SUMMARY OF THE LEAP 2: MATERIALS

Traditional building materials are no longer viable when constructions have to reach high
heights, heights approaching 100 m. Thus, the 87-meter high FlatIron Building in New York
City was one of the pioneering buildings in the construction of skyscrapers, particularly in the
use of materials.In the old buildings, generally made of stone although being resistant, the
problem of the weight of these buildings arose, which became heavier and heavier with
height. This quickly posed the problem of the settlement of the building carried out on a
compressible ground sinking under its own weight.

This is the case of the Monadnock building in Chicago with its 16 floors of 2 m thick stone
that began to sink into the compressible soil of Chicago under almost 1 m deep illustrating the
fact that stone has limits for the construction of skyscrapers.The problem thus posed pushed
the architects to limit the height of their buildings before the brilliant idea of the architect
Daniel Burnham to replace the stone by the much lighter but also much more resistant steel.
Steel is much stronger than stone, so the skeleton can be thin and light while still being able to
support the weight of the entire structure.

But if you look at the entire FlatIron building today, it looks like it's built out of stone, so how
did Burnham do it? Another genius architect's idea was to cover the building with a stone
façade like a curtain under which is one of the most important steel skeletons made of
assembled steel columns and beams. Steel construction really took skyscrapers to a whole
new level because once the steel structure was perfected, you could hypothetically build at to
any height with the sky literally becoming the limit.

The Curtain Wall process under a steel frame lightens the structure and was used for the Burj
Dubai facades. The curtain wall of the Burj Dubai cost one hundred million dollars. The Burj
Dubai was able to reach this 828 m height mainly thanks to its steel frame and the ingenuity
of the architects who lightened this structure with a curtain of glass and steel. The skeleton of
the Burj Dubai combines the best of steel and stone and uses more than 30,000 tons of steel,
but in a very clever way. The steel is embedded in artificial stone, concrete. This reinforced
concrete framework will be covered with a high-tech curtain wall made of glass and steel.

Steel has catapulted the skyscrapers to another height, as the walls no longer have to bear all
the weight that the architects could put on them thanks to entirely new materials.