C'punks, I haven't had much luck in researching something. Several years back, Donald Trump proposed a high-rise complex for New York City that would feature a kilometer-high skyscraper. Does anyone have a URL about that plan? I'd love to see the WTC replaced with a building over twice as tall as the twin towers, the irrefutable tallest building in the world. Something like Trump's kilometer tower would be a great symbol of recovery and transcendence. S a n d y
I'd love to see the WTC replaced with a building over twice as tall as the twin towers, the irrefutable tallest building in the world. Something like Trump's kilometer tower would be a great symbol of recovery and transcendence.
I agree with this. The Twin Towers should be built bigger than before (twice as big if it's feasible). I know some people would be scared to have office space in there, but that's fine, because people who are not scared will take space there, and everyone will know it. I would take an office on the 200th floor if I could.
I agree with this. The Twin Towers should be built bigger than before (twice as big if it's feasible). I know some people would be scared to have office space in there, but that's fine, because people who are not scared will take space there, and everyone will know it. I would take an office on the 200th floor if I could.
Are you aware that India is going to open a 224 story 2222 foot tower for business in 2008? It's the Center of India Tower, in Katangi, India. I believe it has a webpage somewhere. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
On Saturday, September 15, 2001, at 07:28 PM, Eric Cordian wrote:
I agree with this. The Twin Towers should be built bigger than before (twice as big if it's feasible). I know some people would be scared to have office space in there, but that's fine, because people who are not scared will take space there, and everyone will know it. I would take an office on the 200th floor if I could.
Are you aware that India is going to open a 224 story 2222 foot tower for business in 2008?
It's the Center of India Tower, in Katangi, India. I believe it has a webpage somewhere.
A Schelling point target for the Pakistanis, the Sikhs, the Tamil Tigers, and the Bovine Liberation Army. (Says India, "We are not cowed by the BLA!") People can work in anthills if they want to...I'm glad I don't have to go _near_ these places. They can rebuild the Towering Infernos if they wish to, with insurance money, but the taxpayer should not pay a single dime for the Heights of Hubris to be rebuilt. Let them stand or fall, so to speak, on their own merits. I predict they'll be economic disasters if rebuilt: firms are scrambling to find the 10 million square feet of lost office space, 15 million counting nearby buildings damaged or collapsed. Those firms will likely have either left Manhattan or will have settled in to other new office buildings. Decentralization, a la NASDAQ and Napster-like trading systems will further cause a diaspora. Rebuilt towers would come on the market after all of this. Granted, this happened in 1970-74, when the two towers were opened, but developers had known about it for a decade and so it was part of the plans. And in any case, a real estate recession hit Manhattan in the mid-70s, possibly made worse by all that square footage added. Unlikely that a free market investor would choose to build 10 million square feet of space in one project. Notice that there was no evidence of plucking people off the rooftops with helicopters, no signs of aerial fire-fighting? These buildings are deathtraps. --Tim May
High rises taller than about about 70 stories for office buildings and 50 stories for housing are extremely dangerous. Buildings taller than that are constructed for vainglory, which is to say that architects, engineers, builders, banks and governments are delighted to participate in such insane follies to advance the notion that dense, wretched cities are supreme cultural achievements. The prime beneficiaires of this lucrative conceit do not spend a lot of time in the towering fire traps overlooking compacted cattle pens, but do assign staff there. As the weeping Gecko cries on TV, "I lost 600 of my cattle" at the top of WTC. Reasonable humans should not work or live in them. Cutting edge idiots should, but few do, especially their builders who know exactly what the hazard is, though they may put staff there for marketing the illusions of safety. Eiffel spent time in his tower to assure the skeptical public that it was safe. Making backers of dangerous high-rises live and work there 24x7 would be an excellent provision in the building and penal codes. However, no building, high or low, if not a bunker under a mountain, can be constructed to be bomb-proof. DoD said this yesterday in a damage assessment of the Pentagon. As with renovation there, blast-resistant features can diminish but not prevent damage. DoD mentioned in passing that a mylar-like material is installed on Pentagon windows, now with 2-inch thick glass, to combat electronic and acoustical eavesdropping. The press thought the sheets were part of the blast-resistance system and noted that it had not been installed on windows of the press room. DoD would surely not eavesdrop the press.
John Young wrote:
High rises taller than about about 70 stories for office buildings and 50 stories for housing are extremely dangerous.
