Leaders in Tall and Super Tall Buildings

Tall and super tall buildings are above all an enterprise in teamwork and through the constant collaboration of our tall buildings group, its professionals broad experience and stream of diverse projects, our teams bring leadingedge knowledge and best practices to this specialized sector.

The Shard at London Bridge, London, U.K. 70 storeys and 310 meters, The Shard is the showpiece of the London Bridge Quarter development. The Shard, the first truly mixed-use tower in the Capital, was completed in July 2012 and became the tallest building in the European Union. Image copyright of Heyes Davidson/Nick Wood.

Experience, creative solutions, knowledge, insight, credibility.

We have it all in abundance and above all we have enthusiasm which we instil in the wider project team.

01 Etihad Towers, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. A 460,000-square-meter mixed-use development that includes five towers ranging from 55 to 77 floors, featuring an array of amenities, including an international five-star hotel, a boutique shopping mall, premium office tower, a hypermarket and quality residential apartments.

This positive attitude is backed by an experience in tall buildings that spans continents and decades. The tall buildings group was formed to harness and capitalise on the knowledge and expertise gathered from over 500 tower projects around the world. Led by Steve Watts in London and Hamid Adib in New York, our global network of tall buildings experts are able, through knowledge sharing and dedicated channels of communication, to bring an international perspective, and world-leading insight, to each tall building project. Many of the challenges faced in the development and construction of a tall building, such as finding innovative responses to structural design, sustainability, optimization of floor plates, and the cost and value implications of alternative methodologies, (or in going taller), are the subjects of our research for clients, industry bodies, external publications and professionals. This allows us to better inform clients, readily engage with other consultants, and to be active contributors to large and complex projects from the conceptual stage.

Keys to success Tall and super tall buildings are most productively executed by teamwork. The team needs to be fully engaged at the start which is why we suggest an early workshop to set the scene for the project and ensure that everyone knows and understands the keys to success.

Understanding the cost drivers as well as project expectations from the outset can provide opportunities for early optimization of the design and construction at a point where the largest cost savings can be made with the greatest ease while ensuring the integrity of the project. Tall buildings are neither straightforward nor ubiquitous. What works in one city may not work in New York, London, Shanghai, Moscow, or anywhere else but our global group has the ability to optimize a scheme from our vast, collective knowledge and experience and in doing so ensure that the project passes through the pre-construction phases as speedily as possible while ensuring that all aspects have been properly assessed. This focus includes: Key high-rise cost values covering the fundamentals such as shape together with a homing of the detail to maximize economies of scale. Impacts on long-term value. International and innovative procurement methods. A proper understanding of sustainable credentials.

Tall Buildings keys to success Conditions for a success in a workshop at the outset, including an appreciation of the project objectives and financial drivers

Early optimization of the shape and form

Constructability review to provide engineers and architects with guidelines and options that enable construction to proceed smoothly

Global collaboration
Our tall buildings group is a collective of experts, which provides a network for peer reviewing, market intelligence or ad hoc input from all disciplines involved in high-rise building design. We collaborate and share, not least on research, to further the knowledge and understanding of all within the group but, importantly, to improve our contributions to projects. Whether clients would like a complete design/build offering or prefer the expert input of individual disciplines, our team has access to specialists who are pre-eminent in their respective fields.
NORTH AMERICA
Co-head of Tall Buildings Group Hamid Adib Vice President Building Engineering Hamid.Adib@aecom.com Rob Blackman Executive Vice President Construction Services Rob.Blackman@aecom.com Jamie Matus Vice President Engineering Jamie.Matus@aecom.com Tony Kiefer Principal Engineering Tony.Kiefer@aecom.com

Architecture We look to shape a tall building not only as an icon, but as an efficient and costeffective response to programming needs and commercial imperatives. Building Engineering We maximize the operational efficiency, environmental performance and occupant comfort of the building. Construction Services Tishman Construction, an AECOM company, has a long and impressive track record of managing and delivering projects of the highest complexity and visibility. Design + Planning We enhance a tall building by creating public amenities that connects it with the surrounding urban fabric. Program, Cost, Consultancy Davis Langdon, an AECOM company, enjoys a strong legacy of being a world leader in high-rise cost and project management, a position which has been strengthened by its merger with AECOM.

