# Building Spires. Should they be counted in a building's height?



## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

^^ I think me and classicrock have made a sufficiently good system to measure roof height of any building and I bet it can be perfected even more :cheers:


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## singoone (Jun 20, 2011)

I still think that architectural height is better. It´s just simpler. :dunno:
But I´m glad to see you´re trying to find better one.


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## Ondro (Jul 12, 2009)

It DOES NOT MATTER IF IT IS FAIR OR NOT. If a spire is taller than 50% of a building, it is just a bullshit to count it to the height. Even 20% is more than too much! And there are buildings that have even taller spire on them than the building itself. It does not matter if it has a purpose or if it is some design thing, as somebody said before, thin metal stick is thin metal stick, not a building. I think the system guys here developed is better than excellent.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

singoone said:


> I still think that architectural height is better. It´s just simpler. :dunno:
> But I´m glad to see you´re trying to find better one.


Here is the reason why their ranking doesn't work 

All credit goes to *SBARN* for the original version of this photo 











People don't realize that we are starting to get here, the Federation Tower in Russia has a roof of 360 meters, but the spire pushes it to 506 meters!!! - notice how the Sears massive antennae's don't count, even when the Petronas extremely thin spires count hno:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Ondro said:


> It DOES NOT MATTER IF IT IS FAIR OR NOT. If a spire is taller than 50% of a building, it is just a bullshit to count it to the height. Even 20% is more than too much! And there are buildings that have even taller spire on them than the building itself. It does not matter if it has a purpose or if it is some design thing, as somebody said before, thin metal stick is thin metal stick, not a building. I think the system guys here developed is better than excellent.


We would have to repeat the whole thread all over again. So read it from the beginning and answer in context if you have any doubts.


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## Ondro (Jul 12, 2009)

patrykus said:


> So read it from the beginning


I have:nuts:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

so...


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## Ondro (Jul 12, 2009)

Don't you see that my post is reply to this?



singoone said:


> Yes, you're right but spire is design element whether antenna is not. So it should not be counted. I agree it isn't fair but I still don't see better way to measure hight of the buildings since it's hard to recognise where the roof of plenty of buildings is.:dunno:





patrykus said:


> so...


...So how can it be "off the context"? :nuts:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

ehhhmm :| here are some problems we discussed in quick short. I thought this topic is quite complete 

- burj khalifa problem and it's "virtual" top height
- mekka tower - the same as above
- other future towers that we can't predict and which would destroy any complicated system
- the naming of architectural height and its meaning
- the alternative systems - you should read both propositions from Kanto and iloveclassicrock7 which in mind of me and some others turned out as most complicated and vague thing anybody could came up with.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

patrykus said:


> ehhhmm :| here are some problems we discussed in quick short. I thought this topic is quite complete
> 
> - burj khalifa problem and it's "virtual" top height
> - mekka tower - the same as above
> ...





> I thought this topic is quite complete


Your kidding me right ? Most of the people have agreed with me and Kanto, do you automatically think that your opinion is better then all of our's ?

Don't judge our measurement system yet, it's brand new, give us some time to figure things out. Also, I have said that the Burj Khalifa is 828 meters by my measurement.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Ondro said:


> Don't you see that my post is reply to this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Just ignore him, he seems to be a CTBUH follower, and his mind clearly can't be changed.


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## Los Earth (Jun 23, 2011)

Just wondering would you guys count Federation Tower's spire as a height?










It's not just a "spire" but will serve as a purpose for elevators plus a stairwell.
anyway I was still wondering what you guys thought of it.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Los Earth said:


> Just wondering would you guys count Federation Tower's spire as a height?
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> but will serve as a purpose for elevators plus a stairwell.


The big tube part of it is really part of the building, but it cuts off at about the height of the top roof, and then it's just a spire. So we would count to the top of the highest roof.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Here is how it would work. Also, based off of my rules, the Pingan tower would probably get the full height, and maybe the Chrysler building.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> Your kidding me right ? Most of the people have agreed with me and Kanto, do you automatically think that your opinion is better then all of our's ?
> 
> Don't judge our measurement system yet, it's brand new, give us some time to figure things out. Also, I have said that the Burj Khalifa is 828 meters by my measurement.


You seem to be measuring how good your systems are by how many people agreed with you  I never used that argument because I don't give two flying fucks about it, I just know I use reasonable arguments. Mostly I see people who agree with you, are people getting to the subject emotionally and who stop arguing and pulling out as fast as they are shown there is so many things wrong with the systems. Actually there is just you and Kanto who still push it forward. Look at the singoone - he looks like a very reasonable and calm guy  But if you wish to play who_agree_with_me the game then ok. In the group of people who finds ctbuh standards the simplest and most reasonable to use you can find guys like moderator Vito Corleone who often provides us with exclusive insights to worlds largest projects. He is clearly professional working in the business. The other one Otie, best, most professional 3d illustrator on these forums. Then we have Fury "numbers guy"  There is nobody on this forum who would follow and analyze project so thoroughly. But this is stupid you know. Just convince me you can came up with something as simple as the system that is used now. I thought you guys were so happy with your system and now you are telling me again that burj and pingang should be measured full :| (oh Kanto will be angry :lol: )

So I'm waiting for actual (simple) system. Because now there is no any. Just you choosing by yourself how each of the building should be measured.


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## singoone (Jun 20, 2011)

Partykus is right and a really wonder how can you count PingAn´s spire? And Taipei´s? It´s just spires you know and there can not be such exceptions in measuring system. hno: Even Chrysler building got a "steel stick" on the top and you would count it just because it´s artdeco icon or first supertall - it would not be without the "stick". :dunno:

"The tallest building" you showed us at New York 2012 pic is total nonsence. The spire or antenna or whatever is clearly more than 50% of the building height so it would´not be counted and who would ever build such a crap? It just look ridiculous. That´s excessive...

And here is one paragraph from CTBUH article about 1WTC.

The CTBUH includes spires in its height measurement to “architectural top,” the primary category in ranking the tallest buildings in the world. But antennas, masts, water towers and other functional-technical structures – _which often are not designed by the architect of the building and change according to prevalent technologies_ – are not included in the height measurement to the architectural top.

This paragraph and mainly the underlined sentence should you give the reason why is this system the best one.


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## Ondro (Jul 12, 2009)

The fame of the tallest building or a supertall/megatall is the celebration of engineering and construction skills of humanity which is able to raise an actual living space into a height that can compete with the forces of nature and, ultimately, defy them. It is about the complexity and technological and constructional marvels. Raising metal sticks is not constructional, nor technological marvel, anyone can raise whatever tall metal stick on their rooftop!

And no, in my opinion, Chrysler bldg should NOT count the stick height in! For me, the first and only supertall from the first half of 20th cent is ESB. The Chrysler stick was raised just to take the fame of the tallest building before the ESB could be completed, it was the same kind of cheating that we experience today. Learn some history!
Plus, the ESB's height is not just some stick, the top floor inside the "spire" or whatever you call it, was designed and built to dock airship! Now thats what I call the TRUE MARVEL!


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Yeah, well thats just blathering. Show me alternative to architectural height (and how to call it) and I will show you it simply doesn't work. As said many times it doesn't have to be fair, but clear and not confusing. Nobody's life depends on this. And also as mentioned there are several measuring techniques available. It's just that architectural height is simply what it is - architectural height. Dig it?


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## Ondro (Jul 12, 2009)

Yes, it is just blathering. Because the real achievement is the metal stick. :nuts:

Look at your logic. If i grew 2m tall hair and used a gell to form it into a shape of a spire, I would be the tallest human! And it would be completely legit, becuase the hair is part of me, it has purpose of design and we can call it "architectural", because, whatever you believe if god, gods, nature or some alien that constructed the first living thing, made us with hair! What you count to a human's height? The hair or the top of his head?

And if I built a 200m tall house in 1932 and added a 200m tall metal stick on top of it, I would exceed the ESB's height and I would be the one with the tallest skyscraper!

Now tell me, that this makes sense. :nuts:
I am just waiting to you to come up wit an argument of the gothic and baroque churches' spire...:nuts:

Not everything simple is true and right, the real life is more complicated and harder than you think. Just because you can not put every building into one bag, inspired or boxy or pyramidal, they are cases that should be treated separately. Just as you can not say that a gothic church is the same as ESB.

edit: no, I don't agree with Pignan and Taipei to count the spire into the height.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

That was quite entertaining  Really, no offense intended  I truly smiled 

To answer your question, yes if your hair would stand *always* in *all conditions* to certain height without any gel or anything since we are measuring only human then you could call yourself 2m height but it will never be true because thing as simple as wearing cap or high wind makes you lower. Anyways it's not the best example since nobody is running an database of height of all people


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## Ondro (Jul 12, 2009)

^^Well, the tallest people are registered in Guiness' Book... 
And it is the same. If my hair were not supported enough, the high wind could lower my hair as the high wind could easily tear a badly supported spire. But, in extreme case, a really high wind could tear the whole skyscraper down, so what's the difference?:nuts:The strenght of the wind is proportional to stability of the body. Stability of the body is the count of the work needed to unbalance the body and the work is proportional to weight of the body. The ratio between the stability of the human body and human hair in some cases can be very simmilar to the ratio between stability of spire and building. Especially in the cases of extremely tall spires.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Haha well chrysler spire is somehow still standing  And while gel is not part of the body steel and concrete is definatelly part of the building. Another thing. If someone would have attached *edit sorry I meant stripes * to the top of the spire of burj khalifa do you thing ctbuh would consider it any taller


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## Ondro (Jul 12, 2009)

patrykus said:


> And while gel is not part of the body steel and concrete is definatelly part of the building.


There are also organic gells and if you want to be extreme, you can support your hair with your own snot  :lol:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

But will it be permanent if you will go wash yourself? We are getting ridiculus here. Spires are definatelly not the same as hairs 

Anyway if you don't agree with architectural height you still have to present an alternative.


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## Ondro (Jul 12, 2009)

^^You just don't want to see and admit the flaws of your logic, you are lying to yourself. Offcourse spires and hairs are not the same thing, but the case of determinig height according to them is. You can not compare living thing and a building, but you can compare the means of determining their properties, because the methods have roots in the most primitive and basic methods used since the ancient times. That is the thing that differs us from the animals which thinks that if you take a stick into your hand and put it above your head you are taller and it should be affraid of you. It is the basic intelligence which allows us to distinguish between the real things and deception, illusion and fraud.