As were buildings above 5 stories in ancient Rome. Technology moves on. The question is not, "Can 250-story buildings be made safe?" The only question is "How can they be made safe?" S a n d y
On Sun, 16 Sep 2001, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
As were buildings above 5 stories in ancient Rome. Technology moves on. The question is not, "Can 250-story buildings be made safe?" The only question is "How can they be made safe?"
The question is: why should we bother? Tall buildings have intrinsically bad volume to crossection ratio, by definition. Both the static and the infrastructure is vulnerable, so the efforts would be far better spent by decentralizing the society. Monkeys want to see monkeys, fine. We have video projectors and AR avatars for that, and last time I looked most of the fiber was idle.
Yes, Sandy, how do you do that? Sincerely, I'm not being a wiseass. Some building types have disappeared over time due to understanding that they don't work any more. Glorious buildings that once were once seen as absolutely the best ever. Forts, for example. Gothic cathedrals that failed after exceeding the limits of stone construction. High rise engineers now admittedly design to the limits of failure under economic pressure and aesthetic ambition. One of the best high-rise structural engineers in the world, often consulted after failures, says that it cannot be known for sure all the forces that a super-high-rise will face, even with the best supercomputer modeling (though not at the capability of Nat Lab nuclear similuations) for each is unique, often purposely unique, that each is an experiment, and there is no testing laboratory except the building itself. Most mid- and super-high-rises require remedial work almost immediately, some even during construction, and sensors are now always installed to provide feedback on what the modeling says cannot be foretold with certainty. Those which have undergone remediation in NYC that I know about are numerous, and most of that has been kept under wraps with NDAs of those designing the corrections, to protect property values as well as reputations and to fend off lawsuits. The New Yorker a few years ago published one of the few accounts not in technical journals about high-rise remediation, in this case about CitiCorp's middling-rise, telling of the years-long attempt to avoid culpability not only by the original structural engineer but by a host of other prominents involved, despite repeated damning studies funded by occupant-leaseholders who could hear the building pop and creak, feel movement and see cracked interior walls. No big deal, perhaps, for unique large architectural and civil structures behave in unexpected ways, having no unique precedent to learn from. The safest high-rises are those that copy successes, and the successes are few for super-high-rises, not many are built. Ok, daring is needed, that is the architect's drug of choice and sale, but recall the building code of Vitruvius: commodity, firmness and delight. The architectural delight drug needs the other two or why bother building at all, just take a pill. The skyscraper bounty of which is in short supply downtown these days. No matter, it will come raging back like a bull on Monday, or will that market crash too.
On Sunday, September 16, 2001, at 12:16 PM, John Young wrote:
Ok, daring is needed, that is the architect's drug of choice and sale, but recall the building code of Vitruvius: commodity, firmness and delight. The architectural delight drug needs the other two or why bother building at all, just take a pill. The skyscraper bounty of which is in short supply downtown these days. No matter, it will come raging back like a bull on Monday, or will that market crash too.
This is an interesting thread, touching on architecture, safety, insurance, aesthetics, symbolism, and libertarian issues of whether coerced-funding approaches should be used (of course not...). The Getty Center. This is the marble-and-steel art museum built by the Getty Foundation on a hill overlooking L.A. I've been meaning to talk about this for the last several of these "Symbol" posts. The Getty Center in Los Angeles is the most amazing building/complext of buildings I have seen in many years. It was built totally with private funding (Getty, obviously), it has magnificent lines, it's open, and it looks to be very safe. (Safe from fire, partly by being low enough to be evacuable. Maybe safe from an earthquake at the three sigma level of probability...time will tell.) This may be a matter of personal aeshetics, as I have since I was a kid disliked the "concrete canyons" of Manhattan. The looming Bauhaus boxes of the World Trade Center never inspired me in the slightest way. By contrast, the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis in Athens really _did_ inspire me. I guess this is why I like the Getty Center so much. Your mileage may vary. I would never stop anyone from living and working in one of these concrete canyon anthills. They can commute in from Westchester County, ride elevators for 20 minutes, and then turn into crispy critters in their towering infernos. No skin off my nose. Some years ago (mid 1960s), IBM decided to move the bulk of its headquarters operations _out_ of Manhattan to places like Armonk and Yorktown Heights, north of NYC. They found many of their execs were already living in those areas, and younger workers could buy actual homes in the suburban areas. Likewise, my old company, Intel, decided 30 years ago to embark on a strategy of decentralizing operations so that a disaster in one area (an earthquake, most likely) would not cripple the company. They decentralized to Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico, and now many other sites. Antheaps are for ants. --Tim May
Sandy Wrote:
The question is not, "Can 250-story buildings be made safe?" The only question is "How can they be made safe?"