EUROPE
Co-head of Tall Buildings Group Steve Watts Head of Tall Buildings Steve.Watts@davislangdon.com Tony Wall Directof of Construction Tony.Wall@aecom.com Rachel Coleman Tall Buildings Researcher Rachel.Coleman@davislangdon.com Brian Smith Director Commercial Brian.Smith@davislangdon.com James Barton Director Residential James.Barton@davislangdon.com Simon Lay Director Building Engineering, Fire and Life Safety Simon.Lay@aecom.com

ASIA
David Lee Executive Vice President Building Engineering David.Lee@aecom.com Hongyu Li Regional managing director Building Engineering Hongyu.Li@aecom.com

MIDDLE EAST
Neil Taylor Director Middle East Neil.Taylor@davislangdon.com Mark Fletcher COO Construction Services Mark.Fletcher@aecom.com

AUSTRALIA / NEW ZEALAND

Marc Colella Technical Director Structures Marc.Colella@aecom.com Lester Partridge Applied Research and Sustainable Buildings Director Building Engineering Lester.Partridge@aecom.com

Our people are knowledge leaders in the fundamental aspects of tall building design and development that define the success of the typology, as well as being active in their geographical markets and sectors. The old adage of global reach, local delivery remains important to this. We are able to harvest the knowledge and experience of the global group to optimize the scheme at the early stages of the project using our local office to guide local expertise.

London Focus Group We have set up a hit-squad based in London but with a global remit that is able to integrate at any stage of design (or even before a concept is developed) to set, or reset, a project on the right track. This is a small, flexible but expert group that includes leaders in the fields of structural and services engineering, fire and life safety engineering, construction, safety, economics as well as office and residential specialists.

Experience
We are privileged to have worked on over 500 towers across the globe, in a variety of capabilities, from the specific and expert input of our geotechnical specialists to the project and cost management from inception to completion.
This unrivalled resume gives us the ability to help the team do the right thing, and avoid the wrong things. It also gives us the confidence to challenge team, ensure options are quickly and properly explored, but also be open to challenges ourselves. Building tall and super tall Our experience spans all shapes and sizes of projects each with its own cost and value drivers. The challenge of building tall is to satisfy the key cost drivers but also recognize the role of value in a development. This is very much a subjective concept and what works in one area may not add value in another market. We have experts throughout commercial property as we recognize that tall buildings can also vary in use and we are seeing the rise of the mixeduse tower and we need to understand the demands of the occupiers as well as the typology.

01 122 Leadenhall Street, London, U.K. A dramatic tower at the heart of the City of London on which we have been involved since 2000, helping to optimize its costeffectiveness and efficiencies and leading the procurement process. 02 CITIC Plaza, Guangzhou, China The 80-storey, 391-meter building has 598 rooms and 36 elevators. The office building is part of the CITIC complex which also includes two 142-meter, 38-storey apartment buildings and a four-storey shopping mall. 03 Heron Tower, London, U.K. The first of the next generation of tall buildings in the City of London to go through the planning process, Heron Tower has recently won Commercial Workplace of the Year. 04 Abu Dhabi Investment Council New HQ, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. 25-storey twin office towers with highly engineered facades that incorporate mechanically moveable mashrabiya. 05 Riverside City Complex, Shenzhen, China Two rotated towers reaching 330 meters tall, on a 30,000-square-meter site give 300,000 square meters of space for office, hotel, retail and residential area. The rotation allows for maximum views of the nearby riverfront. 06 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 31 storeys with an area of 98,000 square meters this office tower is anticipated to achieve a LEED rating of Gold through the use of cladding adjustments to reduce solar gain. The design was optimized with the help of our extensive benchmarking. 07 The Crescent Complex, Baku, Azerbaijan A group of five striking high-rise residential and commercial buildings grouped around a podium and a 260 unit iconic 5-star hotel.

