Ever expanding population growth coupled with the continuous development of urban centres mean that buildings, in general, will continue to get taller. With the topping out of One World Trade Centre in May this year the worldwide competition to construct towers with soaring altitudes doesn’t seem to be slowing, especially in China and the UAE. The question on many people’s lips, however, is how much of these colossal buildings is actual usable space?
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), who recently named the Best Tall Buildings for 2013, has published an article tackling the concept of Vanity Height, or "the distance between a skyscraper’s highest occupiable floor and its architectural top." The results demonstrate that many super-skyscrapers have surprisingly uneven ratios between habitable and non-occupiable space.
The CTBUH Height Criteria defines a building as supertall if its height to the ‘architectural top’ is above 300m (984ft). To give some context, the Empire State Building is measured at 373m (1224ft), whereas buildings such as Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, which is measured at 828m (2717ft), are leading the way into the Era of the Megatall. According to the CTBUH, as of July 2013, there are only 73 supertall and 2 megatall buildings in existence.
