The engineering blog

How do you deliver a reliable shower hundreds of metres above the street, then safely remove the wastewater? An engineering guide to the water systems hidden inside tall buildings, with worked calculations and practical design tradeoffs.

As towers grow taller, wind and stiffness, not gravity, decide the structure. This guide explains how outriggers connect a stiff core to perimeter columns and why that connection is so effective.

Wind is the force that grows fastest with height, and it can make a tower sway in ways simple formulas cannot predict. This guide explains how wind-tunnel testing turns an idea into a shape.

Earthquakes impose a different kind of demand from wind, and they are best resisted by a structure that can deform without breaking. This guide explains the tools engineers use in seismic zones.

A supertall tower is a factory that builds itself upward. This guide follows the real sequence, from the foundations below ground to the curtain wall and commissioning at the top.

Fire safety in a very tall building is a system, not a single device. This guide explains how protection, evacuation and structural design work together when the fire service cannot simply climb the stairs.

Every tall building carries a carbon debt in its materials before it ever opens. This guide explains embodied carbon, why height increases it, and how designers are reducing it.

Height looks simple until you try to rank buildings. Spires, antennas, occupied floors and vanity height decide the record, and the rules are worth knowing.

Every supertall tower needs a way to stand up against wind and gravity. This guide compares the main structural systems and the buildings that made them famous.

A supertall tower is a vertical city, and its services have to climb as far as its structure. This guide explains lift zoning, water, power, cooling and stack effect.

The record for the world’s tallest building has changed hands many times, and every era of the race left behind a new way of building. This is the story of how height was won.

A robust structure fails gracefully. This guide explains progressive collapse, the disasters that reshaped building codes, and the design measures that keep a local failure local.

Building a supertall tower takes years; taking one down can be just as demanding. This guide explains how tall buildings are demolished without damaging their neighbours.

Piles, rafts, groundwater and settlement: why the most important part of a skyscraper may be the part you never see.

Explore wind excitation, stiffness, damping and occupant comfort, with Shanghai Tower and Burj Khalifa as contrasting examples.

Pressure is only the beginning: explore concrete mixtures, delivery continuity, climbing forms and the construction cycle at extreme height.

How glass, frames, joints and drainage work together while the structure moves and the weather changes.

Follow the temporary load path, the lifting radius and the final dismantling sequence behind a tower crane at extreme height.

How material properties, load paths and construction decisions shape the steel inside a supertall building.

The mechanics and traffic engineering that make hundreds of occupied floors usable, from traction ropes to destination dispatch.