If this will continue, we will live in a world of spires and skyline of every city will be a forrest of metal sticks rising to the skies.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

patrykus said:


> You seem to be measuring how good your systems are by how many people agreed with you  I never used that argument because I don't give two flying fucks about it, I just know I use reasonable arguments. Mostly I see people who agree with you, are people getting to the subject emotionally and who stop arguing and pulling out as fast as they are shown there is so many things wrong with the systems. Actually there is just you and Kanto who still push it forward. Look at the singoone - he looks like a very reasonable and calm guy  But if you wish to play who_agree_with_me the game then ok. In the group of people who finds ctbuh standards the simplest and most reasonable to use you can find guys like moderator Vito Corleone who often provides us with exclusive insights to worlds largest projects. He is clearly professional working in the business. The other one Otie, best, most professional 3d illustrator on these forums. Then we have Fury "numbers guy"  There is nobody on this forum who would follow and analyze project so thoroughly. But this is stupid you know. Just convince me you can came up with something as simple as the system that is used now. I thought you guys were so happy with your system and now you are telling me again that burj and pingang should be measured full :| (oh Kanto will be angry :lol: )
> 
> So I'm waiting for actual (simple) system. Because now there is no any. Just you choosing by yourself how each of the building should be measured.


And again if you can't attack the system, you attack the people. You know, there is a thing called democracy and we have far more supporters in this thread than we have opponents. Also, there was a SSC one on one poll a year ago in which official height got 15% and roof height+pinnacle height got 85%. The voice of the people should be heard even by the CTBUH.

And I disagree with classicrock that Pingan, Taipei and Khalifa should be counted 'til the top. In my opinion they all have thin steel sticks, which should be not counted. You know, just because something is simple doesn't mean it must be good. My latest proposal which combines mine and classicrock's original system is in my opinion vastly superior to the official height of CTBUH and atm I can't think of any building which could cheat it. On the other hand the official height of the CTBUH gets regularly abused by thin steel sticks. And yes, both spires and antennas are just thin steel sticks indistinguishable from each other. Ondro gave a very good example with the 2m hair. Counting hair is just as much of a nonsense as counting a steel stick. It costs a lot building a skyscraper, but building a thin steel stick is relatively cheap, therefore unfair and unequal. I think that with new materials, such as carbon nanotubes we'll gonna soon see 50% building - 50% spire regularily if CTBUH won't change its rules. Above you talked about how a complicated system might fail. It might, it might not, but I know that the CTBUH official height has already failed hno:

Btw, Ondro, máme my vôbec slovo pre spire? Nedávno som sa to snažil preložiť a nakoniec som s privretými očami skončil pri "vrchol veže". Zdá sa, že aj Štúrovi sa zdali všetky železné paličky rovnaké :hilarious


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Ondro said:


> ^^You just don't want to see and admit the flaws of your logic, you are lying to yourself. Offcourse spires and hairs are not the same thing, but the case of determinig height according to them is. You can not compare living thing and a building, but you can compare the means of determining their properties, because the methods have roots in the most primitive and basic methods used since the ancient times. That is the thing that differs us from the animals which thinks that if you take a stick into your hand and put it above your head you are taller and it should be affraid of you. It is the basic intelligence which allows us to distinguish between the real things and deception, illusion and fraud.
> 
> If this will continue, we will live in a world of spires and skyline of every city will be a forrest of metal sticks rising to the skies.


Listen as I said many times I understand that some developers cheats with spires or with crowns (which you would probably count btw). And I like very much buildings like old wtc which goes occupied to the very top. I don't like when half of the building is empty. For example I loved nakheel tower design so much because it would reach it's height in so more honest way than burj. But the thing is you have to *somehow* measure them. Statistics works that way. They are not about being fair but rather more about choosing lesser evil. This is all about numbers. For example if you are recording of the human that round the earth most times you don't care if they did it in car, jet or foot. You are just registering numbers.


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## Ondro (Jul 12, 2009)

^^:lol: nemôžem, to s tým štúrom je naozaj dobré... Pre vrchol veže máme u nás(na záhorí) pomenovanie špic(klasické spire označuje strechu a špic kostola, kostolnej veže), ale to asi nie je spisovne a rozhodne by človek nepovažoval za špic tú hrôzu, ktorú chcú postaviť na WTC1, špic, ako na vianočnom stromčeku, predsa nemôže byť pomaly vyšší než stromček samotnýhno: moderné spire by som asi tiež nepreložil...:dunno:

It is not the same thing as the world-traveling human and numbers and statistics are not about the lesser evil, statistics are just tool that can be used either in the realistic way or to decept people. Statistics are all about deception and false generalisation, like the survey they took in our country before building wind turbines, they asked whether would people live in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant or a wind turbine and, offcourse, they all replied they would rather live near the turbine and so the conclusion was that the most of the people is for building wind turbines :nuts:
Also, it is the developer's intention to decept with false statistics, like in our country when they put a 15m tall antenna on the top of 100m tall building and said that they have the tallest building in the county and it is bigger achievement if some international organisation approves this fraud, because if it is approved, every encyclopedia and every chart gives them free advertistment. And they make money from lying to people they have the n-th tallest building in xy...


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## singoone (Jun 20, 2011)

Allright guys, just PM the mods to change a name of 50% thread titles according to your hight measurement and convince the world that your measuring method is the right one. Good luck with that. 
Because like I can see here, this thread solves nothing maybe just gel in hair.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

oh wait a minute here  Ondro still hasn't presented a method in which he would measure buidlings  If they want to call mods they all have to have their ideas ready.

Future threads will look like so:

SS City | Wild Building With Wild Spire | Kanto Height X m | Kanto Height Y ft | iloveclassicrock7 height Z m | iloveclassicrock7 height A ft | Ondro Height B m | Ondro Height C ft | floors D | Status

The problem with anything different than architectural height is that anybody can came up with anything and I'm sure even three of you wouldn't get to the compromise. What I'm sure happened in ctbuh.

Ondro I'm serious (at least for the moment  ) if you don't like what is now you have to propose alternative because otherwise this discussion is pointless. 

Kanto I have several examples of buildings that will compromise your system easily. Forget that common sense itself is enough to recognize burj as 800m tower. Would you like me to present them?

I don't think I have to compromise iloveclassicrock7 system as I think he almost understood the problem as he himself eventually end up counting almost all spires to the height. Well he hasn't actually presented any methodology so there is nothing to compromise anyway.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

^^ I will be very happy if you present your findings :cheers:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

ok here we go. Which is taller:


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

^^ In the case of a Burj Khalifa-like building the roof is the spot above which there is no occupied floor and above which all has a maximal dimension of 9 meters or 30 feet. I can't determine where that is from your pic, cause there is no grid behind those buildings like on the original SSP diagram which could give me a reference of how much milimeters 9 meters in that pic are. They look they are identical in width but the right one has a longer spire so I would say they are equally tall in roof height (primary height measurement) and differently tall in pinnacle height (secondary height measurement :cheers:

More examples please :cheers:

Also, I'd have an example for you: Which of these is the tallest and which is the shortest?


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

So you said they are equal in primary measurement? If someone just asked you which is taller (in primary measurement) you would say they are the same? In ctbuh rankings they would be equal? They have identical width.

Btw I guess in this case (its different) the building on the right would have to be ranked as a lower in 100 tallest than this on the left correct?


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## Ondro (Jul 12, 2009)

Don't try to avoid answer by vilifying and ridiculing Kanto's answer, his answer is good, but Burj Dubai is a separate case, an exception from all systems. Answer Kanto's question or you'll be just a poseur that can not answer even a simple question.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

There can't be separate cases (and believe me I have more). All buildings have to be measured with one system. And I didn't answered because it is Kanto who tries to change something that works fine. I can answer if you insist though.

If you ask which *building* is the lowest then it is the sears because its *architectural* height is the lowest. If you would ask which *structure* is the lowest then it would be petronas which *height to tip* is the lowest. You see that all nomenclature is taken from and already exist in ctbuh. Now if someone would asked me why sears is the lowest I would say that antennas (equipment) are not part of the *building*. And that rests the case since anybody can see that sears have antenna and petronas spire. Now good luck explaining someone that the larger burj in my last post is in fact the lower one in rankings


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

patrykus said:


> There can't be separate cases (and believe me I have more). All buildings have to be measured with one system. And I didn't answered because it is Kanto who tries to change something that works fine. I can answer if you insist though.
> 
> If you ask which *building* is the lowest then it is the sears because its *architectural* height is the lowest. If you would ask which *structure* is the lowest then it would be petronas which *height to tip* is the lowest. You see that all nomenclature is taken from and already exist in ctbuh. Now if someone would asked me why sears is the lowest I would say that antennas (equipment) are not part of the *building*. And that rests the case since anybody can see that sears have antenna and petronas spire. Now good luck explaining someone that the larger burj in my last post is in fact the lower one in rankings


I am starting to think you work for the CTBUH. If someone told me that on that chart it's tallest from right to left, I would be like"are you blind ?" 

Even me, a person who knows all about this stuff, looks at that list and thinks how the hell is federation tower the tallest ? Also my system counted the Pingan, because it covers the area under it, and it is more then 30 ft wide at the base of the spire isn't it ? 

All of the burj Dubai counts, because it's part of the building, it was built like the rest, it wasn't a spire that was hoisted into place.

Unlike others, you seem like you want to stop us, so why don't you give us some time before you judge our system. Also with the Burj, you don't even have to judge it right now, it clearly is the tallest, and the Kingdom will clearly be the tallest.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> I am starting to think you work for the CTBUH.


duh. Isn't it obvious that me and singoone are getting huuuuuge checks from ctbuh :lol: But seriously now: I don't like many things they do: like choosing this building the best skyscraper (sic!) of 2011 :lol:



iloveclassicrock7 said:


> If someone told me that on that chart it's tallest from right to left, I would be like"are you blind ?"


Sears is obviously the tallest *structure* and ctbuh provides the number to determine that. So whats there that you don't like?



iloveclassicrock7 said:


> Even me, a person who knows all about this stuff, looks at that list and thinks how the hell is federation tower the tallest ? Also my system counted the Pingan, because it covers the area under it, and it is more then 30 ft wide at the base of the spire isn't it ? Another system is going by visual height


How do you determine where is the base of the spire. "Visualy" is not an answer.



iloveclassicrock7 said:


> Unlike others, you seem like you want to stop us, so why don't you give us some time before you judge our system. Also with the Burj, you don't even have to judge it right now, it clearly is the tallest, and the Kingdom will clearly be the tallest.


What does it mean you don't have to judge it (the burj-burj example) now? And what if you will have to judge it in 10 years then what? My examples shows clearly you can't use your systems with all buildings, because sooner or later it will led to confusions.

*edit:*



iloveclassicrock7 said:


> All of the burj Dubai counts, because it's part of the building, it was built like the rest, it wasn't a spire that was hoisted into place.


And who will determine that? You? You know, this rule is very far from being precise. What if the guys building seul light will call the ctbuh ask why the hell spire in their building is not counted and in pingan is? I can imagine that would be similar effort to build both spires. And what will happen if dmc developers will say it is complementary to the design and they want it to be counted?

