three years later, the bed frame business wasn’t going so well, and he was looking to try something new. He formed a company to sell the elevators but got no business for several months.
00:06:47
Then came the 1854 New York World’s Fair, where he saw a great opportunity to make a dramatic presentation by having a helper actually cut the rope.
00:07:07
He created excitement, reminiscent of a NASCAR crash, as people hoped to see something spectacular. So he decided to showcase his invention. To the point, this is a pencil drawing, which might well qualify as the world’s first photobomb—I'm not really sure what that's about.
00:07:30
Now, these elevators weren’t perfect; they ran on steam engines back then and required someone to constantly fuel them. Even though it would take a while before they were updated to run on electricity, the Equitable company realized this would change the office space market.
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Previously, the lowest floors in a building were the most desired because they were the easiest to access. A company leasing space in an office building now needed to take the upper, less convenient floors for a good return on investment.
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There was now a safe way to travel up and down from the highest floors, which had the most light, the most fresh air, and the most distance from road noise. This literally turned the value proposition for buildings completely upside down.
00:08:27
All of this was the result of something Elisha Otis didn’t even think was a big deal. Thankfully, he decided to share it with others.
00:08:37
We were talking about the Equitable Building, you know—the one that was built as fireproof, the one that had billions of dollars in its basement. This is the Cafe Sovereign, a really swanky cafe in that building.
00:09:03
On January 9, 1912, just after 5 AM, with winds howling at 40 miles an hour, gusts reached up to 68 miles per hour. The temperatures were below freezing, made much colder now due to the wind chill.
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Phillip O’Brien, the timekeeper for the Cafe Sovereign, starts his day by lighting the gas in his small office and distractingly throws the lit match into the garbage. By 5:18 AM, the office is engulfed in flames.
00:09:50
The flames spread to the elevators and dumbwaiters, and within minutes, the entire Equitable Building is on fire. The fire department arrives, but as you can see, the water was freezing on the building as they tried to put it out.
00:10:06
The building was utterly ruined, and so it was that the structure billed as fireproof was lost in a fire. History buffs might recognize that 1912 was also the year an 'unsinkable' ship struck an iceberg and sank.
00:10:23
You’d think two disasters in one year would be enough to teach us to stop making grandiose claims. The next skyscraper we're going to talk about is the Home Insurance Building.
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It was built in 1885. The architect tasked with this building was William LeBaron Jenney. The story goes that Jenney left work unusually early one day, and his wife was startled.
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She was a little concerned that maybe he had gotten sick or something and jumped up to greet him, setting a heavy book she was reading on a birdcage.
00:11:13
An inspiration struck. I kind of always read this line as if being said by King Arthur in 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail,' talking about coconuts. "If so frail a frame of wire would sustain such great weight without yielding, would not a cage of iron or steel serve as a frame for a building?" Supposedly, this was the revelation he had.
00:11:34
The Home Insurance Building is considered the father of the skyscraper and was the tallest in the world for four years until 1889. It was built of cast-iron columns and rolled iron beams forming a framework up to the sixth floor.
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Steel beams were then used from the seventh floor through the tenth floor, with the majority of the curtain wall hung from the frame. In these buildings, the frame was built, and then the masonry was hung like a curtain.
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Most of the masonry wasn’t load-bearing in this building, making it about a third the weight of a full masonry load-bearing structure. Something as simple as a birdcage led to an idea that changed everything about how we built skyscrapers from that point on.
00:12:33
Of course, if you were a New Yorker, you may not have called the Home Insurance Building the first skyscraper, but if you were a Chicagoan, you surely did. There was much drama around this.
00:12:50
Leroy S. Buffington didn't look like a very cheerful guy. Maybe that was because he claimed he had the same idea back in 1881, except he didn’t actually build it. He applied for a patent in November of 1887, which was awarded in May of 1888.
00:13:07
By this point, this technique was already in very wide use. Buffington actually started a company called the Iron Building Company to pursue lawsuits against builders using this construction method.
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Here’s a picture of a flax mill from 1797 that used iron framing. Sounds kind of like prior art to me, but that didn’t stop Buffington from trying to extract money from anyone and everyone who might pay.
