# Skyscraper Height per Floor Ratios



## Oriolus (Feb 4, 2004)

What I’ve done is, using data from Emporis, taken all completed buildings of 200m or over (of which there are currently 354) and divided their official height by the number of floors, giving the height per floor ratio. 

Spires are always a contentious issue – many designs are accused of using spires with no architectural merit merely to gain height. But what I found was that few of the buildings with an inflated ratio had “sticks” – most used valid architectural features to gain much more height then would normally be expected of a tower with that many floors. 

At the other end of the spectrum there are those that really jam the floors in - buildings with a very low height per floor ratio, usually requiring no roof feature at all – generally residential or hotel towers, which usually have a lower floor to floor height than office buildings. 

Anyway interpret this data how you will:


*The Top Ten*
(World Rank, Name, City, Height, Floors, Year, Ratio)
53	Al Faisaliyah Centre	Riyadh	267	30	2000	8.90
123	NTT DoCoMo Yoyogi Building	Tokyo	240	28	2000	8.57
27	Kingdom Centre	Riyadh	302	41	2002	7.37
122	Moscow State University	Moscow	240	36	1953	6.67
12	Emirates Office Tower	Dubai	355	54	2000	6.57
120	126 Phillip Street	Sydney	240	39	2005	6.15
94	Hangzhou No. 2 Telcom Hub	Hangzhou	248	41	2003	6.05
19	Bank of America Plaza	Atlanta	312	55	1992	5.67
128	30 Hudson Street	Jersey City	238	42	2004	5.67
21	Menara Telekom	Kuala Lumpur	310	55	2001	5.64

*The Bottom Ten*

(World Rank, Name, City, Height, Floors, Year, Ratio)
209	Westin Peachtree Plaza	Atlanta	220	73	1976	3.01
197	Marriott Renaissance Centre	Detroit	221	73	1977	3.03
174	Swissotel The Stamford	Singapore	226	73	1986	3.10
153	World Tower	Sydney	230	73	2004	3.15
342	Guangdong International Building	Guangzhou	200	63	1990	3.17
217	Metropolitan Tower	New York City	218	68	1987	3.21
93	CitySpire Centre	New York City	248	75	1987	3.31
144	The Harbourfront Landmark	Hong Kong 233	70	2001	3.33
212	Tregunter 3	Hong Kong 220	66	1993	3.33
325	Island Resort Tower 1-2	Hong Kong 202	60	2001	3.37


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## Oriolus (Feb 4, 2004)

*The Top Five*

Al Faisaliyah Centre









NTT DoCoMo Yoyogi Building









Kingdom Centre









Moscow State University









Emirates Office Tower


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## Oriolus (Feb 4, 2004)

*The Bottom Five*

Westin Peachtree Plaza









Marriott Renaissance Centre









Swissotel The Stamford









World Tower









Guangdong International Building


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## TO_Joe (Jul 22, 2005)

So in summary:
on the low end, it is 3.1 m or 10 feet per floor
on the high end (discounting the Saudi extremes which is due to some absurd regulation about 30 floor limits but yet they want to break into the skyscraper world and the unusual attention-getting Moscow University design), it is maxed at 5.6 m or 18 feet per floor

The buildings on the low end are all residential or hotels (which are basically residential). That 9 to 10 foot ceiling height is consistent with the design standards I am familiar with for residentials. 

Commercial buildings tend to have higher floor-to-ceiling heights -- if nothing because they need some flexible re-layouts, and in the higher-tech buildings, false flooring for computer networks. 

Therefore, the commercial building in Guandong has a lower than usual ceiling -- but many buildings in Hong Kong (not supertall skyscrapers) also have pretty low ceilings as well -- including some of the shopping centers in Causeway Bay as I remembered it.

I guess if I were a builder, I am incented to make low ceilings and cram as people in for the amount of building materials used. But then as a developer, I have to market this stuff -- and an el cheapo slum look, especially for a "prestige" office, ain't gonna sell. So I guess the balance is always between the two and that is why the range of 3 to 5.5 meters.


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## DarkFenX (Jan 8, 2005)

Well Al Faisaliyah Centre was built so that it would not exceed the city limit of having more than 30 floors of office space. Now this mean it is hard to build height but this tower was specially design so it has only 30 floors of office space but with a higher height.