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Knowledge and innovation

The aim of the tall buildings group is to develop our experience and knowledge and to continue to be recognized as the world leader in high-rise and super high-rise buildings.
Many of the challenges faced in the development and construction of a tall or super tall building, such as finding innovative responses to sustainability, optimization of floor plates, the cost and value implications of alternative methodologies, or the value in going taller, are the subjects of our research for clients, industry bodies and external publications. It is the development and application of this vast body of knowledge that allows us to improve our contributions to projects. International procurement The global reach of AECOM and the huge range of projects that we have delivered, generate knowledge of markets, suppliers, contractors and collaborators that is second to none. And the development of innovative applications of this knowledge base sets us apart from our competitors in terms of supply chain management and analysis of procurement risks/opportunities.

Liquid tuned dampers Advancements in material, structural Our core values integrity, innovation systems and construction techniques and collaboration are unparalleled. have allowed lighter and more slender buildings to be built. However, this Innovation evolution leads to tall buildings being Delivering value in each project requires increasingly prone to potential motion that our collective knowledge is put problems. Liquid Tuned Dampers (LTD) to use in discovering and developing can enhance vibration resistance leading-edge tools that create true in wind dominated areas and can value innovation for our clients. be considered a better choice in perspective of implementation and The following are brief descriptions maintenance due to the comparatively of some projects that are pushing the simple system of LTDs compared to boundaries of professional practice, Tuned Mass Dampers. and helping us to deliver best value outcomes in tall building projects. Cocoon Safety System Just as cocoons offer protection in Tall office of the future nature, they can do the same in the This study focused on creating a new construction environment. AECOMs type of office tower one that is construction services team developed cost-effective and truly sustainable multi-level, vertical netting that wraps while maintaining architectural around buildings under construction, integrity. Sustainability needs to keeping materials, tools and workers be environmentally, socially and from falling off the structure. This economically sympathetic, therefore, safety innovation has prevented work the key focus of the study was on stoppages due to worker injuries or people, planet, and profit. While its objects falling from the structure. The focus is on London, it does include a cocoon rises as the structure is built, comparison with other global cities and and has successfully been used on its findings can be applied in any global several high-rise building projects, location. including the 34-storey InterContinental New York Times Square hotel and the 104-storey One World Trade Center office tower in New York set to be the tallest building in the United States upon completion.

Benchmarking Our knowledge is not only leading edge, but detailed and project focused. Collected by the tall buildings group, the intelligence derived by our specialist research division, allows benchmarking of cost design criteria, as well as key lessons learned in all aspects of tower development. Early collaboration with the client and design team enables us to help optimize the concept in the very early stages, when our influence can have a dramatic effect on values and costs.

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IFC, Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai, China The recently completed International Finance Center project in Shanghai is a comprehensive development comprising of offices, serviced apartments, hotels and retail space. A total of over 400,000square meters of floor area is provided on floor plates of approximately 2,600square meters. With three tower structures, the tallest measuring 260meters it is a new international landmark. AECOM provided a full design service on the project through concept and preliminary design to construction administration and supervision.

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Credibility
Innovation is a core value at AECOM, and the initiatives outlined here not only provide a better service to our clients, but are testament to our commitment to set new standards for the industry.
Our credibility is reinforced by our membership and contributions to the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). Members of our group hold various positions within the Council: Recognition Not all tall buildings are iconic or innovative, but we are proud to have so many award-winning projects on our experience list. For example: 7 World Trade Center, New York, was the first office building in New York City to achieve LEED Gold certification and was the recipient of the Grand Prize for New Construction Project Innovations Award from Buildings magazine and the Best Office Project Award of Merit from New York Construction magazine. Heron Tower, London, was not only the first of the new generation of tall buildings to enter into the City of London, but also won an award for the 2012 Commercial Workplace of the Year. Alongside project specific awards, our people are recognized within the industry. Engineering News-Record ranking AECOM as the number one design firm in the world and has been named One of the worlds most ethical companies two years running.

