Sky-sourced sustainability-the potential environmental advantages of building tall

Abstract

Utilizing the earth and near-grade environment as a source of energy has historically been a common practice. Beyond solar and wind, designers do not usually look towards the sky as the source of additional benefits. The objective of this paper was to make tall-building designers more aware of the additional sources of sustainability 'in the sky' ; how these sources change with altitude; and how this knowledge can benefit the design, construction and operation of tall buildings. Exterior environmental factors including temperature, presssure/air density, solar, wind and moisture, and their relationships with altitude are discussed. Selected approaches are suggested on how to benefit from them. Since current energy codes and 'green' building standards do not address the issue of enrironmental variations with altitude, the sky has potential to offer unique energy-saving opportunities and possibly add to the quantified sustainability of a tall building. Where possible, a speculative 1-km (3281 ft) tall tower in Dubai is used as an example for illustration. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.