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## Oriolus (Feb 4, 2004)

This stat is pretty amazing. The tallest & shortest 30 storey towers in the world

Shortest: 
Carlton Towers Apartments, New York
76 metres with height per floor ratio of 2.53

Tallest:
Al Faisaliyah Centre, Riyadh 
267 metres with height per floor ratio of 8.90

Even though they both have the same number of storeys, one is more than 3 times taller than the other!!!


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## Oriolus (Feb 4, 2004)

Here's some ratios for buildings proposed of UC at the moment:

- Burj Dubai's ratio is quite normal, around the middle of the range: 705m/160s = 4.41
- Fordham Spire is saved from going off the chart due to it being resi, it only comes in at 23rd highest: 609.7m/115s = 5.30
- Freedom Tower would get a guernsey in the top 5: 541.3m/82s = 6.60
- Al Bait is also right up there, coming in at 6th highest: 485m/76s = 6.38
- 80 South Street, New York would also be 6th highest with its ridiculously tall spire (although Emporis seems to have broken the rules and decided not to count it in official height): 342.3m/55s = 6.22
- But the one that blows everthing out of the water, even the ones in Riyadh, is Port Tower B in Karachi: 450m/40s = 11.25
- At the lower end of the scale Empire World Towers in Miami comes in at 8th: 365.8m/110s = 3.33

Data of these was from SSP


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## dubaiflo (Jan 3, 2005)

3.01m. that is damn low.
in dubai the usual floor to ceiling is already over 3.5...!!


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## redstone (Nov 15, 2003)

It seems that hotels have lower ceiling heights?


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## evilbu (Oct 3, 2005)

hi 
i am new here
the vab, vehicle assembly building at the kennedy space centre on cape canaveral in florida is consider to be the highest one-story building in the world with a height of 160 metres
it is also one of the biggest buildings in volume, i believe only the boeing factory in washington and the pentagon are bigger


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## Oriolus (Feb 4, 2004)

Soon there will be a new title holder for the 200m skyscraper with the lowest height per floor ratio - Aurora Tower, Brisbane. It's almost topped out. It'll be 69 storeys and 207m, meaning a height per floor ratio of exactly 3.00. The floor-to-floor height is only 2.85m


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

It makes sense that residentials have lower heights than commercial buildings. Offices require more utility space, so they have higher ceilings and then an area above them to hide the cables and wires (or below the floor).


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## redbaron_012 (Sep 19, 2004)

Does anyone have a ranking just based on number of levels or floors. Eg. Eureka has 92 to roof, what is the number of buildings with more?


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## Oriolus (Feb 4, 2004)

When Eureka is finished next June there'll only be 4 buildings in the world with more floors:

Sears Tower - 108
Empire State Building - 102
Taipei 101 - 101
John Hancock Centre - 100
Eureka Tower - 91

Eureka will also be right up there with the lowest height per floor ratios - atm it would be 7th lowest (297m/91s=3.26)


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

I like the Kingdom Centre


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## Oriolus (Feb 4, 2004)

evilbu said:


> hi
> i am new here
> the vab, vehicle assembly building at the kennedy space centre on cape canaveral in florida is consider to be the highest one-story building in the world with a height of 160 metres
> it is also one of the biggest buildings in volume, i believe only the boeing factory in washington and the pentagon are bigger


It's one colossal structure alright. Can you really call it a highrise building though? It's listed on SSP as a highrise, but they also say it has 40 floors.

Cape Canaveral diagram on SSP


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

(four years since last post here, sorry)

The record for the shortest-ever floor-to-ceiling heights in a skyscraper belong to three residential towers in Honolulu. They are the Ohana Maile Sky Court, The Windsor (a former hotel converted to a seniors residence), and Island Colony. All three buildings have 44 floors, but rise to a height of only 350 feet (107 metres). Are there any other buildings in the world with floor-to-ceiling heights lower than 8 feet?


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## Gherkin (May 30, 2005)

^^ You could look at it another way and ask where in the world building regulations would allow you to build with such low ceiling heights! I know the bare minimum height in England is 2.2m, but rarely do you see new build homes with ceilings this low (saying that, I live in high rise student flats and my ceiling is 2.25m).


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

There could be buildings with ceiling height over 15 feet. But which building has the highest-ever floor-to-ceiling height?


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## SilentStrike (Aug 15, 2008)

is it coincidence that there are many Asian scraper at the bottom and non-asians at the top?


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