The related question is "How can they be made economical?"; Todos Santos may have been, but it had the advantage of being fictional, as did Gibson's nanotech-Nippon buildings that grew at night when nobody was looking. Unless we can get the economic systems to support the number of people who work in a building like that, including commuting costs from residential areas, to balance out the benefits of working near each other, the non-replacement of the building will be just evolution in action. Donald Trump is a capitalist - if building his proposed kilometer-high New Trump Tower would have made sense without the subsidies he's been so good at talking New York into giving him, it'd probably be built by now. It's not. Rebuilding it doesn't make sense, though I did enjoy the picture that's been floating around the net of the replacement building, four towers shaped like a hand with the middle finger extended. :-) If it weren't for the near-infinite value of land in Manhattan, I'd say it would be better to build your basic eternal-flame monument there. At 09:47 AM 09/16/2001 -0700, Tim May wrote:
The looming Bauhaus boxes of the World Trade Center never inspired me in the slightest way.
Agreed - the Empire State building and Chrysler Building are cool, but the WTC was ugly, though the view from the restaurant was impressive. (...and the John Hancock tower in Boston at least had the entertainment value of guessing where the next glass window was going to fall off...)
By contrast, the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis in Athens really _did_ inspire me. I guess this is why I like the Getty Center so much.
And the Parthenon lasted over 2000 years - it didn't turn into a ruin until the Turks blew up the ammunition storage there in the ~1850s.
Some years ago (mid 1960s), IBM decided to move the bulk of its headquarters operations _out_ of Manhattan to places like Armonk and Yorktown Heights, north of NYC. They found many of their execs were already living in those areas, and younger workers could buy actual homes in the suburban areas. Likewise, my old company, Intel, decided ...
The Internet makes it possible for anybody to work from anywhere they want. Of course, that's why everybody moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to be near the action :-)
John Young wrote:
Yes, Sandy, how do you do that? Sincerely, I'm not being a wiseass... High rise engineers now admittedly design to the limits of failure under economic pressure and aesthetic ambition.
Granted, but they will be built. My only hope is that safety is a high priority and that clever architects find ways to meet that priority. S a n d y
-- On 16 Sep 2001, at 12:16, John Young wrote:
Yes, Sandy, how do you do that? Sincerely, I'm not being a wiseass. Some building types have disappeared over time due to understanding that they don't work any more. Glorious buildings that once were once seen as absolutely the best ever. Forts, for example. Gothic cathedrals that failed after exceeding the limits of stone construction.
Every time a Gothic cathedral fell down they learnt something and built the next one bigger. I do not think they stopped building bigger because they reached the limits of stone, but because of economic and cultural decline --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG DdEAPIPoUhVXgNtWu041aUfOE5P4ZXTAzBXJtwOn 4fuxHq1EE+tFWtQcPMtXMxjwv9tPbEZWdUMCj4zi2
Pst, C'mere.... Let's build a BIIIIIIIG terrorist icon on the eve of a possibly long engagement, and put lots of little people in it. Don't present targets when civilian lives go in them. And, you can't fight fires in those things. ~Aimee
At 07:28 PM 09/15/2001 -0700, Eric Cordian wrote:
I agree with this. The Twin Towers should be built bigger than before (twice as big if it's feasible). I know some people would be scared to have office space in there, but that's fine, because people who are not scared will take space there, and everyone will know it. I would take an office on the 200th floor if I could.
Are you aware that India is going to open a 224 story 2222 foot tower for business in 2008?
It's the Center of India Tower, in Katangi, India. I believe it has a webpage somewhere.
Wow! Sounds like an amazing building. Too bad it won't last. If India doesn't straighten out their problems with Pakistan, it sounds like it won't last long enough to get 50,000 workers before somebody takes it out. Any way to sell short on it?