The Grand Lisboa, Macau, was Steve Watts is a member of the Board recognized at the 2009 Structural of Trustees, U.K. Country Leader Excellence Awards Competition in and Chairman of its Finance and Hong Kong and the project paper was Economics Working Group. published in the Proceedings of the Tony Kiefer Co-chair of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 2010. Foundations Working Group. Simon Lay Member of the Advisory QIPCO Tornado Tower in Qatar, Board and the Fire and Life Safety for which we provided program Working Group. management services, won Best Tall Lester Partridge Chair of Tower in the Middle East in 2009. the Research, Academic and Postgraduate Working Group. Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Rachel Coleman Member Park, New York, is the first skyscraper of the Research Academic and in the United States to gain a LEED Postgraduate Working Group. Platinum rating. It was also the A number of other members hold recipient of the Best Tall Building significant roles in the CTBUH and Americas Award from the CTBUH other organizations. as well as the Grand Prize for Green Facilities Project Innovations Award We have a long history of attendance from Buildings magazine. at conference events and are regular contributors to the CTBUH both in print and as speakers.
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01 Eureka Tower, Melbourne, Australia Standing at 300 meters tall the iconic Melbourne building has 92 storeys of luxury and elegance combined with the latest in technology and eco-friendly design. Eureka Tower isoneof thetallest residential towers in the world and the tallest building in Melbourne. 02 Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, New York City, U.S.A. This 55-storey, 195,096-square-meter office tower in midtown Manhattan is the first LEED Platinum skyscraper in the U.S., rising to 365 meters. Collaborating with the owners, architects and engineers, Tishman utilized innovative products, systems and enhancements to push the envelope in sustainable design and construction further than any building previously built in America.

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Sustainability
We drive the value in every aspect both for developer and occupants sustainability is a vital part of this process.
The world is changing and our buildings must be developed in response. As of 2010, 50 percent of the worlds population lived in urban areas and this is set to rise to 60 percent by 2030. The building sector has an oversized carbon footprint, as it is the single largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions and is responsible for a third of global energy usage. Through careful design specifications and the right knowledge, we can improve our building stock and make our urban areas fit for the future. Engaging with sustainability experts from the early stages can allow for the sustainable agenda to align with the key cost and value drivers and ensure a complete view of sustainability is built into all aspects of the design and construction, avoiding the need for a delayed retrofit. The environmental efficiencies of a building and its longevity are under more scrutiny than ever before and this is a trend that will continue. A building (especially a tall one) can no longer been seen as a standalone element but it is now well recognized that it is part of an urban system. This is particularly true of tall buildings. Our sustainability teams have experience on a large number of tall buildings such as the Leadenhall Building for British Land where we carried out an embodied carbon assessment and the Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, which is the first LEED Platinum skyscraper in the world. Historically, the Commerzbank building in Frankfurt, which is regarded as the first ecological office tower; we managed this project with close attention from both London and on-site.

03 HSBC HQ, London, U.K. A highly successful 43-storey development of a new headquarters for HSBC bank. It was developed on time, on budget and enabled the relocation of 8,500 employees into a costeffective yet state-of-the-art building. 04 Four Times Square, New York City, U.S.A. Designed and built before LEED standards existed, Four Times Square is renowned for being the U.S.A.s first green skyscraper and marks the beginning of the revitalization of Times Square in the heart of Manhattan. The tower comprises 167,225 square meters and stands 341 meters high. In addition to a full array of construction management services, Tishman provided valuable input throughout the design and engineering process. 05 QIPCO Tower, Doha A prestigious project in the Gulf that has been named by the CTBUH the best tall building in the Middle East. The tower includes several innovative design features that required special consideration and a close relationship throughout the team 06 Park Huaming, Moscow, Russia This new build development will amount to 200,000 square meters of mixed use space with two high-rise towers of 32 and 45-storeys. Due to its scale and striking design, it is expected to become a landmark building in Moscow.

