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As the worlds major cities become competitive with one another and continue to grow at the tremendous pace that they are, tall buildings will be imperative for economic, social and environmental sustainability, writes STEVE WATTS.

Competitive cities and the tall building landscape

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eaders of this magazine may wonder why an expert in tall buildings has been asked to contribute to a publication on infrastructure. Well, the two are not only critical pieces of the urban jigsaw, but face the same challengesand present similar opportunitiesin the world today, particularly for emerging economies like India. High rise buildings and super tall towers have enjoyed a sustained period of unprecedented development, with 40 per cent of the worlds tallest buildings having been completed in the last decade. With height comes the need to address the requirements of a large number of stakeholders. The higher a proposed building, the more the questions raised about the buildings impact upon the wider urban environment, and the more it becomes a part of, and relies on, the citys infrastructure. It was a remarkable experience for me to visit India for the first time in February, when I spent a week in Mumbai around the CTBUH 2010 World Conference on the theme, Remaking Sustainable Cities in the Vertical Age. Apart from its vibrancy and welcome, what struck me the most was just how far beyond capacity Mumbai is. The new normal The words opportunity and challenge are leitmotifs for India: on the one hand
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the rise of the country on the economic stage, with a relatively young population to help propel it; on the other, the need to provide a built environment that will enable it to do so, against a backdrop of an expanding and urbanising population and a fabric and infrastructure that is already well short of being able to cope. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the world is at a turning point. Some things never changeand economic cycles are among those immutables, so it should be no surprise that global economic growth is forecast to return. However, according to Pricewaterhouse Coopers there will be a significant shift in the centre of global economic gravity, with the so-called E7 (the seven key emerging economies that include India) representing the economies of principal growth. Whilst China is expected to overtake the USA as the worlds largest economy by 2025, India is assessed as having the potential to nearly catch up with the USA by 2050helped by a working-age population that should show real growth. This is the scenario that many commentators are referring to as the new normal. Reality check The era of the tall building has coincided, over the last century, with the incredible rise of the city. In 1900, just 10 per cent of the worlds population lived in cities. The year 2006 marked the moment when, according to the United Nations, for the first time the majority of the worlds (33 billion) people lived in urban agglomerations. This trend is set to continue for the world and for India. Various estimates suggest that by 2050 the worlds urban population will reach 75 per cent, and this fundamental shift from mankinds rural roots and the rise of the mega city, creates an unprecedented challenge: that of ensuring safe, secure, sustainable, efficient and profitable cities. This is a challenge that now faces India, with the South Asian sub-continent one of the largest zones of macro-regional urbanisation in the World. In 2005, India had three of the worlds seven most populous largest cities; Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata (in 1985, it had none in the top
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seven) and these cities are rapidly being joined by Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Ahmedabad as mega city regions. Major cities are the economic engines of growth, so in order for India to match the predictions of its forthcoming rise on the world stage, its cities will need to address these incredible challenges. The tall building and the city: the London case Tall buildings and the city support each other. The intense relationship between high rise aesthetics and performance and the critical importance of associated infrastructure means that tall buildings are highly charged politically. As Alejandro Zaero-Polo of London-based Foreign Office Architects (FOA) puts it, Simultaneously, architecture and urbanism have become a crucial political battleground. Nowhere was this brought into sharper focus than in London in the early part of this century. The argument was that to maintain its world city status and remain a global financial centre, London needed to build the blocks of wealth creation and provide a high quality of life, and raising its working population at the same time. Yet the debate over their appropriateness was intensenot surprising given the historic and generally low-rise nature of the cityand it wasnt until the new mayors London Plan provided a strategic stance in favour of tall building development that the typology really took off in the capital. Importantly, that Plan put forward the need for tall buildings to be concentrated in certain clusters where they could avoid an adverse impact on the skyline whilst making the most of the transport network. One look at Dubai, where an array of tall and iconic buildings were quickly constructed without the cohesion of a city-wide strategic plan and ahead of an infrastructure programme, will help us see the importance of considering buildings and infrastructure together. And, although ultimately successful, Canary Wharf in Londons Docklands failed first time aro undpartly because it was finished during a recession and partly because the transport network had insufficient capacity to deliver the bankers to their desks on time.

Governments and governance All of this requires governance, not only because the size and importance of these mega cities will make them powerful politically, but because without a clear and effective regulatory framework, the nece ssary development of the cities infrastru cture will be severally compromised.

