What you are about to see is my 5th grade Capstone Main Inquiry Essay. I really worked hard on this and I hope you enjoy it!
For my Capstone Project I chose the topic of Skyscrapers. I chose this because I love to build, and I had a lot of fun during the Rube Goldberg project. I then chose Skyscrapers because I was interested, and wanted to know how to build a skyscraper. So then after deciding my topic I had to make a main inquiry question. A main inquiry question is what you really want to focus on, and learn all about. This Capstone project has helped me learn so much about skyscrapers. I also had an interview and a site visit, with an Architect named Matthew Hoelzli. The interview and site visit gave me additional information on the topic, and led me to answer my main inquiry question.
Over the course of my Capstone Project I have stuck to one main inquiry question. It was How has the skyscraper design evolved and what factors have contributed the most to its evolution? After a lot of research, I think that I have truly got the answers to my question.
For my question I had to find out a lot of facts about the old buildings and the modern skyscrapers. In my opinion, the skyscraper started with the elevator.
The elevator gave the skyscraper its purpose. Who wants to climb hundreds and hundreds of stairs? Even after the elevator was invented, there was still a problem, if the rope snapped you died! The first ever safety elevator invented in 1852 by Elisha Graves Otis.The safety system worked like this, a powerful wagon spring was attached to the top of the elevator. This spring was connected to metal prongs, the prongs ran along guide rails. When the rope broke the spring collapsed, forcing the prongs into the teeth of the guide rails. This locked the elevator in place.
Now with the elevator invented people could climb tremendous heights without getting tired. (One building even put a round space for an elevator before the elevator was invented, thinking something like that could exist. Of course it was a round space so it never got used, but it was clever to think the elevator could be invented.) There was then a purpose to build up to crazy heights.
To build a skyscraper you need proper materials. This building, the Fuller Flatiron, used an almost unused building technology at it’s time. When the architect of the Fuller Flatiron (Daniel Burnham) was planning the building he didn’t know what material to use. Stone walls were common at the time, but to have stone walls the walls would have to be thicker, and that would take up space on the inside. Stone was not skyscraper material. Burnham ended up using a very clever technology that allowed skyscrapers to grow taller. He decided to lock steel beams together, making a steel skeleton. But if you look at the Fuller Flatiron, it looks like it is made of stone. The outside of the building is just a thin layer of stone around the building. “Its unique design was made possible by a sturdy steel skeleton — a newer construction technique at the time — allowing for thin, graceful walls and a quicker build using pre-cut frames.” Says Buzzfeed. The steel keeps the building up. Steel is much stronger and lighter than stone so steel was the perfect material for that building.This was a true engineering breakthrough.
After those two leaps forward to making a mega scraper, we have to now talk about some ways that skyscrapers have had to deal with natural phenomena. My main question is How has the skyscraper design evolved and what factors have contributed the most to its evolution? The next step to answering that question is the factors of the skyscraper that helped the skyscraper deal with natural phenomena.
The next skyscraper I will be telling you about is the United Nations HQ. The UN HQ was going to be a glass building so that light would flood the building, and make it very bright. The problem was that solar radiation would also flood the building. This would be absorbed by the objects inside, and since the walls were sealed, glass, windows, it would get hot and uncomfortable very fast. Willis Carrier an American Engineer had the perfect solution. He invented a machine that sprays out cold water, and pulls in the hot air. This moisturizes the air, cooling it. The heat problem was solved.
