Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

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Tall buildings
Tall buildings

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) was founded at Lehigh University in 1969. Its office remained at Lehigh until October 2003, when it moved to the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois. Although its stated mission is to study and report "on all aspects of the planning, design, and construction of tall buildings", it is best known to the general public for its compilation and ranking of the World's 100 Tallest Buildings.

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[edit] Ranking tall buildings

The ranking of tall buildings was originally based on a building's height from the sidewalk level of the main entrance to the architectural top of the building. The "architectural top" included towers, spires (but not antennas, masts or flagpoles). In 1996, as Petronas Twin Towers was nearing completion, CTBUH expanded its system to rank the tallest buildings.

[edit] Methods

The CTBUH ranks the height of buildings using four different methods:

  • 1. Height to structural top of the building. This is the main criterion under which the CTBUH ranks the height of buildings. The height of a building is measured from the sidewalk level of the main entrance to the structural top of the building. This includes spires, but does not include television antennas, radio antennas, or flag poles.

Other rankings

  • 2. To highest occupied floor: Height to the floor of the highest occupied floor of the building.
  • 3. To top of roof: Height to the top of the roof.
  • 4. To tip of spire/antenna: Height to the tip of spire, pinnacle, antenna, mast or flag pole.

[edit] Partnership

In 2005 the CTBUH partnered with Emporis to develop a much larger database of high-rise buildings with height data and expanded categories of technical data. The Emporis and CTBUH building databases have been integrated, and have always used the same standards for measurement of tall buildings.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links