You said it is the most important for you to make the system fair, and it turns out in many situations it still won't.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Here is the solution to this all. We make are real height figure equal to pinnacle in importance. Our architectural height is a statistical height that is meant to be fair, and then we have pinnacle which is the full height of the structure.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

So you would rename architectural height to "real" and add "statistical" as architectural? That wouldn't change the rankings, and just add additional vague value of statistical height (which I don't actually get how would be calculated) so I think it wouldn't be worth the trouble to incorporate. Besides you know, notions are self explaining so I don't think you could actually name statistical height as architectural. You would have to convince people to actually use "statistical height" which I just can't imagine. But hey it's always some idea


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## HardBall (Jan 13, 2011)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> Here is how it would work. Also, based off of my rules, the Pingan tower would probably get the full height, and maybe the Chrysler building.


I hope you are not serious;

Your system basically produces same or very similar result to those based on very simplistic rules of CTBUH. And yet your system is vastly more complicated. So what is the advantage of your system here????

It seems that what you have proposed here is entirely a waste of time. We would be much better off just going back to measuring my pinnacle height, without all these minutiae, and pages of pages of mind-numbing debate over them.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

patrykus said:


> So you would rename architectural height to "real" and add "statistical" as architectural? That wouldn't change the rankings, and just add additional vague value of statistical height (which I don't actually get how would be calculated) so I think it wouldn't be worth the trouble to incorporate. Besides you know, notions are self explaining so I don't think you could actually name statistical height as architectural. You would have to convince people to actually use "statistical height" which I just can't imagine. But hey it's always some idea


Everything starts with an idea. Sometimes the key to success is taking something that works and making it better. We have only begun to work on our ranking system, give it time.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

HardBall said:


> I hope you are not serious;
> 
> Your system basically produces same or very similar result to those based on very simplistic rules of CTBUH. And yet your system is vastly more complicated. So what is the advantage of your system here????
> 
> It seems that what you have proposed here is entirely a waste of time. We would be much better off just going back to measuring my pinnacle height, without all these minutiae, and pages of pages of mind-numbing debate over them.


You must not have understood what I was doing. I didn't order them in the correct order, I just drew black lines to show where the building ends, it actually gets completely different results.


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## HardBall (Jan 13, 2011)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> You must not have understood what I was doing. I didn't order them in the correct order, I just drew black lines to show where the building ends, it actually gets completely different results.


Oh sorry; I guess I assumed that you reordered the buildings according to your system.

I see what you are doing now.

Most of the heights according to your system look pretty good. There are three that stand out which seem to be wrong in terms of the actual visual impact of them on the skylines:

Ping'An IFC
Pusan Lotte
Taipai 101


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> Everything starts with an idea. Sometimes the key to success is taking something that works and making it better. We have only begun to work on our ranking system, give it time.


Well good luck then, I for one think guys at ctbuh will never accept statistical height to measure buildings, especially because it would additional type of measure, but you can always try


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Here is the *reordered list* with the *real height* measurement we are creating













Here is the CTBUH ranking system
















> Most of the heights according to your system look pretty good. There are three that stand out which seem to be wrong in terms of the actual visual impact of them on the skylines:
> Ping'An IFC
> Pusan Lotte
> Taipai 101


Those were errors on my part


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

I'm all for the inclusion of spires in overall height of a building. While most aren't necessarily accessible, a well designed spire looks great on a building. More spires should be used all over the world! I couldn't tell you how bored I would get if my city skyline were just boxes like some cities. Anything else shouldn't count.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

The building on the left, Q1, IS considered a _"Supertall"._ The building on the right, First Canadian Place (built in Toronto in 1975) _is NOT _a_ supertall_. Why? Because FCP is 2 metres short of the arbitrary 300 metre designation, and the other antennae is euphemistically called a "spire"! As you can see, the last usable floor on Q1 is not particularly high up. 



waldenbg said:


>


And, the CN Tower, at 553 metres is NOT a Supertall, yet other towers with spires ARE.


I rest my case that thinly veiled antennae (aka Spires) should NOT be counted in the height of the building for that purpose.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Dimethyltryptamine said:


> I'm all for the inclusion of spires in overall height of a building. While most aren't necessarily accessible, a well designed spire looks great on a building. More spires should be used all over the world! I couldn't tell you how bored I would get if my city skyline were just boxes like some cities. Anything else shouldn't count.


Ok, just tell me which one of these buildings you think is taller


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Taller said:


> The building on the left, Q1, IS considered a _"Supertall"._ The building on the right, First Canadian Place (built in Toronto in 1975) _is NOT _a_ supertall_. Why? Because FCP is 2 metres short of the arbitrary 300 metre designation, and the other antennae is euphemistically called a "spire"! As you can see, the last usable floor on Q1 is not particularly high up.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Exactly. :cheers:


Tell me if you like my ranking system


Here is my "*Real Height*" system, it ranks these buildings in the fair order











_
_
_
_
_


Here is how the CTBUH ranks them hno:


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

^^I'll tell you, right after you tell me who the **** would construct either of them....

Honestly though, no one is going to put a 200m spire on a 30m building.... Q1 is 275m to crown, and 323m to tip of spire. A 50m spire at 275m isn't a huge deal, and in the case of Q1 helps keep the building aesthetically pleasing.

As for FCP... the antennas on top look like shit (duh) and clearly shouldn't be counted toward the height of the building (duh). It's obvious they weren't designed with the overall aesthetics of the building in mind and were just tacked on (though they no doubt serve a purpose). 

Q1 was also built 30 years after FCP... One is residential, one is commercial... It's really apples v. oranges, but I'm happy to play.

I don't know why you fellas get the bottom of the barrel when it comes to spired buildings though - maybe we can donate you a couple!


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

btw, please post those stupid diagrams a few more times. haven't seen them enough.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

Dimethyltryptamine said:


> Honestly though, no one is going to put a 200m spire on a 30m building.... Q1 is 275m to* crown*


"Crown", of course, meaning the hat/scoop on top. Look at the height of the highest usable floor on Q1(which looks at about 240 metres) and tell me honestly if you think it should be a "supertall".



Dimethyltryptamine said:


> btw, please post those stupid diagrams a few more times. haven't seen them enough.



Why are they "stupid"? Someone has gone to a lot of work to prepare them.



Dimethyltryptamine said:


> I don't know why you fellas get the bottom of the barrel when it comes to spired buildings though - maybe we can donate you a couple!


Uhmm... no thanks. I don't consider enclosed antennae to be spires, especially when they are gratuitously glued on simply to become an instant "supertall"!


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

I do, yes. I see Q1 every single day, and it's an enormous building. While the highest occupiable floor isn't over 300m, it's still a supertall tower and was the worlds tallest residential building for over 5 years. 

Hopefully Sunland do end up building their supposed 500m so all duh jelly peepz can't bitch about Q1 any more.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

The highest occupied floor isn't even close to 300 metres. It looks more like 240. That is not really and truly an enormous tower in 2012, is it?


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

Yeah, it's around 240m... In a city of 600,000 people.... surrounded by 100m buildings taking up an entire city block.... it's pretty enormous.

If it were built in Canada, it would have the most floors of any building, it would be the tallest residential tower (with/without spire)... so yes, even for 2012, in Australia, it's still a pretty enormous tower.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Taller said:


> The highest occupied floor isn't even close to 300 metres. It looks more like 240. That is not really and truly an enormous tower in 2012, is it?


Could you tell me what you think of my real height measurement system, it is on post 110, I am just trying to get some opinions. I feel like it fixes all of these problems, also for those that don't like it, I have the pinnacle measurement considered as an equal, so once I have a site for this it would have two rows, showing the tallest buildings by both measurements


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

Dimethyltryptamine said:


> If constructed in Canada/Toronto, would still be the tallest residential building to roof.


I believe that the 60 storey Trump Tower would be taller, but I'm not sure about that. Definitely though, 1 Bloor and Aura (both under construction) will have taller usable floors. 

You seem to be drawing a delineation between residential and office towers. The term "Supertall" is for all buildings, and makes no differentiation as to their use.

photos I took the other day of the new Trump Tower:






















iloveclassicrock7 said:


> Could you tell me what you think of my real height measurement system, it is on post 110, I am just trying to get some opinions. I feel like it fixes all of these problems, also for those that don't like it, I have the pinnacle measurement considered as an equal, so once I have a site for this it would have two rows, showing the tallest buildings by both measurements



It seems to have merit! I think I would agree with most of those. But sadly in in this day and age, everyone is so anxious to have _"supertalls" _in their city, supertall antennas _(ermm.... spires)_ are here to stay!


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Dimethyltryptamine said:


> ^^I'll tell you, right after you tell me who the **** would construct either of them....
> 
> Honestly though, no one is going to put a 200m spire on a 30m building.... Q1 is 275m to crown, and 323m to tip of spire. A 50m spire at 275m isn't a huge deal, and in the case of Q1 helps keep the building aesthetically pleasing.
> 
> ...







> who the **** would construct either of them


 Anything is possible, so sometimes it is good to think about things in a theoretical manner.

P.S. adding **** to everything doesn't make you sound smarter, you are also making it a little to obvious that you are jealous of Toronto. Have some respect next time...


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

I would agree that the "fucks" sounded pretty childish and angry to me, too. If this angers you so much, you may want to just cool down for a few minutes before posting, as it is insulting to talk like that.


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

Taller said:


> I believe that the 60 storey Trump Tower would be taller, but I'm not sure about that. Definitely though, 1 Bloor and Aura (both under construction) will have taller usable floors.
> 
> You seem to be drawing a delineation between residential and office towers. The term "Supertall" is for all buildings, and makes no differentiation as to their use.


Well the roof height of Q1 is 245m (and 235m for highest floor), so depending on where you want to measure to, they're either equal in height or Q1 is slightly taller.

Also I'm aware that any building could be called a supertall, but I was talking about a residential buildings in that instance. 



iloveclassicrock7 said:


> Anything is possible, so sometimes it is good to think about things in a theoretical manner.
> 
> P.S. adding **** to everything doesn't make you sound smarter, you are also making it a little to obvious that you are jealous of Toronto. Have some respect next time...


I'm not jealous of Toronto in the slightest - I didn't even start the Q1 vs. FCP debate. As for adding ****, I really don't care, you asked me to pick which building is taller, trying to make a point when both are stupid and far from reality.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

Dimethyltryptamine said:


> Well the roof height of Q1 is 245m (and 235m for highest floor), so depending on where you want to measure to, they're either equal in height or Q1 is slightly taller.
> .


No one I know in the Toronto forums considers the "spire" at the top of the Trump Tower to be part of its real height. To the top of that spire is 282 metres, so I am pretty sure the highest usable floor is well above the 235 metre level. However, I would just call it a "skyscraper", personally, and nothing more even if they had stretched up the "spire" another 18 metres (which thankfully they did not). Scaffolding is still around the hat/scoop/spire at the top, and should be coming off soon.










The white tower in the foreground is the FCP building that was built at 298 metres to the roof, decades before the 300 metre designation of a supertall was established.


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

Yeah, I'm not surprised. Here all buildings are counted to spire, and spire only.. but we have a lot of buildings with spires/fins/etc. I guess it's something you get used to, and we're going to have to agree to disagree.

