Do you agree with the architectural height measurement ?

[chris123678]

I personally have nothing against spires. I like the look of them but here are two things to consider.
1. Most people stop at the roof and not the tip of the spire.
2. No one from the ground or even high up would address a spire as a "spire" more as a point, or antenna.

If you include one, you should include both.
In the case Of 1wtc, it's really a cheating way to the top, considering, it's antenna that had a spire covering it.
Spires shouldn't be counted.
If You Build a 900 foot building, and add a 1000 foot spire, is it really the tallest in America?

[Kanto]

I 1000% agree with you. Either they should count both or they should count none

[iloveclassicrock7]

Originally Posted by Jan

I've been a member of their heigh-committee for some years, and the question about counting spires would pop up every once in a while, usually ending in leaving everything as is. The reason why they won't change their architectural spire rule is that it's a fairly clear rule what is to be counted or not, and as such minimizes the grey area, but also because the rule has been in place for some decades. By this rule, they counted the Petronas Tower spires as height, while the Sears Tower antennas in Chicago were not, and by doing so declared the first one as the new tallest, even though by mass the Sears Tower appears higher at the top. When changing the height criteria drastically, some of the famous heights, which have pretty much been set in stone, might go out of whack, changing your own history while at it.

However, the problem is that in this day and age, a lot of tall buildings have some kind of wacky something sticking up, and that the current rule produces a number of questionable comparisons, some posted above (especially in post #4). There are a number of cases in which the spire really is an integrated part of the whole architecture and as such don't a clear point which could be considered as a roof. Chrysler Building and Burj Khalifa are good examples of that. But in many, many other cases, the "spire" is nothing more then a stick on top of a roof, even if it is a non functional one. Trump Chicago is a classic example of that. Actually it's possible buying into some kind of "tallest" title rather cheaply the way the rules are interpreted. A number of one on one votes here have shown that there is no popular support for counting these as part of the height, and it is my opinion as well that these should not be counted. By the way, post starter's question has been raised and answered here.

What that height committee really should to is to draft a set of qualitative benchmarks instead of function-based rules, and judge the questionable cases on an individual basis and decide whether whatever sticks out ought be counted as height or not. Until then I don't take some of these vanity heights too serious.

I was over in the WTC thread talking about this, and everyone kept saying what the CTBUH says is fact, and honestly it isn't, of course most people there want to believe that 1 WTC is 541 meters, so their stances are biased. But I seriously think there needs to be some type of measurement that competes with the CTBUH measurement. Eventually we are going to have some person that makes a 300m building, and adds a 300m spire, and calls it the tallest building in America. It is already happening. The federation tower has a roof height of 360 meters, and the spire brings it to a height of 506 meters,so the spire is about a 1/3rd of the buildings height. The BOA gets close to a third of its height from the spire, and get this its top floor is only 234 meters high yet they call it a 370 meter building. Same goes for the NYT tower. So if there are a bunch of buildings that get a 1/3rd of their height from spires, how long is it till we have buildings where the spire covers 1/2 half the height ? Not very long, the original version of the freedom tower was a 300 meter building they were passing as a 541 meter building. Luckily it didn't get built.

Here is the version of the freedom tower I am referring to



Here is thing thought, a fact is something you can't challenge, you can challenge the CTBUH, so therefore their beliefs are just an opinion, their voice is loud in the architecture community, but it is still just an opinion.

[KillerZavatar]

if the spire is more than 50% of the buildings height it is not called a skyscraper anymore, but a tower and for towers spires and antenna's should always be counted in my opinion. anyway i think at one point there will be buildings that are like 600m and have a 300m spire on top, not for the sake of breaking records, but because it makes sense to build a 300m observation tower instead of a 900m tower for the same result. so i think the rules should stay, but people should always consider roof height and the official height. the antenna should not be counted for a different reason. if an old skyscraper like the ESB gets renovated and gets a new antenna with a different height than the previous one it would otherwise change its height and buildings should not be able to do so without also changing their completition date, because otherwise it would change history. so counting antenna's would make everything far to complicated, because they are too easy to change and there are reasons to change them from times to times. spires however have to be counted, because otherwise it would make it impossible to measure buildings like Burj Khalifa. so i am in favor of the CTBUH measurements.

