Skyscraper and Sustainable city

There is a hot topic in property market in this few days – there are ninety floor residential building will be built in Parramatta, which is the tallest building in western part of Sydney. This type of Skyscraper is one type of the symbols of well developed city, for example the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. This type of tower is good to shown the successful in economic and in some extent can solve the problem of housing problem. However, in the view of energy saving, skyscraper is not good for the sustainable city.

The 90-storey tower at Parramatta. (Supplied: Parramatta City Council)    

 First of all, the taller building means high energy consumption. According to Halbur (2011) shows that, the high speed and the bigger elevators is needed for the taller building. This type of elevators needs more energy consumption and it will use around 10-15% more than the normal in super tall building. Not just the elevators, some electric deceive in common areas is also needed to turn on in long time. It is not good for energy saving.

       

        Then the construction method and material is also a big concern abut the skyscraper. In building this type of skyscraper. For example, the most expensive skycrapers in the world is the One World Trade Centre in New York city in US. It cost around US$3.9 billion built in 2014. The reason is that the tallest building require more safety material to make sure the base of the building can support the whole building. Beside, most of the facades of the building are using full height glass panel.

In day time, the sunshine will make the building inside high temperature therefore, there are more air conditioner is request for this kind of building.

Skyscraper maybe the symbol of a developed city, however in long term this type of building can not be the sustainable city sue to the energy consumption is too high to maintain. Apart from this, there are still have many other problems for the skyscraper, for example, it may increase the risk of the high island effect.

Reference and Photo Source:

Tim Halbur, Negrete & Fortin, 2011. Skyscrapers and the World of Tomorrow. Available at: <http://www.planetizen.com/node/51164> [Accessed: March 13, 2016].

Emirates247, 2015. High-cost high-rises: World's 10 most expensive skyscrapers. Available at: <http://www.emirates247.com/property/high-cost-high-rises-world-s-10-most-expensive-skyscrapers-2015-01-03-1.575250> [Accessed: March 13, 2016].

 Abc News, 2016. Design for Sydney's tallest residential tower released. Available at: <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-09/design-chosen-for-the-largest-residential-tower-in-nsw/7233954> [Accessed: March 13, 2016].