And re: FCP, yeah it's a bit of bad luck that it just didn't quite make its way in. Eureka is in the same boat - though build 30 years later, when the 300m supertall rule was well and truly alive.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

iloveclassicrock7 I obviously misunderstood you. So which measuring system would be primary to list 100 tallest buildigns for instance. There can't be two rankings obviously  And still buildings on the middle of the chart ordered with you system even "visually" looks taller than those on the middle left and there are not even anntennas in this chart. There is definatelly "hill" on the trend.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

^^ Many arguments that you made against roof height are doublebladed. You ask how will I explain that a Khalifa with a taller spire is equal to a normal Khalifa, but I ask how will you explain that Petronas Towers are taller than the Willis Tower? Also, you say that CTBUH provides the numbers to determine that Willis is the taller structure, but we would provide the numbers to determine that the taller Khalifa is a taller structure than the normal Khalifa, so again it is doublebladed.

Btw, I disagree that Kingdom Tower and Burj Khalifa should be measured to their pinnacle. In my opinion they should be measured only 'til they start being less than 9 meters wide, as seen on my latest diagram. I will repost it and post a diagram of other buildings later today :cheers:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Kanto said:


> ^^ Many arguments that you made against roof height are doublebladed. You ask how will I explain that a Khalifa with a taller spire is equal to a normal Khalifa, but I ask how will you explain that Petronas Towers are taller than the Willis Tower?


I just did some pages ago. And everything is clear and precise in the explanation. Now explain how heigher burj is lover than a lover one :nuts: Which is less confusing? Differentiation of structures from buildings (which is easy because antennas are easly distinguishable), than complicated system of calculating virtual base of the spire which can easly led to the situations when one clearly taller building is marked lower without even presence of any antennas in two buildings. 

You see Kanto. The conclusion here is that ctbuh standards are not always fair (but in most cases they are) but simple and clear. What you want them to be replaced with is system that is still not fair in all cases but in addition is much more complicated and vague.



Kanto said:


> Btw, I disagree that Kingdom Tower and Burj Khalifa should be measured to their pinnacle. In my opinion they should be measured only 'til they start being less than 9 meters wide, as seen on my latest diagram. I will repost it and post a diagram of other buildings later today :cheers:


Well that's something you have to address to iloveclassicrock7 not me. As I said with complicated systems the problem is that you won't even be able to choose one


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

^^ I don't think the system is that confusing. Though I will try to make it clearer and simpler to understand. As I said before, it's a work in progress, so imperfections are still possible, although I think it already is vastly superior to CTBUH's official height :cheers:

Btw, if you have any other theoretical examples which you think could lead to a failure of my system, please post them. Peer review is necessary when creating a system like this :cheers:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

first make it not confusing for burj-burj excample.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

^^ I already did that :cheers:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

where?


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## bild tall! (Apr 9, 2006)

i dont think that spires must count whit the height of a building.
let say you have only a spire whit out a structure then its only a spire so no need to count that.
but if a spire is building up whit the building itself so people can go higher then its part of the building itself and it needs to be counted for.
greetz.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

patrykus said:


> where?


In this post:



Kanto said:


> ^^ In the case of a Burj Khalifa-like building the roof is the spot above which there is no occupied floor and above which all has a maximal dimension of 9 meters or 30 feet. I can't determine where that is from your pic, cause there is no grid behind those buildings like on the original SSP diagram which could give me a reference of how much milimeters 9 meters in that pic are. They look they are identical in width but the right one has a longer spire so I would say they are equally tall in roof height (primary height measurement) and differently tall in pinnacle height (secondary height measurement :cheers:
> 
> More examples please :cheers:
> 
> Also, I'd have an example for you: Which of these is the tallest and which is the shortest?


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

You just *explained* it but didn't make any less *confusing*.

In this picture building on the right is still lower by your standards. And I can't realy say by just looking at it where it starts being 9m in diameter or less. Athough I can easly determine where antenna at sears starts.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

Yeah, well, determining where the spire on Khalifa starts with the naked eye is hard. but that is a fact with which we must learn to live if we don't want to measure only pinnacle height. Which in my opinion still should be measured :cheers:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

which translates to: "I understand my ideas have flaws as ctbuh ones, and are more confusing and complicated than ctbuh but I still think ctbuh will accept them"

well... ok then kay:


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

patrykus said:


> which translates to: "I understand my ideas have flaws as ctbuh ones, and are more confusing and complicated than ctbuh but I still think ctbuh will accept them"
> 
> well... ok then kay:


My *Real Height measurement* system gets *perfect* results, I couldn't be more happy with it.
_
_
_
_











_

_

_

Now, this is what the CTBUH's system gets, very unfair and unequal results. Just look at 1 WTC on the list and everything before it. Look at the buildings before 1 WTC, they are much taller, but apparently nowadays you need to put a spire on every building if you don't want to get passed by a building with a much lower roof, and I am here to change that. 














@ Kanto, the Burj and Kingdom count because they are basically a part of the building, they aren't hoisted into place like a spire, they are just an empty part of the building. Even if it was a spire, the beginning of the empty portion, which you are calling a spire, is more then 30 feet wide anyways.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

But, what does everyone think about the results my measurement system gets ?


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> @ Kanto, the Burj and Kingdom count because they are basically a part of the building, they aren't hoisted into place like a spire, they are just an empty part of the building. Even if it was a spire, the beginning of the empty portion, which you are calling a spire, is more then 30 feet wide anyways.


what about pingan then, it's spire definatively look like a part of building. You don't count it. what about pingan vs abraj, the former definitively looks taler. And again how you decide if building like burj gets its spire counted and building like pingan doesn't?


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

patrykus said:


> what about pingan then, it's spire definatively look like a part of building. You don't count it. what about pingan vs abraj, the former definitively looks taler. And again how you decide if building like burj gets its spire counted and building like pingan doesn't?


Well I completely understand this concern, I haven't decided on Pingan yet, since I don't know the width of its spire, and it hasn't even gotten out of the ground. I also haven't decided anything on Abraj, but since there are floors in the spire, I technically have to count it as part of the building.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

You haven't answered my question  By you I meant "Da System"  And then again if you count pingan you would also have to count dream tower. The bottom line how the system decide what to count and what not.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

patrykus said:


> You haven't answered my question  By you I meant "Da System"  And then again if you count pingan you would also have to count dream tower. The bottom line how the system decide what to count and what not.


Well I understand this, I am saying that I don't know the width of the spire, or anything about it, so I can't let the system evaluate it yet. The building's spire meets one of the requirements, so if it meets the width requirement, its spire will be counted. The dream tower,in its current state, definitely doesn't meet the width requirement.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

Pingan's spire is far thinner than 9 meters and it does NOT look like part of the building. It's just a thin steel stick on top of it. Abby gets the full height because there are floors up 'til the crescent though I personally would count its roof as 591 meters cause the last 10 meters of the crescent are inhabitable and too thin.

Also, I will try to reevaluate Burj Khalifa, but most probably there is no way that it should be counted 'til its pinnacle. Minimally the thinnest section of it should not be counted.

The rest is perfectly as it should be in my opinion, good job classicrock :cheers:

EDIT: Pingan's spire is 2.5 meters at bottom and 1.25 meters at the top :cheers:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> Well I understand this, I am saying that I don't know the width of the spire, or anything about it, so I can't let the system evaluate it yet. The building's spire meets one of the requirements, so if it meets the width requirement, its spire will be counted. The dream tower,in its current state, definitely doesn't meet the width requirement.


So you don't know yet. I was talking especially about burj. How you decide it should be counted to the tip. And hence how for example you decide where the base of the spire is since the width depends on that point. Dream spire is just a little thinner than pingan, the only big difference is that pingan spire is continuous and dream isn't, but still some would say they are equally relevant (measured by effort put to rise them for example). 

To the burj again. You have to be able to find the base of the spire, because the spire at some point gets less in 9m in diameter and you eventually end up measuring buildings like Kanto.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

patrykus said:


> So you don't know yet. I was talking especially about burj. How you decide it should be counted to the tip. And hence how for example you decide where the base of the spire is since the width depends on that point. Dream spire is just a little thinner than pingan, the only big difference is that pingan spire is continuous and dream isn't, but still some would say they are equally relevant (measured by effort put to rise them for example).
> 
> To the burj again. You have to be able to find the base of the spire, because the spire at some point gets less in 9m in diameter and you eventually end up measuring buildings like Kanto.


Right, but like I said it isn't really a spire, it is part of the building, it just has empty space, and if it is a spire, the bottom of the empty space starts around 700m, and that area is more then 30 feet wide, so the spires width counts, and it covers 50% of the area under it, therefore it passes the test.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> it is part of the building,


you can't measure that, What if I say dream spire is part of the building?



iloveclassicrock7 said:


> it just has empty space, and if it is a spire, the bottom of the empty space starts around 700m


?? The whole building is "empty space" and it's start at street level.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> Right, but like I said it isn't really a spire, it is part of the building, it just has empty space, and if it is a spire, the bottom of the empty space starts around 700m, and that area is more then 30 feet wide, so the spires width counts, and it covers 50% of the area under it, therefore it passes the test.


Here is a small problem with your measurement. The same thing that gives Burj Khalifa an edge in the 50% roof limit actualy gives it a disadvantage higher up. Now we both agree than every section of the Burj Khalifa is only slightly thinner than the section below it, therefore the entire building up to the pinnacle should be counted, however since the sections continue to get thinner above the last occupied floor too, the 9 meter/30 foot rule comes in and cuts the building off at 747 meters. In other words, I like your 50% roof rule, and I like your minimum 9 meter rule, the only thing I would do different than you would be that I would make only two exceptions - that an occupied floor must be below roof height and that if there is a 30° or more angle in the top of a triangle between the middle top of the section and the two border points at where exactly the width is 9 meters :cheers:

I will make a detailed diagram of more buildings, even one of the CTBUH chart you posted tomorow, today I'm too tired after shouting my ass of in the finals with Russia :hahano: Man, what a match that was, silver is still awesome :banana2:


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## Ondro (Jul 12, 2009)

I agree with your system too, even though I have said that before. 
In my opinion, The Burj spire is an separate case, because you can actually climb it from the inside and if there was an observation deck(i know it is most likely impossible), it could easily house a small one-person elevator(well, the highest part then should be widened, but thats just like 10m of height). Therefore it IS a part of the building, hence in my view, a building is anything that can shelter you, where a person can fit. Anything else is just a stuff on a building.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Ondro said:


> I agree with your system too, even though I have said that before.
> In my opinion, The Burj spire is an separate case, because you can actually climb it from the inside and if there was an observation deck(i know it is most likely impossible), it could easily house a small one-person elevator(well, the highest part then should be widened, but thats just like 10m of height). Therefore it IS a part of the building, hence in my view, a building is anything that can shelter you, where a person can fit. Anything else is just a stuff on a building.


Yeah, I don't consider the top of the Burj as a spire. It is part of the building.