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Our fundamental approach to tall building projects is to ensure that the keys to success are ingrained in every member of the team. An important part of this is the understanding of high-rise cost drivers at the outset.
Having crucial cost and industry advice on hand at the outset of a project means that critical decisions can be made at a very early stage, avoiding the increased costs associated with making changes later in the design and construction processes. Understanding the ways that height affects cost drivers, and their inter-relationships, lead to more effective design planning.

The shape of a tall building determines its cost effectiveness, and value efficiency at least as much as (and usually more so) than its height. The key efficiency ratios in the cost and value of a tower, wall:floor, and net:gross, are both directly affected by geometry. This means that a 70-storey tower may cost less per square meter than a 30-storey building. Shape is critical in cost terms, not least because it has a significant influence on the two key elements, structure and faades (and their effect on time as well as cost).

There is an intense and sometimes political relationship between high-rise aesthetics and performance, which is no more evident than in their faades. The form and envelope of a tower create its identity, and its external walls play a critical role in its passage through the town planning process. But they also have to satisfy a number of performance criteria, all of which exist in a certain tension. Our faades team is lead by Steve Mudie, based in London and First Vice President Jim McDonnell, based in New York, and is able to advise on any global project. We have a unique mix of technical and commercial expertise in this respect.

Tall buildings need to overcome particular difficulties such as severe wind loads and increased dead loads. Design solutions must also take due consideration of the typically Grade-A nature of tall buildings and the requirement to create an iconic structure. A number of structural forms may need to be analyzed early in the design stage to establish whether a core, tube, outrigger, megabrace, bundled tube or a combination of these may be most appropriate, together with which materials are best.

Optimizing a design for efficiencies can shorten the construction program, easing the financing costs and reducing the risk of price rises during the construction phase. Greater savings can be made through phasing of works to allow phased opening (and thus earlier income streams), and to allow works that would normally be carried out sequentially to be carried out concurrently. Maximizing buildability requires the early planning and programming of the construction project, with detailed consideration of alternative methodologies. Importantly, this should be reinforced through on-going constructability reviews through Tishman which has in-house expertise across all these areas.

Shape

Faades

Structure

Schedule

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Grand Lisboa, Macau 54-floor, leaf-shaped hotel and an oval entertainment center. The Grand Lisboa occupies a site area of about 12,000 square meters with a Gross Floor Area of over square meters The complex design also satisfies the seismic design requirement of Macaus building code.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) and other virtual construction services are a critical part of executing tall and super tall buildings. Using these techniques means more efficiencies and accuracy in pre-construction planning and strategies, and equally important, during construction. In addition to innovative methods for coordination of structural and mechanical engineering, our project teams now take advantage of extracting information from the model to facilitate estimating, procurement, clash detection and field management. Furthermore, elements of a projects 3-D model are used to identify and avoid safety hazards. Through continuous syncing of information in cloud-based servers, the model is updated and available to all project team members in real time. This enhances our overall productivity, provides instant clarification and offers important cost savings in highrise construction.

Two key features of tall buildings tend to dictate the procurement strategy to be adopted: Firstly, the critical path for the construction of the whole project flows through a single structure, as opposed to two or more shorter buildings with the same total floor area. The resultant extended construction period pushes up not only the contractors preliminaries costs, but also the developers financing costs. Therefore, any solution which offers shorter construction times means an overall lower project cost. Secondly, the iterative nature of building one floor repeatedly on top of another gives huge opportunity for repetition of floor layouts and the incorporation of pre-fabricated construction techniques into the design. Ultimately, a procurement strategy which allows an early start on site, phased completion and occupation all helps to drive up value.