00:13:49
The next skyscraper we are going to discuss is the Monadnock Building in Chicago, Illinois. The Monadnock Building was being built by two brothers from Boston, Peter and Shepard Brooks.
00:14:09
For whatever reason, I could not find a picture of Shepard. You can tell they are wealthy, though, as Peter has an oil painting of himself.
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They hired a guy named Alvis to be their property manager and handle all of their investments. Peter only ever visited Chicago once, and they relied entirely on Alvis for information.
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Somehow, they still thought Chicago would be the biggest city in the world. They decided to hire Daniel Burnham and John Root—these imaginatively named architects—to design the building.
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Burnham was a pragmatic businessman, while Root had a flair for the artistic. Here’s a sketch of the building drawn back in 1885.
00:15:09
It was initially planned to be a 13-story building with Egyptian-inspired ornamentation. Now, Brooks was known for being extremely wealthy but also extremely stingy, preferring simplicity.
00:15:26
He insisted the architects refrain from elaborate ornamentation and didn’t want any protrusions on the building, claiming they just created places for pigeons to nest.
00:15:42
Apparently, he had a significant problem with pigeons. The moment Root went on vacation, Burnham had another draftsman create a simpler drawing. When Root returned from vacation, he was not happy about this.
00:16:07
His beautiful design had been ruined, but he eventually decided to embrace the challenge. He declared that the heavy lines of the pyramid had captured his imagination, and he would throw the building up without a single ornament.
00:16:25
However, Root, still an artist at heart, could not give up completely on ornamentation. He designed protrusions that would create spaces where pigeons could nest.
00:16:42
This helped sell Brooks on the idea because it would increase rentable space. In fact, the height of the building was determined by how high they could feasibly make it while preserving rentability due to wall thickness.
00:16:58
This was a load-bearing masonry building, so the more you put on top, the thicker the walls had to be at the bottom. The walls had to be six feet wide at the base.
00:17:20
On top of that, Chicago had soft soil, so they devised a raft system under the foundation to float the building on this soft soil. Here’s what the building turned out to look like—it looks pretty much like the sketch.
00:17:40
It ended up being built in two parts and was later expanded to 17 stories, making it one of the tallest commercial structures of its time.
00:17:56
It was still the largest load-bearing iron frame or exterior masonry wall structure. The building was designed to settle eight inches, but by 1905, it had settled that much and more.
00:18:15
They needed to reconstruct the first floor, and by 1948, it had settled 20 inches, resulting in a step-down to enter the first floor.
00:18:32
In 1967, it was discovered that the building was sinking—it seemingly never stopped. Profitability is indeed a critical factor in building design, but it cannot be the only factor.
00:18:51
The next skyscraper we’re going to discuss is the Fuller Flatiron Building, also built in New York by Daniel Burnham. During the time the Monadnock was under construction, Root passed away.
00:19:09
Burnham was still in business. His new company, D.H. Burnham and Company, was awarded the Fuller Flatiron project, working alongside Frederick Dinkelberg.
00:19:27
The building was originally set to be called the Fuller Building after the recently deceased George A. Fuller. However, locals soon called it the Flatiron because it resembled a flat iron used in ironing.
00:19:45
At the tip, in fact, it was only six and a half feet wide. This necessitated a unique shape for the building due to the triangular plot of land.
00:20:10
If the Monadnock building required walls that were six feet wide at its base and this building's tip was only six and a half feet wide, they would have lost a lot of rentable space.
00:20:28
Thus, this required a different approach. The walls of the Flatiron building are far from six feet thick, demonstrating it's better to have an improperly shaped building than half a building.
00:20:44
To make it work, the right materials were needed, and in this case, it wasn’t masonry but steel. The Fuller Flatiron was built on a steel frame.
00:20:59
Locals at the time referred to Burnham’s design as 'Burnham's folly' and took bets on how far debris would fall during the first windstorm.
00:21:16
But an engineer named Gordon Purdy was involved in this project and had designed bracing tested to withstand four times the force the Flatiron would ever encounter during a 60-mile per hour windstorm.