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## HardBall (Jan 13, 2011)

Kanto said:


> Pingan's spire is far thinner than 9 meters and it does NOT look like part of the building. It's just a thin steel stick on top of it. Abby gets the full height because there are floors up 'til the crescent though I personally would count its roof as 591 meters cause the last 10 meters of the crescent are inhabitable and too thin.
> 
> Also, I will try to reevaluate Burj Khalifa, but most probably there is no way that it should be counted 'til its pinnacle. Minimally the thinnest section of it should not be counted.
> 
> ...


Yeah, Ping'an spire is definitely not natural looking, nor is it visually a part of the building. From some distance (a couple of miles) in smoggy conditions, I doubt that anyone would be able to see it easily. The original design actually did not have this spire; but they kept the exact same design, and just tried to make it higher by slapping on a metal stick; at least Petronas' "spires" were part of the original design of the building. Similar things can be said about buildings like Lotte, Times building, or BoA, which also have insanely high spires that are clearly not a part of a reasonable design of the building, and look far more like antennae than any designed feature. 

A building like 1WTC clearly tries to circumvent the rules, if indeed the new design of the spire has forced it to shed the cladding. It is exactly an antenna, and that's exactly how you would design an antenna, perhaps reinforced a bit to carry those load bearing rings that are now no longer going to be there. It is only still called a spire, because the original specs had more architectural elements that overlays it. Now it is in no way, visually or structurally distinct from any large antennae on other supertalls. If we count that thing a part of the height to pinnacle, then it would mean that pinnacle height is purely a matter of semantics, with no bearing on reality.

Buildings like TP101 I'm equivocating. If I remember right, it actually has a service stair and some catwalks all the way up the spire, so it's arguably a usable part of the building. But to count that just opens up another back door for buildings to claim new "roof height" and the such by putting tiny floors (like 20 sqft) very high within a thinly veiled spire. Just think about the looks of the TP101 vs the ICC. ICC has soooo much more volume and visual weight above 400M than TP101, but yet it is counted shorter. It seems that there is something amiss here.

Then there's a few odd balls like the Abby, which is hard to qualitatively say where exactly the building ends and the "spire" begins. Good argument can be made that the crescent should be counted as part of the roof. On the other hand, it almost seems that the superstructure on what we normally consider as roof is a mostly empty structure with very little commercial or living space (like a TV tower). On the other hand, it definitely is integral to the design of the building, as much as BK's or Kingdom's spire would be. 

The more I think about it, the more it seems that a hard, physical measurement is the best way, and the only unambiguous way to distinguish among these designs. If the measurement is 9m at maximum visual width, then so be it (personally I favor a bit more, like 15M, which makes the architectural element visually significant from a distance, I think). We are not going to be able to come up with a better and more fool-proof way of deciding height, without allowing someone out there to cheat through loopholes. If we count by a pure metric, then a few buildings (ICC, SWFC, Willis) lose nothing, most buildings lose a small amount of height to count toward (2WTC, BK, Shanghai Tower, Abby, Chow Tai Fok, Kingkey, etc), and the real cheaters would lose a lot of height (BoA, Ping'An, Petronas, etc).


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Haha what a revolutions here. Kanto starts counting spires :lol:



Ondro said:


> I agree with your system too, even though I have said that before.


But do you even understand it?  I'm at least trying.



Ondro said:


> In my opinion, The Burj spire is an separate case, because you can actually climb it from the inside and if there was an observation deck(i know it is most likely impossible), it could easily house a small one-person elevator(well, the highest part then should be widened, but thats just like 10m of height). Therefore it IS a part of the building, hence in my view, a building is anything that can shelter you, where a person can fit. Anything else is just a stuff on a building.


Unfortunately your reasoning is very wrong. What if spire at the lotte dream dmc tower will in fact be empty pipe with ladder inside. Is it part of the building now? For me it is very simple. Everything what was designed by architect and is not just an equipment is part of the building.



Kanto said:


> Here is a small problem with your
> measurement. The same thing that gives Burj Khalifa an edge in the 50% roof limit actualy gives it a disadvantage higher up. Now we both agree than every section of the Burj Khalifa is only slightly thinner than the section below it, therefore the entire building up to the pinnacle should be counted, however since the sections continue to get thinner above the last occupied floor too, the 9 meter/30 foot rule comes in and cuts the building off at 747 meters. In other words, I like your 50% roof rule, and I like your minimum 9 meter rule, the only thing I would do different than you would be that I would make only two exceptions - that an occupied floor must be below roof height and that *if there is a 30° or more angle in the top of a triangle between the middle top of the section and the two border points at where exactly the width is 9 meters* :cheers:


Kanto your system couldn't get any more complicated :lol: But I'm still trying to grasp it. So do I get it right?










But then the burj's spire still would'n be counted since the angle is clearly less than 30°.



iloveclassicrock7 said:


> Yeah, I don't consider the top of the Burj as a spire. It is part of the building.


Seriously? Then what it is?

Just a little reminder for the end. CTBUH have 10000+ positions now in it's database. Do you seriously think they will be eager to reevaluate all heights with this all calculations proposed when they have simple system under their hand? I think you are wasting your time.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

patrykus said:


> Haha what a revolutions here. Kanto starts counting spires :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 Although I would be happy if they used my system,I am not trying to get them to add my system. I will probably make my own site for this, and hopefully someday it's a competing system.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Wouldn't it be easier for people to just get easy with the idea of multiple rankings based on multiple criteria? 

For instance, other civil engineer structures have multiple rankings, such as tunnels, bridges, highways, dams etc.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> Although I would be happy if they used my system,I am not trying to get them to add my system. I will probably make my own site for this, and hopefully someday it's a competing system.





Suburbanist said:


> Wouldn't it be easier for people to just get easy with the idea of multiple rankings based on multiple criteria?
> 
> For instance, other civil engineer structures have multiple rankings, such as tunnels, bridges, highways, dams etc.


Not really. What if in future there are more tallest buildings similar in height? How do you report the tallest building on the planet? Several different buildings by several measurements? Anyway ctbuh already provides several measuring techniques, it just seems what's everybody is most interested in is architectural height.

As for the bridges I do know that they are described by multiple criteria (as buildings by ctbuh), but do we have several different criteria to determine for instance Longest Single Span Bridges? And for buildings it is more crucial since tall towers are often build just for height and prestige so there can't be ambiguity if the building is the tallest or not depending on organization. iloveclassicrock7 if you are not going to present this to ctbuh imo it means you don't actually believe so much in the thing  Anyways if you don't agree with Kanto you still have to decide how to make so your system will count burj, kingdom, and india tower spires.


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## deepblue01 (Oct 27, 2008)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> My *Real Height measurement* system gets *perfect* results, I couldn't be more happy with it.
> _
> _
> _
> ...


I like how you think and I believe you may have gotten the correct way of measuring towers.

PingAn spire is just like the Petronas spires. It would look good either way and the tower will still look somewhat complete.

You can clearly see that 1WTC is unfairly measured with its spre and all, The true height of it is so evident, unlike BK


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

patrykus said:


> Haha what a revolutions here. Kanto starts counting spires :lol:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, that's da angle. Though I'd like to add that it is calculated only if there is a less than 9 meter part in the same section as there is a more than 9 meter part, so it isn't calculated in the case of Burj Khalifa.

Btw, here is the CTBUH diagram made according to my system:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Kanto said:


> Though I'd like to add that it is calculated only if there is a less than 9 meter part in the same section as there is a more than 9 meter part, so it isn't calculated in the case of Burj Khalifa.


That sir, I don't understand at all :nuts:

So your system still won't pass burj-burj test. Waiting for more then :|


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## deepblue01 (Oct 27, 2008)

^^ The revised edition doesn't really change the ordering anyways


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

patrykus said:


> That sir, I don't understand at all :nuts:
> 
> So your system still won't pass burj-burj test. Waiting for more then :|


It passed it already a long time ago. LOL, how many times do I have to repeat that by my measurement the two Khalifas are equally tall :smug: (though if you want more detail they are equally tall by the primary measurement method and the structurally taller one is taller by the secondary measurement method)

As to what a section of a building is, it is apart of a building which shares identical angles. For example a triangle shaped roof is one section cause angles of any part of it are equal to angles of any other part of it. I'll make you a diagram of what I mean in a few mins :cheers:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Kanto said:


> It passed it already a long time ago. LOL, how many times do I have to repeat that by my measurement the two Khalifas are equally tall :smug: (though if you want more detail they are equally tall by the primary measurement method and the structurally taller one is taller by the secondary measurement method)


I wasn't talking about first burj-burj example but the second one in which the taller burj is by your standards the lower (not equal), so how does it pass it? You will deny reality now? Not to mention even calling them equal is complete nonsense and you call the taller one - the lower :nuts:


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

patrykus said:


> I wasn't talking about first burj-burj example but the second one in which the taller burj is by your standards the lower (not equal), so how does it pass it? You will deny reality now? Not to mention even calling them equal is nonsense and you call the taller one - the lower.


Now that is the most doublebladed argument I ever saw. how will you explain that Petronas Towers are taller than Willis Tower? Is that not denying reality? Is that not nonsense? Calling the taller on the lower? That definitely sounds like nonsense to me hno:

Btw, this is what a section of a building is:










Both triangles are part of the same section because of identical angles, A=C, B=D and E=F :cheers:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Kanto said:


> Now that is the most doublebladed argument I ever saw. how will you explain that Petronas Towers are taller than Willis Tower? Is that not denying reality? Is that not nonsense? Calling the taller on the lower? That definitely sounds like nonsense to me hno:


Now you are forgetting about something. You are here after perfectly fair system, I'm after clear and simple one. So either it is simple or fair. Your's seems to be either for the moment


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

^^ Wrong, I'm not here for a perfectly fair system, I'm here for a system more fair than the official CTBUH height system. And my system is far more fair :cheers:

And btw, there is nothing clear and simple on making differences in such perfectly identical things like thin steel sticks hno:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Are you saying you can't distinguish antenna from the spie ?  

If your system is not fair and not simple then ctbuh has clear advantage over you


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

^^ A spire and an antenna are indistinguishable from each other hno:

And my system is far superior to that of the CTBUH. They are about equaly as complicated, yet mine is far more fair hno:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Kanto said:


> ^^ A spire and an antenna are indistinguishable from each other hno:


haha, well then I guess you need pair of these 










But never mind. Suppose antennas are indistinguishable from spires, that it doesn't matter that your technique is almost as complicated as quantum physics and Burj-burj example is just an exception. Then it is perfectly fair and superior system right?


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

^^ D'oh, how many times do I have to repeat that it is not perfect. It only is vastly superior to the official CTBUH height and also far simpler, that's what it is and that's all that I claim it to be. Also, the Khalifa example is in no way different to the Petronas - Willis example. I never claimed that I can make a perfect single measurement method. Of course pinnacle height would be a secondary measurement, just as it is now. Again and again you have far greater requirements for my system than you do for the CTBUH system hno:

Also, I would bet all the money that I have that a normal person could NOT find a visual difference between a spire and an antenna. both come in all varieties of structures, dimensions and colors hno:


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## ThatOneGuy (Jan 13, 2012)

Spire? Count it.
Antenna? Don't count it.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

deepblue01 said:


> I like how you think and I believe you may have gotten the correct way of measuring towers.
> 
> PingAn spire is just like the Petronas spires. It would look good either way and the tower will still look somewhat complete.
> 
> You can clearly see that 1WTC is unfairly measured with its spre and all, The true height of it is so evident, unlike BK


Thanks, I think I finally solved this, the lineup on my list looks perfect. But I should point out that I also use the pinnacle measurement as an equal.