The next key skyscraper factor that protected the skyscraper from natural phenomena was the Taipei 101. The Taipei 101 in Taiwan, is in the ring of fire. The ring of fire is the most earthquake prone place on earth. “It wasn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when the earthquakes would hit the Taipei 101.” Says fam Properties Dubai. If your going to make a 509 meter building such as the Taipei 101, how do you make it in a place where on average, an earthquake hits twice a year? Freakishly the answer to that was making the building more flexible, so it could roll with the punches. “Slightly bizarrely by making the building more flexible you make the building stronger.” Says Dr. Adam Crew, a Civil Engineer. The Taipei 101 is built with thirty six steel beams, filled with concrete. This gave the building strength. “The rest of the building is elastic and can flex and roll with the punches.” Says fam Properties Dubai. Another special feature about the Taipei 101 is that it has a huge steel (It might be made out of other materials too) sphere inside the building. This is called a Tuned Mass Damper. The Tuned Mass Damper moves back and forth countering any motion the building has during a quake. Half way through construction on March 31 2002, an earthquake hit Taiwan and many other small buildings were damaged. But the Taipei 101 stayed up. “When there’s a quake our building is the safest place in town”. Says the builders of the Taipei 101. The Taipei 101 truly was an engineering success, since the building was able to stay up when extreme earthquakes hit.
Those are some skyscrapers that really rose to the challenge, that was the answer to a part of my question. The other part is how skyscrapers are built so quickly. The Twin Towers in NYC (Before 9/11) used a pretty new technology for it’s time. But first you must remember skyscrapers don’t pop out of the ground and are built with ease, they take years. Since the first brick is placed the workers are on the clock. The engineers had to create a solution to the time problem. The solution they came up with was to prefabricate pieces of the structure “and assemble them like a giant jigsaw puzzle.” Says the engineers of the Twin Towers. They made these huge pieces off site and were shipped to the Towers when they were needed. But how do you haul these huge pieces up to the top of building, an easy answer, the crane. But the cranes they used for the Twin Towers were very unique. The building team searched for different types of cranes all over the world. They decided on a new revolutionary crane in Australia. These cranes could live fifty tons, and four of them could reach into every corner of the building they were placed. But perhaps the most amazing thing about the cranes was that every three floors the crane could hop up three stories and lock itself in place again. What I mean is that the inside of the crane moved up but the outside stayed behind and locked the middle in place. These cranes are still the ideal choice of buildings today. These cranes are called Kangaroo cranes. And with the hopping Kangaroo cranes the builders finished an average of two floors a week. The Twin Towers revolutionized the way modern buildings are built.
Almost all of the evolutions I told you about apply to the world’s currently largest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa. The Burj Khalifa is made of a steel skeleton, uses a ton of elevators, uses Kangaroo cranes, air conditioning of course, and more. To build a skyscraper to the height of the Burj Khalifa, you need all of these components. The next thing I will be talking to you about, is the curtain wall. Remember when I said that they put a thin wall of stone on the outside of the Fuller Flatiron? Well that stone wall doesn’t hold up anything but itself. It’s just for decoration. But now modern skyscrapers really stretch the curtain wall to the limit, like the Shard in England. The Shard looks like it’s made of glass but it isn’t really. It’s made of concrete and steel on the inside but the curtain wall is made of glass, so it looks like it’s made of glass. The Kingdom Tower being built in Jeddah, is soon to be the tallest building in the world. The curtain wall is glass, like the Shard but the inside it is also made of steel and concrete. Recently the curtain wall has been big business, the curtain wall helps the building by being able to make something on the inside but something great on the outside. What I meant by being ugly on the inside is that you can use steel beams and concrete on the inside without having the building look bad. One example is the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia. This building is made out of reinforced concrete and steel, but you’d never guess that! It looks like it’s made of glass and steel, not concrete. A lot of buildings aren’t made of what you think they are!
To sum it up the answer to my main inquiry question (How has the skyscraper design evolved and what factors have contributed the most to its evolution? ) is all of the buildings I showed you and the special features about them. Now thanks to these evolutions, the sky’s the limit. Without these crucial engineering breakthroughs skyscrapers would never be as tall as they are. Now because of the engineers who had these amazing ideas, it might be possible to make buildings that go MILES high.
All of the buildings I showed you have special features about them, but who comes up with the ideas? That’s the hard part.