00:21:37
In fact, that storm hit shortly after the first tenants moved in, and they couldn’t feel the slightest vibration in the building. One tenant said that even the filament in his light bulb didn’t vibrate!
00:21:55
That didn’t surprise the construction engineers at all, who had tested their designs, but was a marvel to everyone else.
00:22:12
Now we have a two-for-one discussion: 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building, both in New York. These two were designed by severance and William Van Allen, who were once partners.
00:22:28
They had very different personalities. Van Allen preferred to spend his time with architects discussing finer design points, while Severance spent time with business folks drumming up sales.
00:22:46
Severance had no particular passion for architecture as art, and Van Allen did not take it well when he received the credit for the intricate designs they built together.
00:23:02
Their partnership ended badly, and they soon found themselves in competition. Severance was commissioned to design 40 Wall Street while Van Allen was commissioned to design the Chrysler Building.
00:23:21
You’re probably familiar with the Chrysler Building but may have never heard of 40 Wall Street—it's known as the Trump Building today.
00:23:38
Back then it was known as the Bank of Manhattan Trust Building. Severance assembled a dream team consisting of his associate Yasuo Matsui and consulting architects Shreve and Lamb.
00:23:52
On the other hand, Walter Chrysler tasked William Van Allen with designing the Chrysler Building. Chrysler was heavily involved in every aspect of the design.
00:24:09
He actually paid for both the design and construction of the building personally. He was obsessed with every detail, referring to the building as a monument to himself.
00:24:25
Interestingly, the initially announced heights of 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building differed; 40 Wall Street was a little taller.
00:24:44
Chrysler made his initial announcement first by a month, stating their steel work was complete, though it really wasn't. This was to make it appear that the Chrysler Building was the tallest.
00:25:02
Severance wasn't terribly worried because he had already submitted plans to build higher than originally announced, as there were other skyscraper announcements coming left and right.
00:25:20
Everyone was declaring intentions to construct buildings higher than a mile during this era. Van Allen remained quiet because he and a few others were well aware they were building higher than expected.
00:25:40
In the third week of October, Severance caught wind that someone spotted a 60-foot flagpole on top of the Chrysler Building, so he raised his plans even higher.
00:26:01
This was enough for the press to declare a winner—40 Wall Street was scheduled to top out on November 12, and Chrysler’s dome was preventing a height increase.
00:26:18
However, the Bank of Manhattan Building was set to top out at 925 feet, while the Chrysler Building would be 20 feet shorter than that, including the flagpole.
00:26:36
However, the flagpole on the Chrysler Building wasn't merely a flagpole; it was a part of a 185-foot, 27-ton steel spire that Van Allen had constructed off-site and shipped in pieces.
00:26:55
On October 23, they hoisted the base, riveted the pieces in place, and within 90 minutes, Van Allen and Chrysler went to bed knowing their skyscraper was now the tallest.
00:27:13
Remarkably, nobody realized the spire's installation; people thought it was merely a tall crane. Thus, on November 12, the New York World reported the world’s tallest building was, in fact, the Chrysler Building.
00:27:30
They later claimed the Building was actually over 238 feet taller than anyone believed, and when it came down to it, the Chrysler Building eclipsed 40 Wall Street by over 100 feet.
00:27:49
Both buildings were astoundingly expensive to build—about 13 and 14 million dollars each, respectively.
00:28:01
Think for a moment about how much extra expense went into these buildings, constantly adding height to win against a rival. To make things worse for the winner, Chrysler refused to pay Van Allen the standard 6 percent fee upon completion.
00:28:25
This would have amounted to $840,000, all because he had an internal contract for the commission to build the Chrysler Building. Before the completion of this building, Chrysler would have paid anything to win that race.
00:28:45
But once he won, he had little interest in covering those extra expenses. Van Allen ended up having to sue him, and it basically destroyed his career.
00:29:06
The story of his victory became a cautionary tale for other architects, and today, Van Allen has no major studies dedicated to his work and is little known in architectural history.
00:29:22
Upon his death, even the New York Times didn’t publish an obituary for him. Another interesting skyscraper in New York is the Empire State Building.
