News   Mar 28, 2024
 1K     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 570     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 872     0 

Time to stop building skyscrapers?

Northern Light

Superstar
Member Bio
Joined
May 20, 2007
Messages
31,254
Reaction score
87,459
Location
Toronto/EY
Saw this article from the Guardian posted over at SSP. There, its being trounced as 'click bait' but having read it, I tend to disagree. I don't think it fits neatly into any other thread, so I've given it its own.

https://www.theguardian.com/artandd...damaging-outmoded-time-to-stop-tall-buildings (*note article is not new but from summer last year)

First a couple of points from the article.

"Writing in this month’s issue of the architecture magazine Domus, he points out that a typical skyscraper will have at least double the carbon footprint of a 10-storey building of the same floor area."

Also

"Snelson also mentions “in-use” energy consumption and carbon emissions – what is needed to cool and heat and run lifts, which he says are typically 20% more for tall than medium-height buildings."

The Snelson references are back to a different article, from Domus.

*****

For my part, the arguments made here are some I have expressed in the past.

While I'm certainly not anti-skyscraper, I've been concerned that height above a certain level drives costs, and therefore contributes to a crisis of affordability.

We all recognize the need for more mid-rise, and 'missing middle'...........but perhaps we also need to re-examine the role of excessive height with the same vigour that we apply to excessive restrictions on height.
 
We need to end sprawl by adding hundreds of immigrants every year, limiting heights, density and not planning land for residential use and people are asking why are prices rising?
 
We need to end sprawl by adding hundreds of immigrants every year, limiting heights, density and not planning land for residential use and people are asking why are prices rising?

What you note above is entirely correct taken on its own........

Though, I think the point of the article wasn't to oppose density, but rather to discuss which form of density performs best, not only ecologically but cost-wise.
 
I'm not sure what the optimal height for a skyscraper is before its energy efficiency begins to decline, but common sense would suggest it's not anywhere near what our taller builds are topping out at.

Ideally, all the main arterial roads should be lined with mid-rises--that would at least provide some of the much needed "missing middle". Unfortunately, the only way to achieve the classic mid rise table top look of European cities would require the replacement of vast swaths of single unit homes. Ideally, that wouldn't be a bad thing, but it would never fly politically.
 
I'm not sure what the optimal height for a skyscraper is before its energy efficiency begins to decline, but common sense would suggest it's not anywhere near what our taller builds are topping out at.

Ideally, all the main arterial roads should be lined with mid-rises--that would at least provide some of the much needed "missing middle". Unfortunately, the only way to achieve the classic mid rise table top look of European cities would require the replacement of vast swaths of single unit homes. Ideally, that wouldn't be a bad thing, but it would never fly politically.

Financially, in terms of constructions costs, your buildable cost rises materially in/around the high 30's up to 40'ish.......that's where things to tend to go south.
The exact number varies on things like setbacks, capacity per elevator and a host of other factors in terms of how much buildable area gets eaten up as a building goes higher, and much you lose to ever thicker columns/supports.
That said, those same differences exist at lower heights to lesser degrees based on many similar factors.

The operating cost/energy usage varies widely depending on cladding type and local climate.

In general, I agree with you on the need for intensification at lower heights along arterials, but I would then add; we need additional arterials, completing at least a 1km grid, both N-S and E-W throughout the City.
Then we have additional corridors that support pedestrians, cyclists and transit as well, obviously, as intensification.

What remains SFH after that is not immaterial but would be far less significant.
 
Last edited:
Why would developers build taller structures, if shorter ones were cheaper and thus more profitable?

Well.....

First we need to make a distinction between margin/ROI vs total gross profit.

If afforded the choice to invest 1M and get a 10% return ($100,000)

Or 100M and a 1% return (1M in profit), which would you take?

That's an important part of the equation..............but far less than a total answer.

****

Land is the largest, fixed cost on a project. Toronto land prices are nuts. Beyond our economic fundamentals that contribute to same, many properties trade at exorbitant prices on the premise they will support
50 storey buildings. Once you pay a price for land that requires you to sell 44 floors of units just to break even; you're not going to propose a 12-storey tower.

Had there been a clear understanding that parcel x would never see a building over 12-storeys, no developer would have paid the price that suggested a build 4x the size.
So that, land value, plays a huge role.

So does the fact that the planning process in Toronto, more often that not, is almost as costly in fees, and in $ time (interest and other overhead on the land you purchased) for a 12-storey build as for a 50-storey.

Put another way, if you made 12-storey zoning as-of-right on a parcel, so that no Official Plan or Zoning Amendment were required, allowing a project far lower fees (no S.37 either), and a much faster time to market; I think you would see
a lot more developers pursuing just that.

It would not only be a higher ROI on average, it would also be lower-risk.

But we have developed a system, in terms of planning and regulation that rewards the highest risk, maximum height play disproportionately vs the more contextual or incremental build.

****

A gross over simplification, but I think, reasonably accurate all the same.
 
Last edited:

Back
Top