[L.A.F.2.]

We all know that no one agrees with the CTBUH's official height measurement, but there are over ten other "best" ways to do it.

There are the roof height fans, who think the official height should be the roof height. It works 90% of the time, but there are exceptions. If roof height was the official measurement, then 432 Park Avenue would be 1,398 feet, and 1WTC only 1,374. However, 1WTC has a communication ring that appears as a setback of the roof that rises just over 1,400 feet into the air. Also, it has a 418 foot mast atop it, to push it higher and higher into the sky at 1,792 feet. Not to mention the extreme bulk of 1WTC, which, if I recall correctly, is the third or fourth largest skyscraper in the world by square footage at 3.5 million behind only Sears, SWFC, and possibly the main clock tower of Abraj-al-Bait. 432 Park is a fraction of that. 1WTC is also the most expensive building in the world, currently at $3.9 billion, just surpassing the ICC Hong Kong, while 432 Park will be considerably less. Exceptions to this rule are rare, but this one warrants mention.

Another huge argument is the Sears-Petronas conflict, as well as the Sears-Taipei 101 conflict. I'll cover them in the order stated.

Sears' official measurement is 1,451 feet, and Petronas' is 1,483. However, Petronas' rooves are 1,242 feet, 209 feet lower than Sears'. Sears' tips at the time Petronas were complete were 1,707 feet. (In 2000, the Western one was extended to 1,729 feet.) Petronas' pinnacles were only at 1483 feet, 224 feet below Sears'. The main argument for those in favor of Petronas was that since they had two towers, they could have built one building much larger, but that isn't the case. Petronas' combined square footage is 4.25 million, while Sears' is 4.48 million, so there was more space in Sears alone than Petronas combined. (Also, 1 and 2WTC could have combined for a total of 8.7 million square feet, dominating the world still today had they not been destroyed.) Sears took the title in every measurement except the crooked CTBUH's, and lost.

The same goes for Taipei 101. It only has 2.08 million square feet, while Sears, as previously stated has more than twice as much. I don't care if a little VIP club was stuck 22 feet above Sears' roof, the building had much more space as it is. Again, its tips at that time were 1,707 and 1,729 feet, which is 37 and 59 feet taller than Taipei 101's at 1,670 feet. I think Sears should have been world's tallest building until the Burj Khalifa was built, and still, the Burj only has 3.3 million square feet, which means it would take a 36% increase in space to take that title from Sears. Its tip being over 1,000 feet higher than the Eastern antenna of Sears invalidates the argument altogether, so the Burj should definitely be the world's tallest.

I personally think there should be two classes: World's tallest building to the roof and world's tallest building to the tip. This way there couldn't be any controversy whatsoever. You may notice I am a huge fan of square footage, for I believe it is the best was to tell a building's true size. It's a great tie-breaker.

[L.A.F.2.]

Delete.

[Jan]

Originally Posted by L.A.F.2.

I personally think there should be two classes: World's tallest building to the roof and world's tallest building to the tip.

I agree in spirit, but I know only one guy on this planet that would like to go back and look at, or go after the blue prints of all buildings to determine the highest-floor-height or roof height, and it would take at least 100 of him to make that happen in the next ten years. It's practically impossible, really.

[Hudson11]

I like this comparison better, makes the CTBUH's system seem ridiculous

[IMG]http://oi45.************/2rgynvl.jpg[/IMG]

[L.A.F.2.]

Originally Posted by Jan

I agree in spirit, but I know only one guy on this planet that would like to go back and look at, or go after the blue prints of all buildings to determine the highest-floor-height or roof height, and it would take at least 100 of him to make that happen in the next ten years. It's practically impossible, really.

