comprehension -3-Skyscraper and environment

ENGLISH /S5 -Reading Comprehension –3-
Skyscraper and environment

Defintion and history:
The term "skyscraper" was first applied to buildings of steel-framed construction of at least 10 stories in
the late 19th century, a result of public amazement at the tall buildings being built in major American
cities like New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis.
The first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building, originally 10 stories with a height of
42 m or 138 ft, in Chicago in 1885; two additional stories were added. Some point to Philadelphia's 10-
story Jayne Building (1849–50) as a proto-skyscraper, or to New York's seven-floor Equitable Life
Building, built in 1870. Steel skeleton construction has allowed for today's super-tall skyscrapers now
being built worldwide.
The structural definition of the word skyscraper was refined later by architectural historians, based on
engineering developments of the 1880s that had enabled construction of tall multi-story buildings. This
definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which
passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicago's Monadnock Building.
Ancient times:
The tallest structure in ancient times was the 146 m (479 ft) Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt, built
in the 26th century BC. It was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 160 m (520 ft) Lincoln
Cathedral having exceeded it in 1311–1549, before its central spire collapsed. The latter in turn was not
surpassed until the 555-foot (169 m) Washington Monument in 1884.
High-rise apartments flourished in classical antiquity. Ancient Roman in imperial cities reached 10 and
more stories. Lower floors were typically occupied by shops or wealthy families, with the upper rented to
the lower classes.
The skylines of many important medieval cities had large numbers of high-rise urban towers, built by the
wealthy for defense and status. The residential Towers of 12th century Bologna numbered between 80 and
100 at a time, the tallest of which is the 97.2 m (319 ft) high Asinelli Tower.
The medieval Egyptian city of Fustat housed many high-rise residential buildings, which Al-Muqaddasi in
the 10th century described as resembling minarets. Nasir Khusraw in the early 11th century described some
of them rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top floor complete with ox-drawn water wheels for
irrigating them.
Cairo in the 16th century had high-rise apartment buildings where the two lower floors were for commercial
and storage purposes and the multiple stories above them were rented out to tenants.
An early example of a city consisting entirely of high-rise housing is the 16th-century city
of Shibam in Yemen. Shibam was made up of over 500 tower houses, each one rising 5 to 11 stories
high,[24] with each floor being an apartment occupied by a single family. The city was built in this way in
order to protect it from Bedouin attacks. Shibam still has the tallest mudbrick buildings in the world, with
many of them over 30 m (98 ft) high.
In the early 1960s Bangladeshi-American structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan, considered the "father
of tubular designs" for high-rises, discovered that the dominating rigid steel frame structure was not the only
system apt for tall buildings, marking a new era of skyscraper construction in terms of multiple structural
systems. His central innovation in skyscraper design and construction was the concept of the "tube"
structural system, including the "framed tube", "trussed tube", and "bundled tube". His "tube concept",
using all the exterior wall perimeter structure of a building to simulate a thin-walled tube, revolutionized
tall building design. These systems allow greater economic efficiency, and also allow skyscrapers to take on
various shapes, no longer needing to be rectangular and box-shaped. The first building to employ the tube
structure was the Chestnut De-Witt apartment building, considered to be a major development in modern
architecture. These new designs opened an economic door for contractors, engineers, architects, and
investors, providing vast amounts of real estate space on minimal plots of land. Over the next fifteen years,
many towers were built by Fazlur Rahman Khan and the "Second Chicago School", including the hundred-
story John Hancock Center and the massive 442 m (1,450 ft) Willis Tower.
Many buildings designed in the 70s lacked a particular style. These design plans ignored the environment
and loaded structures with decorative elements and extravagant finishes. Moreover, he considered the work
ENGLISH /S5 -Reading Comprehension –3-
to be a waste of precious natural resources. Khan's work promoted structures integrated with
architecture and the least use of material resulting in the smallest impact on the environment.
The next era of skyscrapers will focus on the environment including performance of structures, types of
material, construction practices, absolute minimal use of materials/natural resources, embodied energy
within the structures, and more importantly, a holistically integrated building systems approach.
Constructing a single skyscraper requires large quantities of materials like steel, concrete, and glass, and
these materials represent significant embodied energy. Skyscrapers are thus material and energy intensive
buildings.
Skyscrapers can be artificially lit and the energy requirements can be covered by renewable energy or other
electricity generation with low greenhouse gas emissions. Heating and cooling of skyscrapers can be
efficient, because of centralized HVAC systems, heat radiation blocking windows and small surface area of
the building. There is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for skyscrapers.
For example, the Empire State Building received a gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
rating in September 2011 and the Empire State Building is the tallest LEED certified building in the United
States, proving that skyscrapers can be environmentally friendly.
Comprehension
I-Read the text on skyscrapers and environment
II-Find the meanings of the Underlined words in the text above.
III- From the text above, answer the following question:
1-When was The term "skyscraper" first applied to buildings?

2-Skyscapers have steel-framed construction. Explain.
3-In which cities were tall buildings built for the first time in the United States?
4-Skyscrapers have Steel skeleton construction. Explain
5-When was the Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt, built?
6-In which countries High-rise apartments flourished in classical antiquity.
7-How many tower houses did the city of Shibam in Yemen possessed?
8-Bangladeshi-American structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan, is considered the
"father of tubular designs" for high-rises. Explain
9-The next era of skyscrapers will focus on the environment. Explain
10-Constructing a single skyscraper requires large quantities of materials like steel,
concrete, and glass, and these materials represent significant embodied energy. Explain

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ENGLISH /S5 -Reading Comprehension –3-

Skyscraper and environment

1-When was The term "skyscraper" first applied to buildings?

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