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## HardBall (Jan 13, 2011)

ThatOneGuy said:


> Spire? Count it.
> Antenna? Don't count it.


So what is that thing on the top of 1WTC. It used to be the central structural element of the spire with claddings, and it functions as an antenna (as much as any antenna in NYC), and it is nearly identical to the antenna on Conde Nast (4TS), which is never called a spire by any one. And yet Durst wants to count that structure as a spire. 

You will find, by going through some borderline examples, that there is no clear distinction between spire and antenna among many borderline cases. The thin red line that some here purport is nothing more than a figment in their imagination.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Kanto said:


> and also *far simpler*


...

... wait for it...

...



Kanto said:


> *The basic rule is that a section on top of another section must be more than 50% of the largest dimension of the section it is on or otherwise it will be considered a apire/antenna. A section will be considered an antenna/spire if by megatalls and supertalls it has less than 9 meters or 30 feet.
> 
> Exceptions:
> 
> ...





Kanto said:


> Here is a small problem with your measurement. The same thing that gives Burj Khalifa an edge in the 50% roof limit actualy gives it a disadvantage higher up. Now we both agree than every section of the Burj Khalifa is only slightly thinner than the section below it, therefore the entire building up to the pinnacle should be counted, however since the sections continue to get thinner above the last occupied floor too, the 9 meter/30 foot rule comes in and cuts the building off at 747 meters. In other words, I like your 50% roof rule, and I like your minimum 9 meter rule, the only thing I would do different than you would be that I would make only two exceptions - that an occupied floor must be below roof height and that if there is a 30° or more angle in the top of a triangle between the middle top of the section and the two border points at where exactly the width is 9 meters :cheers:





Kanto said:


> Btw, this is what a section of a building is:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## HardBall (Jan 13, 2011)

patrykus said:


> ...
> 
> ... wait for it...
> 
> ...


It is a fairly complicated method in determining what exactly counts on sloped facade structures, and in some ways arbitrary. I personally prefer a simpler method, such as a limit on the visual width at the optimal viewing angle.

But nonetheless, this is still far superior compared to the distinction between "spire" and "antenna", which is pure nonsense. Those who believe that an unambiguous distinction can be made between the two is seriously delusional and in need of some basic knowledge of architecture and design.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

HardBall said:


> So what is that thing on the top of 1WTC. It used to be the central structural element of the spire with claddings, and it functions as an antenna (as much as any antenna in NYC), and it is nearly identical to the antenna on Conde Nast (4TS), which is never called a spire by any one. And yet Durst wants to count that structure as a spire.
> 
> You will find, by going through some borderline examples, that there is no clear distinction between spire and antenna among many borderline cases. The thin red line that some here purport is nothing more than a figment in their imagination.


Absolutely true, there is no distinction between a spire and antennae. Also spires can be removed just like antennae's. In fact, they said there were going to have to remove the old spire of 1 WTC, to clean it I believe. Some people profit from the CTBUH's unfair measurement, so they make themselves believe that it makes sense. Any good movement will always have opposition.

Also, I agree that Kanto's measurement system is pretty complicated, but that is not always a bad thing. Both of our system's are better then the CTBUH's.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

patrykus said:


> ...
> 
> ... wait for it...
> 
> ...


It is simpler because if one knows the system, he/she can calculate the height of every building. On the other hand in the case of the CTBUH official height additional knowledge has to be searched on the net if a thin steel stick is present on a building, otherwise one can't determine the height of the building hno:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

HardBall said:


> It is a fairly complicated method in determining what exactly counts on sloped facade structures, and in some ways arbitrary. I personally prefer a simpler method, such as a limit on the visual width at the optimal viewing angle.
> 
> But nonetheless, this is still far superior compared to the distinction between "spire" and "antenna", which is pure nonsense. Those who believe that an unambiguous distinction can be made between the two is seriously delusional and in need of some basic knowledge of architecture and design.



It can't be easier hard ball. Every exterior element that has been designed by *architect* counts to the *architectural height*. That's why ctbuh don't want to count spire in last 1wtc version because it's not part of *architects design*. Now read thoroughly what Kanto presented, end then what I just wrote. Which is harder to grasp?




Kanto said:


> It is simpler because if one knows the system, he/she can calculate the height of every building. On the other hand in the case of the CTBUH official height additional knowledge has to be searched on the net if a thin steel stick is present on a building, otherwise one can't determine the height of the building hno:


Whait... are you suggesting that ctbuh team would evaluate buildigns height *with* your system and without building plans?


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

patrykus said:


> It can't be easier hard ball. Every exterior element that has been designed by *architect* counts to the *architectural height*. That's why ctbuh don't want to count spire in last 1wtc version because it's not part of *architects design*. Now read thoroughly what Kanto presented, end then what I just wrote. Which is harder to grasp?





> Every exterior element that has been designed by *architect* counts to the *architectural height*


This is stupid, what if I add a 200m spire to my 300m building ? 



> Now read thoroughly what Kanto presented, end then what I just wrote. Which is harder to grasp?


I don't think you understood that part of his statement.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> This is stupid, what if I add a 200m spire to my 300m building ?


Is it *designed* by an architect or designer? It counts.
Is it creation of civil engineers? It doesn't.

Hard?

btw do you have any doubt than what is to be installed on 1wtc roof hasn't been designed by architect? If don't you need glasses too my friend


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

patrykus said:


> It can't be easier hard ball. Every exterior element that has been designed by *architect* counts to the *architectural height*. That's why ctbuh don't want to count spire in last 1wtc version because it's not part of *architects design*. Now read thoroughly what Kanto presented, end then what I just wrote. Which is harder to grasp?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


D'oh, everybody who wants to truly 100% determine height must have access to plans of a building. I fail to understand why you think my system should be used without plans while the CTBUH system should be used with plan. That's like saying Ussain Bolt is slower than me because I'm allowed to use a car while he is not. Utter nonsense hno:

And I didn't speak about a measurement of a newly constructed building by the CTBUH. I was speaking about the situation in which official height figures are already easily accessible on the internet and COMMON people who know those values want to determine the height of a building they are looking at. With the official CTBUH height they still need to know whether a steel stick is a spire or an antenna (for which they have to search on the internet) in order to determine the height, however, with roof height, or in fact even pinnacle height, they can pretty accurately determine the true height just by looking at a building hno:

Btw, that thing about architects and engineers designing thin steel sticks is utter nonsense. If an architect designs a broadcasting antenna it is a spire according to you? hno:


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Kanto said:


> D'oh, everybody who wants to truly 100% determine height must have access to plans of a building. I fail to understand why you think my system should be used without plans while the CTBUH system should be used with plan.


Yes, you failed obviously  The point was if both systems are to be used with plans then there is no problem to determined architectural height since antenna is described as antenna and any spire is clearly visible. And I still don't get how hard can it be be to distinguish architectural part from the rest of the building even without plans. But that's your problem obviously. 

Your system as ctbuh one used with plans still requires lots of calculations and additional measurement for every single building in question in contrast to just reading values from the plan. Yep, a hell lot easier.

And last question for todays night to sleep with. You keep saying your systems are meant to be additional, next to ctbuh. So the question is who will use it when ctbuh already provides numbers as architectural height, height to the tip, and height occupied?


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

^^ Do I have to repeat myself, I was talking about a COMMON man/woman looking at a building, not about complex measurements of a newly opened building. THAT WAS THE POINT. And additionally, the calculations involved in my system can be very easily recognized on a building with the naked eye. That is what I'm talking about, I talk about common people looking at a building with the PRIMARY height measurement on their mind, estimating the building's size and dimensions with their naked eye hno:


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## HardBall (Jan 13, 2011)

patrykus said:


> It can't be easier hard ball. Every exterior element that has been designed by *architect* counts to the *architectural height*. That's why ctbuh don't want to count spire in last 1wtc version because it's not part of *architects design*. Now read thoroughly what Kanto presented, end then what I just wrote. Which is harder to grasp?


Wait, think about what you are saying carefully. So if F&F actually put the same antenna into the original blueprint of 4TS, then the antenna on the building automagically becomes a "spire", and so that it would become a supertall that is taller than Chrysler? 

So you are saying that the height of the building's final arbiter is nothing about the physical entity of the building itself, but some markings and captions on the sheet of paper on which its original schematic is drawn???

Of course, I already said that Kanto's is harder to grasp; but not because it's more complicated (which it is), but rather because your definition is non-sense (it has no precise definition). But I guess I was wrong, you do in fact have a precise definition, that only depends on what happens on paper, and has nothing to do with any real object in the reality that we know.


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## patrykus (May 14, 2008)

Ondro said:


> Champagne.  And I really want to know why you are defending CTBUH so much. I don't see any sense in it.


For you too sir :drunk:

I'm ctbuh secret agent


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Ondro said:


> Champagne.  And I really want to know why you are defending CTBUH so much. I don't see any sense in it.





> And I really want to know why you are defending CTBUH so much


We all do


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## spectre000 (Jul 9, 2008)

Without the CTBUH there would be chaos in determining "official" building heights. Hate it or love it, the CTBUH is necessary if we want _any _sense and order to building heights and rankings. 

No system is going to satisfy everyone. Kudos at least to the Council for shouldering the burden.


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## HardBall (Jan 13, 2011)

patrykus said:


> "your system" ? Now thats funny. You still don't have any! Maybe stop posting posters with dashes and finally tell as why burj spire is counted, and pingan isn't. Why dream dmc isn't and abraj is. Can you finally do this? Or maybe you will start choping off all the buildings like kanto? He in all his madness at least have some methodology. You people don't like ctbuh standards but yet you can't propose any better.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


These are as you say, by the revised set of rules, slightly unfair in terms of construction cost/time as related to the official height of the building. No one actually claimed that the new rules would make it perfectly fair regardless of design with respect to these metrics. The only way to perfectly correlate these metrics with the official height, is to make the official height directly dependent on the region normalized cost of building similar towers. 

With respect to the visual impact on the skyline, they are all very similar. If you are talking about visuals, the objection you raised thus are fairly arbitrary, and are highly debatable WRT these specific examples. So while possibly slightly unfair, this type of discrepancy does not rise anywhere close to the level of putting a 100M thin stick to raise the height of the building.



> and these...


This is simply a reg herring.

That superstructure on top of the roof is not structurally stable over time. Without any diagonal bracing or other forms of support, the beams on these large frames will begin to buckle over months, let alone years, even if the beams were made of titanium alloy. If you add in other factors such as wind load, this is a disaster waiting to happen, no structural engineer is going to approve anything close to this project. 