Visions of mega, ultra, unbelievable high rise towers are a stock off the shelf stuff for architects and tall building engineers. Clients and designers with delusions of grandeur, or need for PR to help fend off debtors and unwanted bastards, dream up these fantasies all the time. A crony and I worked up one to be 30 miles high located on at 14th Street, one gigantic foot to be hidden the shell of Cooper Union School of Architecture where puny versions of these things sprout regularly. They are all ridiculous dick-wavers, but fun to imagine dildoing the suffering planet when the banal peewees that you get to work are totally dismissable crap. Frank Lloyd Wright regularly published schemes for mile high buildings, variations cooked up to garner diverting attention when his debtors and ex-lovers beat on bunker. Still, fantasizing the monsters can be dangerous as having a heavily armed gorgon (LE, mil or citizenry) with nothing to do but parade, arms swap and kill almost unintentionally. Fantasizers of being above the clouds may neglect their mundane safety obligations and get you killed by their drug-crazed inattention to detail -- designers, dual-use exculpators too, also call their fuckups collateral damage. Then invite you to take a look at their fantasticly satisfying corrective, more expensive, grander, does not repeat history except as required to assure eternal gullibility. Listen, it's not just skyscrapers, others crave vast lebensraum, monochromic skin color, a single religion and language, a world without toxics and taxes, unlimited sex and amplifiers, elimination of differently humaned, an end to conflict or cleansing armageddon, no fences or property lines, shit, even some desk-squatter in London wants me out of my bunker or fork over fives time my income. Damn right I want to be above the shit level too. Here, look at this escape ladder drawing, available for a mere arm and leg rent on this bullseye.
On Sunday, September 16, 2001, at 04:10 PM, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
David Honig wrote:
Would you issue parachutes to folks on the upper floors?
Libertarian answer: No, but I would not forbid anyone from buying their own parachute.
(Conversation imagined at the x-ray and hand inspection portal) "What's this?" "A gas mask." "Huh?" "I just told you, a gas mask. Specifically, a filter system for breathing in smoke-filled places." "Uh,...uh...you'll have to wait here." I've been debating for the past year or so buying one of the "EVAC-U8" "Emergency Escape Smoke Hoods." I won't right now, because of the chaos of ordering and receiving anything. And because I travel so little that the risk of being in a plane or hotel fire is tiny. But I'll bet it's like wearing body armor, or having it in carry-on luggage: if you have it, you must be up to no good. (See what happens if you try to wear body armor on a flight.) I'm not saying parachutes will ever be banned. For one thing, no way to. Anyway, I think rebuilding the WTC in its previous form would be dumb for a lot of reasons. If builders want to, and can insure it against another attack and against damaging other buildings, and if NOT A SINGLE PENNY of government money is used, and if no guarantees of revenue, rent, etc. are given, cool. Of course, this is not the way it was built the first time around, and this is not the way it will be rebuilt. There will be bullshit about it being a symbol, and subsidies will be given, and so on and so forth. Rebuilding the towers is about 4.3 light years away from being a free market issue. --Tim May
Tim wrote:
I'm not saying parachutes will ever be banned. For one thing, no way to.
Recall that gas mask possession, sale, and transportation was criminalized in the city of Seattle during the "state of emergency" declared for the WTO festivities. This was during the time you couldn't open the window without pepper spray wafting in. Homework Exercise: Could someone list all the "executive orders" signed by various Presidents that are now in effect because Bush declared a "National Emergency", along with what unconstitutional power they confer and to whom? -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
On Sunday, September 16, 2001, at 06:59 PM, Eric Cordian wrote:
Tim wrote:
I'm not saying parachutes will ever be banned. For one thing, no way to.
Recall that gas mask possession, sale, and transportation was criminalized in the city of Seattle during the "state of emergency" declared for the WTO festivities.
This was during the time you couldn't open the window without pepper spray wafting in.
Homework Exercise: Could someone list all the "executive orders" signed by various Presidents that are now in effect because Bush declared a "National Emergency", along with what unconstitutional power they confer and to whom?
You might want to check Michael Froomkin's page. Several years ago he did a paper on executive orders. I could be wrong, but I believe he said some of the worst of the suspensions established by Lincoln himself were technically still on the books, including suspending habeas corpus (meaning, holding without production of evidence or reason for holding). --Tim May
On Sun, Sep 16, 2001 at 06:59:44PM -0700, Eric Cordian wrote:
Homework Exercise: Could someone list all the "executive orders" signed by various Presidents that are now in effect because Bush declared a "National Emergency", along with what unconstitutional power they confer and to whom?
I once looked into this for an article I coauthored for Liberty magazine. I'd appreciate such a roundup, complete with cites. Remember that we're always in a state of national emergency; thats what's required for crypto exports to be controlled. -Declan
participants (11)
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Aimee Farr -
Bill Stewart -
David Honig -
Declan McCullagh -
Dr. Evil -
Eric Cordian -
Eugene Leitl -
jamesd＠echeque.com -
John Young -
Sandy Sandfort -
Tim May