Bugle Sales Talk Editorial

New York added four new towers in 2014 alone, including the iconic One World Trade Center - an impressive building which I had the privilege of visiting recently. The impression I came away with from New York City is a skyline filled with mega-cranes and new towers going up in clusters. No hint of an economic slowdown was evident. The newly developing cities of the world such as Dubai and Shanghai have added a jaw-dropping 190 and 90 skyscrapers respectively since 2000.

Skyscrapers provide an ideal solution to increased urbanization in going upwards rather than outwards thereby limiting urban sprawl and at the same time creating innovative spaces for people to live and work. In terms of the Knight Frank Skyscraper Index, Hong Kong remains the world's leading city for skyscrapers, but New York is close behind and growing. It seems like no co-incidence that the cities ranked first and second have their CBDs on islands. Skyscrapers provide the ideal solution for areas constrained by natural barriers and where the cities are repopulating.

The Knight Frank report has identified 5 future trends, which will encourage large global cities to go upwards, making skyscrapers an essential part of this new urban growth.

These are:

1.) New technologies are emerging to enable taller buildings. Steel elevator cables become problematic over 500 metres due to both weight and energy consumption. Finnish company, Kone, well-known in South Africa for its lifts, have developed a new light weight carbon fibre cable, which can be as long as one kilometer while using less energy to hoist elevators. Another lift manufacturer, Thyssen-Krupp, are looking into an elevator that has no cable. It is based on magnet technology, requiring no counter-weight and freeing up internal space for other uses.

2.) Rapid population growth in cities across the globe due to migration, gentrification and growing economic opportunities. The UN is predicting that the number of mega cities (those with a population of over 10 million) is to increase from 28 currently to 41 by 2030.

3.) The rise of the internet and electronic trading was widely expecting to break up business clusters, but this has not been the case. In fact the opposite has happened with the new breed of digital companies. Great examples are New York and San Francisco showing that clusters could grow in significance in a hi-tech future.

4.) Skyscrapers reduce the need for urban sprawl and the practical and political problems this creates. Vertical cities allow transport networks to focus on maximizing local capacity and efficiency at peak times rather than extending lines further into surrounding countryside with ever longer commuting times.

5.) The emergence of a community city. The ground floor frontage, basements and first floors of skyscrapers have become amazing public areas adding to the quality of life for those that live and work close by. This is patently evident in New York City where extra-ordinary public spaces are interspersed between the proliferation of tall buildings. If you ever need to be inspired by how a large city can continually re-invent itself a trip to New York will provide this.

For further information and an interactive analysis of this article follow my blog: andreaswassenaar.blogspot.com.

Andreas Wassenaar

Principal - Seeff Dolphin Coast

Cell: 082 837 9094

andreasw@seeff.com