Major cities are the economic engines of growth, so in order for India to match the predictions of its forthcoming rise on the world stage, its cities will need to address incredible challenges.
This issue of urban governance was a theme amongst certain Indian speakers at this years CTBUH conference. There were strong arguments for a review of FSI / FAR regulations coupled with the frustration that some robust policies were not being put into effective action, and with a call for a greater engagement of the private sector. There was also reference to tension between central government and citiesa situation not unknown elsewhere and a relationship that will become increasingly important given the above statistical forecasts. The French and British governments dithered for years before granting power to their respective capitals through the appointment of a mayor, but it did enable focus to be given to improving their transport networks. Creating value Increasingly, cities find themselves competing with each other, vying for the attention of global corporations to site their global, regional or local offices in their centres. And those potentially investing companies look at several factors before making their decision:
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People: the concentration of human capital, which is related to the quality of life and available amenities Ease of doing business: regulation, taxation, proximity to financial markets Market access: availability of capital, volume of trade, legal and accounting services Accommodation: quality, availability and occupancy cost of office space Infrastructure: quality, safety and capacity of transport network, and accessibility to global hubs. Specific incentives: Governments can address all of the above factors by providing specific incentives for cluster development in less vibrant areas. Canary Wharf and the Pudong area of Shanghai are prime examples of enterprise zones, with tax concessions and significant investment in infrastructure (and the creation of a magnet tower first that acts as a catalyst for further development). In this way, landmark buildings can create value in the wider estate, and even the city as a whole. Frank Gehrys Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, northern Spain famously provided the cultural capital and economic momentum via an icon for the city, a phenomenon that became known as the Bilbao Effect. Values of tall building clusters: Certainly, with decreasing availability of land pushing up prices and encouraging
Exchange Value

denser development, properly planned urbanisation leads to affluence, supporting the development of Grade A space as well as a burgeoning population. That said, it is important to appreciate that buildings deliver value in a variety of ways: Capital value or exchange value of the completed development, Life cycle value associated with its future running costs Operational value generated by its effectiveness in business processes Brand value that benefits corporate image (note here the purchasing of the naming rights of the famous Chicago monument Sears Towers by the Willis Group last year) Contingent value, or the multiplier effect of a development on its surroundings as described above, and Civic value to the wider community. Each of these perspectives provides a different outlook on cost as well as value. For example, over, say, a 25-year life span, the operating costs of an office building will easily exceed its initial construction costs. If one were to add salaries into the mix then only around five per cent of a buildings cost is in actually building it. So the cost of maintaining the asset, and how it contributes to the performance of its occupiers, really ought to be considered at the design stage. This is a concept well known to PPP providers of hospitals, schools, road bridges,
Operational Value

tunnels, etc, and one that is beginning to rise up the agenda of private commercial developers. The golden triangle I was recently asked to present to a client the lessons that we have learned over the years in tall buildings projects, and it was revealing in that all of the keys to success are really common sense. Getting the basics right in terms of clarifying the brief, being sure about the intended product, benchmarking that product,

Increasingly, cities find themselves competing with each other, vying for the attention of global corporations to site their global, regional or local offices in their centres.
employing firms with the right experience, knowledge and people, clear and effective project governance and above all teamwork, all seem obvious and straight forward, but there are projects that do not put these conditions for success in place and these are the ones that fail. We have now entered a new era in which the twin challenges of global recession and global climate change are putting increased pressure on the fundam entals that underpin high rise develop mentindeed, all potential development. And this is prompting a back to basics approach which I keenly encourage. By that, I do not necessarily mean the production of a basic building, more a basic understanding of what drives cost, and what drives value. For tall buildings, the golden triangle of cost, time and floor area efficiency (see Figure 1) represents the fundamental financial drivers that determine the bottom line, and while these measures need to be adapted for other
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Life Cycle Value

Brand Value

Contingent Value

Civic Value

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Figure 1 processes and to address capacity constraints in the market and while these issues remain valid, there is no substitute for a robust design that is reflected in a clear set of tender documents, to secure the best and most sustainable price. Often there is a failure to keep things simple, an endeavour that is especially vital in large and complex projects. One of our most successful clients has a rule and sticks to it: We decide what we want to buy; we make sure the design is complete and we go out and buy it for the right price. If the design is incomplete and not fully coordinated then we wait until it is. So, while time is critical to both tall buildings and infrastructure projects alike, there is nonetheless an unavoidable sequence to the creation of a construction project, and any attempt to try and alter that string brings with it the risk of failure. Urbanscape and sustainability Economics and sustainability are inextricably linked, though not always obviously, and sometimes paradoxically. Take bio-fuels, and the implications of taking up hectares of farmland to produce vast quantifies of ethanol-based fuels, farmland that is in short supply in a world characterised by rising food prices. Or Figure 2