> and these...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This one is an odd ball. But this particular example, at least by my interpretation of the revised rules, would judge Abby to be shorter, just by a smidge. Since visual width of the crescent, when measured along a horizontal line, should only be > 9m near the bottom of the crescent. The two arms of the crescent don't seem to have the width to constitute 9m total, it seems. Anyways, I said that I would favor a wider requirement of 15m anyways; in which case the crescent arms definitely don't qualify.

Maybe you have some odd definition of visual width. Maybe you counted the air space between the two arms of the crescent as well, which should not have been counted. The system should work such that, if a building has two spires 50M apart, each with diameter of 2m, the total visual width is 4m, not 54m.



> What you people fail to understand is that present and future architecture varies in all weird shapes and sizes that you can't measure them fairy. Thats just not possible! and every single measuring system will be cheated and will fail. Developers will always adapt their projects to the system to reach the height at lowest cost possible. That's why we have spires today (which at least looks nice) and thats why we would have crescents and stupid empty crowns with yours. Seriously there really have to be a reason why no serious people from the business are backing up your ideas.
> 
> So anyway now what's next? Your system is used and instead of these cheaters:
> 
> ...


Nice straw man here.

The two buildings with large crowns on top do in fact contribute to its visual height substantially, which was the main goal of the revision to begin with. The goal was to measure official height closer to its visual impact at height, than the current pinnacle rule. The thin wires that you added on top of ST would not qualify anyways, since there is no point at which on this additional curved pair of beams, that the horizontal width would be > 9m, period.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

spectre000 said:


> Without the CTBUH there would be chaos in determining "official" building heights. Hate it or love it, the CTBUH is necessary if we want _any _sense and order to building heights and rankings.
> 
> No system is going to satisfy everyone. Kudos at least to the Council for shouldering the burden.


That is an interesting perspective, but I am looking for a better solution, and I think I am close to finding it.

Here is the CTBUH measurement, notice how small the wtc looks next to towers which are supposedly smaller. Looks pretty unfair to me.

















Now, here is my measurement, which ranks everything according to my system and its requirements, notice how real visual height triumphs.











*The Abraj's crescent spire counts because there is habitable space in it.*


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Also I would like to point out something interesting that disproves the CTBUH's spire theory - Dallas Renaissance Tower


> 24th-tallest building in the United States, 68th-tallest in the world. *Originally constructed at a height of 710 feet (216 m); rooftop spires were added in 1987, increasing the building's structural height to 886 feet (270 m)*. When measuring to roof height, the building stands as the 5th-tallest in the city.[2][8]


 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Dallas





_
_


So apparently spires can be added and removed even 13 years after a buildings completion....


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## Guest (May 25, 2012)

I am not a fan of spires that cheat their way to height.

The Petronas Towers for example, are shorter than the Sears (Willis) Tower, but the spires gave it the lead.

Petronas Tower :tiasd: Willis (Sears) Tower


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

fish said:


> I am not a fan of spires that cheat their way to height.
> 
> The Petronas Towers for example, are shorter than the Sears (Willis) Tower, but the spires gave it the lead.
> 
> Petronas Tower :tiasd: Willis (Sears) Tower


Then this system is for you. My system only counts a spire if its base is more then 30 feet wide/9m, and covers 50% of the area under it. That way, it will only count buildings with real visual height.


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## Guest (May 26, 2012)

^^ I just want to add that spires work for certain buildings, such as the Chrysler and ESB for obvious reasons (the roof tapers to the spire in a seamless manner in which the spires become the tower).

For record keeping, this is trivial because there is roof height and actual height.

This shouldn't take much thought, really!


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## desertpunk (Oct 12, 2009)

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=524747&page=6


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## Guest (May 28, 2012)

desertpunk said:


> http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=524747&page=6


There was no need for a spire on top of the New York Times Tower.
It does not enhance anything.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

fish said:


> There was no need for a spire on top of the New York Times Tower.
> It does not enhance anything.


I think that is what he is saying, it is a completely useless spire, if anything it makes the building look worse.


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## Guest (May 28, 2012)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> I think that is what he is saying, it is a completely useless spire, if anything it makes the building look worse.


What is says to me is, "No Heliport Landing".


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## ThatOneGuy (Jan 13, 2012)

I like the NYTimes tower spire. It makes the building look more...business-y? It just looks more formal with the spire and more NY style. It reminds me of the First Canadian Place in Toronto (which is an absolute beauty, imo)


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

ThatOneGuy said:


> I like the NYTimes tower spire. It makes the building look more...business-y? It just looks more formal with the spire and more NY style. It reminds me of the First Canadian Place in Toronto (which is an absolute beauty, imo)


It still shouldn't count for the official height though.


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## ThatOneGuy (Jan 13, 2012)

Never said it should.


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## CF221 (Mar 17, 2009)

^^ I like that spire as well...


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## KillerZavatar (Jun 22, 2010)

i'm late for the party i know, but i tried to read quite a bit of what is going on here, started on the first page and read not all posts but got the general jist.

What i have to say is the following, i think the system we have right now is the best for now. I explain why:

1. height to tip: The height to the highest point of the structure no matter how thin it is is something understandable for everyone and if you walk with friends on the street and they ask you how tall the building is you will most likely reply "up to the highest point, that mast up there its XXXm", it would just be too complicated to explain your friends the whole system or what not.

2. architectural height (spires counted, antenna's not): this is something which is important i think, because if you count antennas you also have to accept that buildings can become the tallest building in a city or on the world years after they have been built and i just refuse to accept people saying, hey look at that church it is the tallest building although it was build hundred years before these other buildings, when in fact the church only burnt down and another top was put onto (i know that in churches it is normally noted when something changed and stuff, but i think it was a fitting analogy for some older skyscrapers as well.)

3. roof height / highest floor. A measurement like this is also important, just because the visual effect of a building can be much different when it doesn't end with a spire. And so there should also be several "tallest buildings". Tallest building by roof height, tallest building by architectural design etc etc. I mean we also have tallest structure, tallest free standing tower etc, so why not making differences in skyscrapers as well.

I see that this system also have flaws, the nanjing building compared to sears tower makes it clear that although sears tower looks more massive and taller it is counted as a smaller building and that is why i think we should use the architectural (official) height, but always have the other numbers in our mind too, so that we know that some buildings have a taller tip height or a far smaller roof height. :cheers:

last but not least i hope this doesn't end in a flame war here and we all can calm down a bit. i really like to see what kanto comes up with as a system, although i think it needs a lot of improvements i like to see what he changes and how he handles the thing. I mean after all we all are just skyscraper lovers and it would be stupid to hate on each other like that :nuts:


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## deepblue01 (Oct 27, 2008)

Thing is, if the spires are an non-removable, then its fair to say that its part of the tower?

Yes it may be cheating but normal people (ie non skyscraper fans) don't really care what the true height of towers are, unless its the tallest one. Most people just look at the tower, say wow when they know the height and take photos with them and thats it. If its recently completed, like many in China, most would just look at it as being part of the skyline and move on.

We all have our favorite towers and thats something we can't deny. Some of us is also nationalistic and would do anything to put down other nations (in the form of excuses), we can't deny that either.

Most importantly, its the tower design which i believe that is the most important part of towers, not so much the height. There are so many 200-300m towers which completely out do these supertalls but are not taken note of because of its (lack of) height


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

KillerZavatar said:


> i'm late for the party i know, but i tried to read quite a bit of what is going on here, started on the first page and read not all posts but got the general jist.
> 
> What i have to say is the following, i think the system we have right now is the best for now. I explain why:
> 
> ...





> because if you count antennas you also have to accept that buildings can become the tallest building in a city or on the world years after they have been built


I can disprove this, with this building:

Dallas Renaissance Tower - 24th-tallest building in the United States, 68th-tallest in the world. *Originally constructed at a height of 710 feet (216 m); rooftop spires were added in 1987, increasing the building's structural height to 886 feet (270 m)*. When measuring to roof height, the building stands as the 5th-tallest in the city.



> i really like to see what kanto comes up with as a system, although i think it needs a lot of improvements i like to see what he changes and how he handles the thing


I actually am working on a system myself, me and Kanto's systems actually incorporate each others ideas, mine is more based in hitting the correct visual height, while his is based on pure statistics and facts.

My system requires a spire to cover 50% of the area under it, and the spire must have a width of 30 ft/9 meters.

Here are the results of my system


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

Pretty sure that what sits atop of Renaissance Tower aren't spires. To me, they look like antennae of some sort, and are surrounded by satellite dishes... Obviously they weren't part of the initial design and I'd question their design altogether. 



> In 1986, James T. Chiles was brought in by the owner, The Prudential Insurance Company of America *to design the broadcast center and towers on top the building, one of which was 176 ft (54 m). This brought the structural height of the building up to 886 ft (270 m)*, securing its place as the second-tallest building in Dallas. Excluding antennas and spires, the Renaissance Tower is the fifth-tallest












To an extent, it reminds me of what's on top of 120 Collins Street in Melbourne (which isn't included in it's height, because...... it's not a spire!)


Top floors of 120 Collins Street by Wiki.will, on Flickr


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## The tallest building (Aug 2, 2011)

my system is simple, buildings will have two heights. Height to the very highest tip and height to top of the highest usable floor. It really simplifies things. One height uses both spires and antennas and the other doesn't use them at all. btw thnx everyone for taking notice of this thread


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Dimethyltryptamine said:


> Pretty sure that what sits atop of Renaissance Tower aren't spires. To me, they look like antennae of some sort, and are surrounded by satellite dishes... Obviously they weren't part of the initial design and I'd question their design altogether.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well they count whatever is on top of it.


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## CHLayson (May 29, 2012)

ambiente2008 the burj khalifa is the highest.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

Dimethyltryptamine said:


> Pretty sure that what sits atop of Renaissance Tower aren't spires. To me, they look like antennae of some sort, and are surrounded by satellite dishes... Obviously they weren't part of the initial design and I'd question their design altogether.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The spire on Bank of America in NYC looks nearly identical, yet it is a spire, not an antenna. Just another proof that antennas and spires are indistinguishable from each other :cheers:


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

The only resemblance between the three would be the skeletal form. Shape, height and design is totally different. BoA's is tapered from the base up... It's certainly not the best spire, but it does not look like what sits atop 120 Collins Street or Renaissance Tower.

What's your opinion on the Condé Nast Building? :lol:


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Dimethyltryptamine said:


> The only resemblance between the three would be the skeletal form. Shape, height and design is totally different. BoA's is tapered from the base up... It's certainly not the best spire, but it does not look like what sits atop 120 Collins Street or Renaissance Tower.
> 
> What's your opinion on the Condé Nast Building? :lol:


But the CTBUH counts the renaissance tower. They added the antennae/spire over 10 years later, yet they counted it.