Hey Jan. I can see what you are saying, but I think each firm could go back and pull up the measure without it being too great a hassle. If not, we could go for plan B and ask Kanto to do it .

[1Filipe1]

personally im confused on which i think it should be yes or no, but when you look at a building with a spire on it you dont stop and look at just the roof and dont look up past that you look at the entire building, antenna or spire you still look to the tip, you can't tell me the BOA tower in ny, you dont look up to the spire, i think it should either be you count spires and antennas or you count neither, i feel you should count both, i mean the willis tower's antennas is just part of the building, same as the antenna of the ESB and eventually the antenna of the wtc but idk im kind of iffy lol

[windowsoftheworld]

No i don't. To me the highest building should be the one with the highest roof, not spire.

[deepblue01]

I think the system should be kept as it is. Towers don't need to be 'official' for it to look good. Does it matter where your favorite tower sits on the list?

I've liked the petronas and Jin mao for so many years now and I haven't really thought much as to where they stand on the list, in fact, I don't know what they are ranked as of now. All i know is that I like them.

[Kanto]

Originally Posted by L.A.F.2.

Hey Jan. I can see what you are saying, but I think each firm could go back and pull up the measure without it being too great a hassle. If not, we could go for plan B and ask Kanto to do it .

LOL, in fact I already did something like that with supertalls finished as of this year. Problem is that without official help I often had to rely solely on Wiki or the SSP diagrams. Also, in the case of Burj Khalifa I had to utilize an experimental method of determining roof height. Finally, Abby and the Empire State Building appear to have a higher roof height than for what they look like because they have occupied floors in the thin upper sections, which would normaly be classified as spires (though I'd like to add that this is especially speculative in the case of Abby since the CTBUH doesn't have data on its top occupied floor, only Wiki does). The purple numbers are completely questionable while the green ones should (but I'm not guaranteeing it) be accurate

[IMG]http://i49.************/6s839s.png[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i50.************/2s81z6u.png[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i45.************/2nj8tol.png[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i45.************/14liybn.png[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i49.************/t00whe.png[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i45.************/1qqyro.png[/IMG]

[L.A.F.2.]

Wow! This is a fantastic list. How long did it take you to make?

[Jan]

Kanto's list already makes a lot more sense compared to lining these up according to spire height. Well done.

[Kanto]

Thanks

As to LAF2's question how long did it take to make it, well, each of the 6 diagrams took about one evening to make but there have been many corrections done after I was finished with them when I found more accurate info. I also consulted the heights with another forumer who gathered info too

[L.A.F.2.]

Yeah, that's pretty much all the information really needed for a history of the world's tallest buildings post-1930.

[KillerZavatar]

yet i still think observation and tv towers, should always be measured to the pinnacle. they are basically a spire from bottom to top anyway. usable spire, but still

[Kanto]

In my opinion towers have a roof just as skyscrapers do and all habitable buildings should be measured together

[Amastroi2017]

Originally Posted by ThatOneGuy

It is impossible to completely agree on the terms. Some buildings may have tall spires (which officially count) but low roof heights. SOme buildings may have other features that make them hard to measure officially. I made this picture to show it.
Which one would be the tallest?
[IMG]http://oi48.************/2621ptu.jpg[/IMG]

That third building is not logical. Nice idea to try and prove your point but you didn't think it through. How are people supposed to reach that highest occupied floor, climb the poles? So we can discount that because no building will ever be built like that simply because it is not feasible logically.

CTBUH might count spires but roof height is the only height I go by. Spires cheat just as much as antennaes in my opinion.

I don't even count as building as a supertall unless the roof reaches 1,000 feet or higher. 984 feet is arbitrary for Americans so we prefer a different set of numbers, 1,000 ft. for supertall and 2,000 ft. for megatall.