Tall building design and sustainable urbanism: London as a crucible: Fid-Bau Portal

Tall building design and sustainable urbanism: London as a crucible

Strelitz, Ziona

Tall buildings offer important scope for sustainable urbanization through their architectural and urban design potential, but they are also resource intensive and inclined to negative impacts. Recognizing these helps to inform and promote sustainable urban development. The prospect is promising. Significant advances in energy-saving and modelling technologies can shift tall buildings towards more sustainable design, operation and social impact. The scope is signified by new designs for London, where the combination of heritage controls, sustainability focus, high land values and appetite to build tall has created a de facto ‘design laboratory’. London's conditions have galvanized design strategies that target a wide range of sustainability credentials, encompassing: energy consumption, use of renewables and embodied energy; occupier benefits – including environmental comfort, spatial quality and flexible internal planning; and positive urban conditions in terms of accessibility, microclimate, visual permeability and public realm. In combination, these establish a wider range of success factors than energy efficiency alone, supplementing the widespread global foci on height metrics and commercial viability with a more holistic tall building design agenda. Despite relatively modest heights in international terms, London's new exemplars offer strategies to inform more sustainable design, wherever tall buildings are developed.