Here is the link http://www.skyscrapercenter.com/dallas/renaissance-tower/

Also the BOA tower is a major cheater, its spire makes up a 1/3 of the actual buildings height.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Dimethyltryptamine said:


> The only resemblance between the three would be the skeletal form. Shape, height and design is totally different. BoA's is tapered from the base up... It's certainly not the best spire, but it does not look like what sits atop 120 Collins Street or Renaissance Tower.
> 
> What's your opinion on the Condé Nast Building? :lol:


But the CTBUH counts the renaissance tower. They added the antennae/spire over 10 years later, yet they counted it.

Here is the link http://www.skyscrapercenter.com/dallas/renaissance-tower/

Also the BOA tower is a major cheater, its spire makes up a 1/3 of the actual buildings height.

The NYT tower is a huge cheater, it covers about 3/7 of the buildings actual height, and Hong Kong also has 5 buildings over 300m.

NYC actually only has 1 building that is over 300m. I am not sure where the spire starts on the Chrysler building, but if it isn't counted, that would mean that NYC has only one 300m building, and Houston actually has 2 300m buildings, yes... Houston is above NYC by real height... pretty crazy.

In comparison, Chicago has 5 buildings over 300m with real height


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

^^ NYC has 2 supertalls. ESB and 1WTC which is 404 meters tall atm :cheers:


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Kanto said:


> ^^ NYC has 2 supertalls. ESB and 1WTC which is 404 meters tall atm :cheers:


This is true! I forgot about it since it hasn't been completed. I also forgot to mention HK has 5 buildings over 300m, CHI has 5 over 300m, and Shanghai has 2 over 300m. I think Dubai has 14 300m buildings.


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## MattTheTubaGuy (Feb 12, 2009)

Personally, I think just count everything. anyone can see that Willis tower is clearly taller than Petronas Towers, and there isn't much difference between the 'antenna' on Willis Tower, and the 'spire' on Trump Tower Chicago.
Roof height is not always clear like in BK, so, to me, the only proper height should be to the tip.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

MattTheTubaGuy said:


> Personally, I think just count everything. anyone can see that Willis tower is clearly taller than Petronas Towers, and there isn't much difference between the 'antenna' on Willis Tower, and the 'spire' on Trump Tower Chicago.
> Roof height is not always clear like in BK, so, to me, the only proper height should be to the tip.


When I make a site for this, I will include my real height measurement, and height to the tip as well. I have them as equals.


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## azn_man12345 (Dec 24, 2010)

iloveclassicrock7 said:


> When I make a site for this, I will include my real height measurement, and height to the tip as well. I have them as equals.


So then which one would you use to determine the actual world's tallest building? Would there be two WTBs? Say for example Taipei 101 and Shanghai World Financial Center in 2008/9? Would they have shared the title of World's Tallest Building? Despite your criticism of it, at least the CTBUH has one clear-cut category that determines WTB, in addition to the other "auxiliary" categories.


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## ChiSkyline (Jul 27, 2011)

Tommy Boy has a valid point. 
Example:
"Let's make a 200m skyscraper with a Spire of 400m and call it a supertall!!!" 
IMO roof height would seem better than height to the tip. I thinks that's the proper height for a building because I believer a Spire or Antenna has any value besides it's purpose. I think the Sears Tower is still one of the tallest by roof (3rd I think).


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

MattTheTubaGuy said:


> Personally, I think just count everything.


But that just leads to peter-measuring contests with cities getting ridiculously tall antennas everywhere and fooling themselves into thinking they are spires. Sort of defeats the whole purpose of "supertalls". I could wear a 12 inch tophat and convince myself I am 7 feet tall, but I would only be fooling myself.


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## HardBall (Jan 13, 2011)

Taller said:


> But that just leads to peter-measuring contests with cities getting ridiculously tall antennas everywhere and fooling themselves into thinking they are spires. Sort of defeats the whole purpose of "supertalls". I could wear a 12 inch tophat and convince myself I am 7 feet tall, but I would only be fooling myself.


That's exactly right; and applies all the same to *spires* as well. So what you are saying is that any structure that does not contribute significantly to the visual dimensions of the building should not be counted, such as the new version of the "spire" on WTC1. 

If that's the case, I couldn't agree more.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

HardBall said:


> That's exactly right; and applies all the same to *spires* as well. So what you are saying is that any structure that does not contribute significantly to the visual dimensions of the building should not be counted, such as the new version of the "spire" on WTC1.
> 
> If that's the case, I couldn't agree more.


Correct, that is what my system is for. With my system, a spire must cover 50% of the area under it, and have a width of 30 ft or 9 meters.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

Chrysler Building has a spire. An antennae politely wrapped is not; it can make a jolly nice flag pole, however.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

Just found this on CTBUH about Abby:

Figures
Height: Architectural	601.0 meter / 1972 feet
Height: Occupied	558.7 meter / 1833 feet
Height: To Tip	601.0 meter / 1972 feet
Height: Observatory	558.7 meter / 1833 feet
Floors Above Ground	120
Floors Below Ground	3
# of Elevators	96
Top Elevator Speed	6 m/s
Tower GFA	310,638 m² / 3,343,680 ft²
Development GFA	1,575,815 m² / 16,961,931 ft²
# of Hotel Rooms	858

It means that the crescent office was a myth. I will make a new diagram tomorow with this newest info. I briefly looked on the SSP diagrams and it looks like Abby would have a roof height of 562 meters, but I'll examine it in greater detail tomorrow :cheers:


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

I have finalized my roof height measurement system. The rules are as follows:

*Main rules:

1, A section of a building must be at least 50% as wide at the bottom as the section below it is wide in the spot where it has the widest side, to be counted into roof height.

2, A spot on the building must be at least 9 meters or 30 feet wide to be counted into roof height

Additional rules:

1, The roof must be minimally at the level of the top of the ceiling slab of the top occupied floor even if it means counting a part of the structure which would not be counted according to the main rules.

2, If in one single section the top angle of a triangle between the 2 corners of the roof calculated by the main rules and the middle top of that section, is at least 30 °, the roof is the top of that section.*

Here are diagrams of the top tallest buildings in the world built or under construction to get a better grasp of the system:



















Feedback will help me to perfect this system, if needed so everybody please comment and rate what do you think about it :cheers:


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## deepblue01 (Oct 27, 2008)

^^ Looking at the three TV towers, I kind of prefer Canton Tower more since its more elegant and slightly more different in shape than the other two.


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## KillerZavatar (Jun 22, 2010)

the system on tv towers is weird though, i think for tv towers the only important things are the observation decks and the tip of the tower, for the one in tokyo it seems strange that you put the height so tall although the observation deck is lower.


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## Amastroi2017 (Jun 17, 2012)

Kanto I need help determining roof height of the Empire State Building. I thought it was 1,250 feet but then I looked at one of your diagrams for buildings in New York and the roof height of 1,250 must be half way up the spire. IMO the roof on the Empire State Building should be where the concrete stops and the metal spire begins.


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Amastroi2017 said:


> Kanto I need help determining roof height of the Empire State Building. I thought it was 1,250 feet but then I looked at one of your diagrams for buildings in New York and the roof height of 1,250 must be half way up the spire. IMO the roof on the Empire State Building should be where the concrete stops and the metal spire begins.


The metal part has 17 floors in it, and the top one is at the 373 meter mark


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

Amastroi2017 said:


> Kanto I need help determining roof height of the Empire State Building. I thought it was 1,250 feet but then I looked at one of your diagrams for buildings in New York and the roof height of 1,250 must be half way up the spire. IMO the roof on the Empire State Building should be where the concrete stops and the metal spire begins.


The roof height of the ESB is 381 meters because there is an occupied floor in the steel part. The top occupied floor is at 373 meters (floor slab, so add a few meters for its height and then the few meters of the rest of the section because of its angle and you get 381 meters. ESB doesn't have a spire, only an antenna :cheers:


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## CNB30 (Jun 4, 2012)

Discontinuing spire height would be lame. It would end all the excitement in having the tallest building in the world, and would promote boring glass boxes with flat tops on super talls and we would be back to all of this well its the tallest building but not tallest structure crap.


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## Amastroi2017 (Jun 17, 2012)

Ok here is a list of the tallest buildings in the world according to roof height. I marked the towers that I wasn't 100% sure of their roof height with an (*).

1. Burj Khalifa	2,450 feet
2. Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower 1,863 feet
3. Shanghai World Financial Center 1,614 feet
4. International Commerce Centre	1,588 feet
5. Taipei 101	1,469 feet*
6. Willis Tower	1,451 feet
7. Kingkey 100	1,449 feet
8. Guangzhou International Finance Center 1,420 feet*
9. International Finance Centre 1,335 feet
10. 23 Marina	1,296 feet
11. Princess Tower 1,286 feet
12. Zifeng Tower 1,250 feet
13. Empire State Building	1,250 feet
14. Petronas Tower 1	1,242 feet
15. Petronas Tower 2	1,242 feet
16. Jin Mao Tower 1,214 feet*
17. Al Hamra Tower 1,207 feet
18. Trump International Hotel And Tower	1,170 feet
19. Tuntex Sky Tower	1,140 feet
20. Aon Center 1,136 feet
21. John Hancock Center 1,127 feet
22. China World Trade Center III	1,093 feet*
23. Ryugyong Hotel	1,082 feet
24. The Index 1,076 feet*
25. Shun Hing Square	1,066 feet
26. CITIC Plaza 1,056 feet
27. Palais Royale 1,050 feet
28. Nina Tower 1,049 feet*
29. Bank Of China Tower 1,033 feet
30. Rose Tower 1,033 feet*
31. The Pinnacle 1,023 feet
32. Emirates Office Tower 1,020 feet*
33. U.S. Bank Tower	1,018 feet
34. Menara Telekom	1,017 feet
35. Almas Tower 1,017 feet*
36. Pearl River Tower 1,016 feet
37. Central Plaza 1,014 feet
38. JPMorgan Chase Tower 1,002 feet
39. Northeast Asia Trade Tower 1,001 feet*


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## iloveclassicrock7 (Feb 23, 2010)

Amastroi2017 said:


> Ok here is a list of the tallest buildings in the world according to roof height. I marked the towers that I wasn't 100% sure of their roof height with an (*).
> 
> 1. Burj Khalifa	2,450 feet
> 2. Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower 1,863 feet
> ...


Looks pretty good to me


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## Amastroi2017 (Jun 17, 2012)

I was wondering what the roof height would be of Rose Tower and of The Torch, both in Dubai. CTBUH has a large discrepancy betwen tip/architectural height and top floor for both towers. Rose Tower is interesting because it has a crown and a spire while The Torch looks like a flame at the top.


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## Kanto (Apr 23, 2011)

Amastroi2017 said:


> Ok here is a list of the tallest buildings in the world according to roof height. I marked the towers that I wasn't 100% sure of their roof height with an (*).
> 
> 1. Burj Khalifa	2,450 feet
> 2. Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower 1,863 feet
> ...


Awesome job man. Thanks for the list :cheers:

I will look at Rose Tower and the Torch when I come back from my vacation on Monday :cheers:


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