The Urban Towers Handbook

Preface
 
Acknowledgements
 
Introduction
 

Section A: A visual dictionary of high-rise buildings
 
1st Group: Solitaires and Twin Towers
 
1 - Monument
 
Main example: Kingdom Centre, Riyadh
 
Secondary 1: Moscow State University
 
Secondary 2: Burj Khalifa, Dubai
 
2 - Monument in block
 
Main example: 30 St Mary Axe, London
 
Secondary 1: Torre Agbar, Barcelona
 
Secondary 2: Seagram Building, New York City
 
3 - Tower as block
 
Main example: Commerzbank Tower, Frankfurt
 
Secondary 1: Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco
 
Seconday 2: Hotel Ukraina, Moscow
 
4 - Tower in block
 
Main example: Torre Velasca, Milan
 
Secondary 1: Kudamm-Karree, Berlin
 
Secondary 2: Norddeutsche Landesbank, Hanover
 
5 - Twin towers
 
Main example: Kungstornen, Stockholm
 
Secondary 1: Marina City Towers, Chicago
 
Secondary 2: Puerta de Europa, Madrid
 
6 - Tower as team player
 
Main example: Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building
 
Secondary 1: Thyssen-Haus, Düsseldorf
 
Secondary 2: United Nations Headquarters, New York City
 
7 - Tower on infrastructure
 
Main example: The Standard Hotel, New York City
 
Secondary 1: Shard London Bridge, London
 
Secondary 2: Tour Dexia (CBX), La Défense
 
8 - Tower as module / business as usual
 
Main example: Tour Ar Men, Paris
 
Secondary 1: DUOC Corporate Building, Santiago de Chile
 
Secondary 2: Banco Atlántico, Barcelona
 
2nd Group: Clusters
 
1 - Integrated in existing city fabric
 
Main example: Rockefeller Center, New York City
 
Secondary 1: Villeurbanne Town Hall and new centre
 

Secondary 2: Riverside Center, New York City
 
2 - Towers as urban pattern
 
Main example: Quartier du Palais ('Immeubles Choux'),

Eric Firley is a French-German architect and urban designer. The author of The Urban Housing Handbook (John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2009), he is Assistant Professor at the University of Miami School of Architecture and heads an international research consultancy.
 
Julie Gimbal is a French art historian with a special interest in high-rise architecture. She holds a doctorate from the University of Rennes on the subject of high-rise architecture in France and is responsible for the second section of the book on high-rise regulations. She also helped to inform the choice of case studies in the first part of the book.
 
Philippe Honnorat, a French Engineer, heads the Paris office of WSP Flack + Kurtz. An expert in Mechanical and Electrical systems, he has worked in the UK and USA, and has extensive international experience in high-rise structures. Honnorat wrote the third section of the book covering sustainability issues.

'Informative and thought provoking both for practitioners and space syntax researchers'. (JSS, December, 2011)