00:29:42
In August of 1929, before completing either of the other two buildings we just discussed, rumors circulated that a new developer might take over the site of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
00:29:53
Former New York governor Al Smith, who ran against Hoover, had invited John Raskob to chair the Democratic National Convention. After Raskob completed his campaign, he resigned as VP of Finance for General Motors.
00:30:12
After being ousted by Alfred Sloan—who supported president Herbert Hoover, claiming a conflict of interests—Raskob sold his GM stock to finance building the Empire State Building.
00:30:30
He made Smith president of the Empire State Company and announced their plans to demolish the Waldorf-Astoria and construct a new 80-story skyscraper that would be the tallest in the world.
00:30:51
This happened during a time when everyone else was making similar claims, so the importance of his announcement was somewhat lost.
00:31:11
Lamb and Shreve were among those involved in the construction of 40 Wall Street at that time, and another architect, Arthur Loomis Harmon, joined them in 1929.
00:31:31
By October 2, 1929, before the last-minute height increases in other buildings, Lamb was in a meeting with some of the richest men in New York.
00:31:50
He had built a scale model of a new skyscraper to show them, with demolition of the Waldorf Astoria already underway.
00:32:09
Lamb was artistic, much like Van Allen and John Root, and was pragmatic. He was looking at considerations, including time and external constraints that shaped the final design.
00:32:29
This is not new; whenever you’re given tight deadlines, you need to be prepared to make concessions. Initial drawings were completed in just two weeks, with a final design reached in four.
00:32:47
They designed the floor plan from the top down, established standards for interior lighting, and placed emphasis on how pleasant it would be to work in that space.
00:33:07
It is crucial to determine what factors matter, ensuring they wouldn't compromise lighting, ventilation, or other elements essential to the future occupants.
00:33:20
Occupants can come in all shapes and sizes, but just because someone is loud and imposing doesn’t justify prioritizing their needs over the greater good.
00:33:39
The rapid design process utilized elements from other buildings they had previously designed, such as the Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem and the Karoo Tower in Cincinnati.
00:33:57
These comparative designs aided in constructing a new building and played a significant part in the final design structure.
00:34:15
On November 18, 1929, Al Smith announced the purchase of land adjacent to the Waldorf, which led everyone to believe they had to build higher.
00:34:36
Smith announced that five additional floors would be added, contradicting the architects' intent to keep the height manageable.
00:34:54
Despite warnings from the designers, Rasckob insisted on increasing the proposed height to 285 stories and 1,100 feet, which was an overestimate by about 50 feet.
00:35:14
The architects emphasized a sound design while Rasckob seemed determined to build the tallest structure in New York.
00:35:33
Once again, we notice how history has a way of influencing new architect's desires. As they began building, you may notice that planning your building doesn't mean it’s built from the top down; it needs a reliable base.
00:35:49
During the construction of the Empire State Building, steelworkers demonstrated remarkable commitment, working under dire conditions and tight timelines.
00:36:07
They sometimes had insufficient safety nets, making the worksite particularly dangerous. Construction started on March 17, 1930.
00:36:24
In just 14 months, the building rose at a rate of four and a half stories per week, which was record speed at that time. Upon its completion, it held the title of the world’s tallest skyscraper for nearly 40 years.
00:36:43
By comparison, Van Allen's record was short-lived. They achieved this monumental task with surprisingly few casualties; only five deaths are on record.
00:37:02
Even though five deaths seem low considering the project's scale, it's crucial to acknowledge that even one life lost is too many.
00:37:20
Another noteworthy building is the United Nations HQ. It is considerably smaller than the Empire State Building and was constructed from 1948 to 1952.
00:37:39
Compare this to the Empire State's 14-month completion for a building over twice its size to demonstrate how fast it built.
00:37:56
You might notice the UN HQ has a massive amount of windows. They wanted lots of light and decided to use mostly sealed windows.
00:38:09
However, this creates a greenhouse effect because light brings heat, and unless you’re building a greenhouse, you want the light without the heat.
00:38:27
The solution to this originated years prior, prompted by humidity issues faced by a printing company in Brooklyn.
00:38:44
This led to the development of air conditioning by Willis Carrier in 1902, designed to regulate humidity. While it wasn’t the first of its kind, it certainly revolutionized cooling.