The property industry is becoming increasingly aware of the costs and benefits of building green. Knowledge in this area is advancing rapidly, and the higher visibility, status, and design quality of tower buildings means that they are often the forefront of research and implementation of sustainable strategies. The adoption of LEEDtype methods are helping to develop the efficiency of individual buildings as products, though there are many aspects of sustainability that are not included in these methods. Davis Langdons research in sustainability feeds directly into our advice to clients, and is used to direct industry organizations and government legislation. When we address sustainability, we are looking not just at the energy efficiency of buildings, but also their relationship to infrastructure and their longterm financial viability.

One of the key considerations in the design of a vertical transportation system in tall buildings is to reach the optimum balance between the quality and quantity of lift service provided (usually expressed in terms of waiting times) against the capital cost of the lifts themselves and the loss of revenue-earning, tenantable space taken up by the provision of lift cores and plant rooms. This becomes even more critical as buildings become taller than 5060 storeys.

Procurement strategy

Environmental strategy

Vertical transportation

Building Information Modelling (BIM)

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Why us?
We are leaders in tall and super tall buildings with unrivalled experience. We are able to view a scheme from all angles and create the right environment for a successful project.
We have a history of working on tall buildings ranging from the 104-storey One World Trade Center in New York, to The Shard at London Bridge, Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi, Commerzbank in Frankfurt and Emerald Towers in Kazakhstan. Our knowledge of tall building development has been developed throughout our history so it is all firsthand knowledge that has been cultivated through project work and research. We recognize the need to have specialists in the field and as such have a concentrated group of individuals who focus on tall developments and employ a pool of dedicated researchers. We build strong relationships with clients, designers and other professionals on the team who are critical to the delivery of a tower.

01 Financial Harbour, Bahrain At 53-storeys the towers in the new waterfront development create a dramatic centerpiece for the new financial city. The towers contain optimally designed, worldclass workspaces offering views out over the Arabian gulf. 02 Central Bank of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan The world class building incorporates sustainable energy concepts for heating and cooling in two towers of 32 and 28-storeys, linked by a glass atrium. 03 Caprice Gold Hotel, Istanbul, Turkey New build luxury hotel consisting of approximately 1,200 keys, five separate spas with a total of 35indoor and outdoor pools, conferencing / banqueting and mosque. A total floor area of 124,000square meters, is spread over 9 basements and 17 above ground floors. 04 John Hancock Center, Chicago, U.S.A. When this 100-storey tower was completed, it proudly stood as the worlds tallest building outside of New York City at 344 meters high. Tishman worked closely with the buildings architects and engineers to develop the structural system of diagonal steel bracing that crisscrosses the skyscrapers faade, providing significant cost savings. 05 World Financial Center, Shanghai, China 101 Storeys rising to a height of 492 meters with a total area of 381,000 square meters. The building houses retail, a media centre, offices, a hotel and a large observation gallery as well as a sky lobby half way up the tower. 06 Jin Mao Building, Shanghai, China 88 storeys, 421-meter tall with a gross floor area of 290,000 square meters, Jin Mao is a milestone in architectural history containing offices, restaurant and the worlds highest 5-star hotel. It currently stands as the second tallest building in Shanghai.

Above all, we ensure collaboration and teamwork in the project team.

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1 World Trade Center, New York, U.S.A. The rebuilding of this complex on 16 acres is one of the largest construction projects in the world today. Tishman is providing pre-construction and construction management services for Towers 1, 3, 4 and 7. One World Trade Center has already claimed its title as New York Citys tallest building and will rise to 1,776 feet (541 meters) to the top of its spire.

Image courtesy of Silverstein Properties

About AECOM AECOM is a global provider of professional technical and management support services to a broad range of markets, including transportation, facilities, environmental, energy, water and government. With approximately 45,000 employees around the world, AECOM is a leader in all of the key markets that it serves. AECOM provides a blend of global reach, local knowledge, innovation and technical excellence in delivering solutions that create, enhance and sustain the worlds built, natural and social environments. A Fortune 500 company, AECOM serves clients in more than 130 countries and has annual revenue in excess of $8.0 billion. More information on AECOM and its services can be found at www.aecom.com. More information on Davis Langdon and its services can be found at www.davislangdon.com.

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