How to Build a Skyscraper
summary
Starts with Elisha Otis inventing a safety elevator that prevents a free fall and flips floor-value economics, then cites the 1912 Equitable fire that destroys supposedly fireproof vaults; describes the Home Insurance iron frame cutting weight to about one third, the Mannon Building settling ~20 cm then >0.5 m, the Flatiron bracing tested to 4× expected wind, Empire State built in 14 months at 4.5 stories/week with five deaths, Willis Carrier's air conditioning enabling glass facades, Khan’s bundled tube and Taipei’s tuned mass damper, and the Burj Khalifa’s areas of refuge every ~25 floors.
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chapters (13)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:55Elisha Otis
- 7:05Home Insurance Building
- 10:30Man Mohan Building
- 14:10Fuller Flatiron Building
- 17:02Building History
- 24:21Empire State Building
- 27:11Constraints
- 27:56Occupants
- 36:44The Sears Tower
- 38:53Taipei 101
- 42:23Burj Khalifa
- 43:35Refuge Rooms