00:38:58
Carrier improved on his original design with a centrifugal chiller in 1922, allowing buildings like the UN HQ to become feasible.
00:39:12
Next, let’s discuss the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower, which was designed by Fazlur Rahman Khan.
00:39:31
The building's purpose was to accommodate Sears employees, necessitating its height. Chicago is known as the Windy City, where gusts can reach up to 55 miles per hour.
00:39:43
Khan developed a tube structural system to address bending in high winds. Instead of utilizing an internal framework, all structural members were moved to the exterior.
00:39:58
This method not only freed up space within the building but also created an exoskeleton, improving wind resistance. Despite its unconventional appearance, the structure’s design has ushered in elegance through its function.
00:40:18
The Sears Tower was the first building to employ Khan's bundled tube structure, comprising nine smaller tubes strapped together into one towering structure.
00:40:36
As a result, the top floor of the Sears Tower sways just six inches even in winds exceeding 55 miles per hour.
00:40:46
Next, we’re moving to the Taipei 101, which stands at 101 stories, hence its name. Built near the Pacific Ring of Fire, this area experiences earthquakes roughly twice a year.
00:41:05
Unlike wind, earthquakes primarily affect a building at the foundation, proving far more destructive. It’s crucial for builders in this region to test structures on earthquake simulators.
00:41:21
Spaghetti models provide an excellent analogy for how buildings bend under load. Engineers learn from previous failures to ascertain acceptable levels of risk.
00:41:35
Designers of Taipei 101 ensured rigidity where necessary while allowing flexibility where it was permissible. Here’s a typical floor plan for the building.
00:41:54
They built a core using 36 rigid steel tubes, including eight mega-columns filled with concrete. Every eight floors, trusses connected the outer and inner columns, acting like rubber bands.
00:42:16
On March 31st, 2002, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake rattled Taipei while construction was ongoing. Fortunately, inspectors later reported no structural damage after previously destroying smaller buildings nearby.
00:42:34
The engineers claimed that during an earthquake, Taipei 101 is the safest place in town. This led to questions about how swaying could affect occupants.
00:42:52
Three tuned mass dampers, including a massive one suspended between the 92nd and 87th floors, weigh 728 tons. They counteract movements so occupants would feel comfortable.
00:43:17
Finally, let's discuss the Burj Khalifa. Everything we have discussed thus far, including improvements in engineering and design, culminated in the construction of the Burj Khalifa.
00:43:38
After the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, there were claims that no super-tall buildings could ever be built again.
00:43:50
The issue with evacuation in an emergency is significant, as stairs are the only option—something that is far more difficult than climbing down.
00:44:05
At half a mile tall, the Burj Khalifa needed to ensure the safety of those inside. It incorporates a naturally fire-resistant concrete core.
00:44:23
However, as the building rose higher, more people were required to walk further to reach safety. Therefore, the solution was to create refuge areas on mechanical floors.
00:44:37
These refuge rooms consist of reinforced concrete and fireproof sheeting, capable of withstanding intense heat for up to two hours.
00:44:51
Each room has a dedicated air supply pumped through fire-resistant pipes. This effectively creates safer spaces for people in an emergency.
00:45:07
Addressing smoke inhalation risk, high-powered fans push clean, cool air through the building, ensuring that the escape routes remain clear.
00:45:20
This emphasizes that while safe rooms aren’t substitutes for rescue workers, they provide secure locations as firefighters combat the fire.
00:45:40
The key emphasis is that anything worth building is ultimately based on its impact on people. This concludes our talk about skyscrapers.
00:46:00
Thank you very much!
00:46:16
Was this some kind of metaphor? That’s the question I don’t know; what do you think?
00:46:25
I think no. So the question Mike had was a troll. What is the meaning of the stickers?
00:46:32
Well, this one’s a lobster, and this one’s an owl, and this sticker relates to humane development does represent a belief I hold.
00:46:51
That’s the meaning here, to be a lobster in this meeting and be an owl. I work for a company called Cary’s and I’m thankful for being able to be here today.
00:47:08
I appreciate Mike for inviting me, and I’m really sad this is the last MountainWest, but I thank you, Mike, for everything.