building types or infrastructure schemes (particularly what constitutes efficiency), the fundamentals remain valid. Obvious areas of crossover, common across most construction projects, include the drive for prefabrication, standardisation, modularisation and repetitionwithout compromising the architectural or engineering merits of the scheme. Shapes and sizes matter: For tall buildings, the key fundamental to understand, and therefore optimise, at the outset is that shape is at least as important as height. This is powerfully demonstrated by comparing the tallest buildings in the Asia-Pacific region with some of Londons tower proposals. Figure 2 shows the differences in wall-to-floor ratio, the Asia towers averaging 0.34 and their London counterparts 0.51. In short, this means that the latter have 60 per cent more faades for every square metre of floor area. Given that external walls can constitute 25 per cent of the total net trade cost of a tall building, it can affect the bottom line by 15 per cent. Once the concept is optimised, focus should be applied to the detail, and economies of scale encourage the honing of each component in the pursuit of perfectiona pursuit that can be rewarded with savings that are multiplied by a factor of tens of thousands. For tall buildings, the challenges represent the opportunities, a concept that should not be limited to their building typology. Keeping it simple: Procurement strategies have become more and more sophisticated over the years, in an attempt to overlap the design and construction
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For tall buildings, the key fundamental to understand and optimise is that shape is as important as height, demonstrated by the tallest buildings in Asia-Pacific vs Londons tower proposals.
consider the establishment of a number of eco towns in Englandnew towns that are located far away from established urban centresthat begs the questions: would it not be better to patch up existing city segments where there is already transport infrastructure and where there are jobs, facilities and communities? Why not spend money improving existing schools, houses and infrastructure in busy, wellpositioned areas rather than creating green ghettos, as some people have called them, in the middle of nowhere? Sustainability is confusing; indeed it is a greater and more complex consideration than the current means to measure it. But, with cities poised for unlimited growth, and not enough energy and water to go around, it is a critical issue.
Asia-Pacific

London

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There are two key concepts that I believe any sustainability strategy must take account of: Full asset life-cycle, from the embodied energy used in mining and manufacture, through the longevity of the product, to the redevelopment and re-use options at the end of its predicted life. Wider implications beyond the project itself, such as land utilisation and the effect of density / urban sprawl / the environment (the commute to work is a good carbon measure of how buildings interact with their environment). Buildings are not stand-alone products, and their environmental credentials should not be assessed in isolation. The infrastructure platform upon which they are placed is just as important. For that platform to be truly sustainable, and for commercial benefits to be realised, proper provision has to be made for health, education, and security as well as transport, water, waste management and power. The importance of a master plan A study in 2000 proposed a set of key characteristics common to any large engineering project (whether ports, oil rigs, super-tall buildings or other similar

Need

Design & Plan

Production

Construct

Use

Disposal

undertakings). They are, as he suggested: Customised to meet clients requirements Integrated into a wider infrastructure network Faced by community challenge Crafted over many years Exposed to political risk (and political will) Subject to multiple regulatory frameworks Characterised by large and irreversible financial commitments. The larger, more complex, more unique the product then the more it will rely on an international effort and the more suscep tible it will be to macro-economic trends. And the more it will require a thoroughly thought-out master-plan. For large mixed-use master plans, the issues are deep and wide. There are many things to address: appropriate land use and diversity, integration of different spaces, balance of density and public realm, place making through landmark buildings, the creation of day and night activities for the business community and public, and an estate wide answer to sustainable solutions (such as renewable energy generation). Just as importantly, a master plan will require a flexible development framework that accommodates long-delivery programmes, with a phasing strategy that eases forward-funding, defers expenditure where possible and

brings forward income streams. When you are talking about an entire city and its necessary sub-projects and sub-sub projects, then these challenges are even more magnified. The triple bottom line Just the other day, someone was lamenting the fact that the link between the financial sector and society has been broken by the banking crisis. That point brought home to me the importance of the triple bottom line of sustainability; people, profit and the planet. The challenge India is facing is providing the infrastructure and buildings to support its development, must be economically, socially and environ mentally sustainable. Maximum use has to be made of the private sectors skills and talent. Governments have a central role to play in both building and infrastructure projects that are by definition big, longer-term and with an excessive amount of planning, regulatory and construction input and risk. In the UK, engineers have been calling for the creation of a national infrastructure investment bank to act as a bridge to mobilise private capital, in addition to Infrastructure UK, a government body set up to establish what the country needs most urgently and co-ordinate where the money should be spent. But what is also essential is a local framework and the local government. These are many issues for established and emerging economies alike, but with a long and hopefully fruitful road ahead of it, India will now have the opportunity and resources to put everything in place to ensure success. IT
The author is Partner in the Commercial Sector of Davis Langdon LLP (www.davislangdon.com), London, UK, and heads its global Tall Buildings Specialist Group. He may be contacted at steve.watts@ davislangdon.com.
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