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Skyscrapers: 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, we're coming to Salt Lake City, Utah and Phoenix,
0:03
Speaker 1: Arizona this fall. Yeah, October, we're going to be at
0:06
Speaker 1: Salt Lake Cities Grand Theater and then the next night
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Speaker 1: October will be in Phoenix. And we added a second
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Speaker 1: show to our Melbourne show, right, that's right, a second
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Speaker 1: earlier show in Melbourne. So you can get all the
0:19
Speaker 1: information for all of these shows at s y s
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Speaker 1: K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know
0:27
Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
0:36
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles stef you took
0:40
Speaker 1: Bryant almost forgot what I say first smooth the sandpaper,
0:45
Speaker 1: and then and there's Jerry right there. So this is
0:49
Speaker 1: the old stuff you should know. The triad, Yeah, but
0:54
Speaker 1: not that kind. What kind you know, like sexual? I
1:00
Speaker 1: don't think they call us triads. Sure, that's that's normally
1:05
Speaker 1: like a tryad's like three mafia families getting together something
1:09
Speaker 1: like that and having sex. Right, No, I think uh,
1:13
Speaker 1: I think a triad very much can can apply to
1:16
Speaker 1: a three person couple, romantic couple. I'm sure we will
1:20
Speaker 1: hear about that. Yeah, well, well you have. I think
1:22
Speaker 1: that's where I learned it. Oh, I got you. We
1:24
Speaker 1: should also speaking of sex, we should also give a
1:27
Speaker 1: bit of a mia culpa. We use the word prostitute
1:30
Speaker 1: and a couple of recent episodes, I think collar bombs
1:33
Speaker 1: and drug courts and that is not the okay word
1:37
Speaker 1: these days. The words you use as sex worker. And
1:41
Speaker 1: I knew that, and I feel bad for saying it.
1:44
Speaker 1: I do too, so sorry. It's all the sex workers.
1:47
Speaker 1: And we've had sex workers right in before with stories
1:51
Speaker 1: and saying, you know, you should do a podcast on
1:53
Speaker 1: this because it's not always what you think, right, And
1:57
Speaker 1: we will someday. First we're gonna do skyscrapers. Yeah, and
2:03
Speaker 1: I gotta say, man, this is um. I prefaced the
2:06
Speaker 1: tsunami episode with like core stuff, you should know type stuff.
2:10
Speaker 1: I think this one falls in there, and I kept
2:15
Speaker 1: maybe it's the little kid in me, with like erector
2:17
Speaker 1: sets and lego and stuff like that. But I kept thinking, man,
2:23
Speaker 1: skyscrapers are so incredibly simplistic. It's so beautiful, and I
2:29
Speaker 1: think some beauty and simplicity is something that really gets me.
2:34
Speaker 1: You love Acam's razor, yeah, you love it, But the skyscrapers.
2:39
Speaker 1: When I was just reading about how these things are
2:41
Speaker 1: constructed and all. I'm just like, it's like a little
2:43
Speaker 1: kid designed it. Yeah. I actually looked around him, like,
2:46
Speaker 1: am I missing a section or two on this article?
2:49
Speaker 1: But it's they're pretty straightforward. Actually, yeah, it's They're all
2:53
Speaker 1: just giant penises in the sky, no doubt. Man. Some
2:57
Speaker 1: of them don't even try to hide it. They've got
2:59
Speaker 1: like dages and stuff and a man's name at the top. Yeah,
3:03
Speaker 1: it's crazy. It's like, uh yeah, I I in researching this,
3:08
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, I get it. Skyscrapers are
3:11
Speaker 1: the jerks of the buildings community. Yeah, well except maybe
3:18
Speaker 1: not because they're super efficient at holding people. And sure, sure, okay,
3:22
Speaker 1: So that's well put man. I'm glad you said that,
3:25
Speaker 1: because it's a there's a bit of a dichotomy going
3:27
Speaker 1: on here. You got the good, you got the bad.
3:31
Speaker 1: You gotta put them both together, and there you have skyscrapers.
3:36
Speaker 1: All right. So this article in House of Work starts
3:40
Speaker 1: out very appropriately and talking about the quest for height,
3:44
Speaker 1: and this has been going on since ancient times, whether
3:48
Speaker 1: it's a church, cathedral or a Tower of Babel, which
3:53
Speaker 1: I looked into that little bit because I was trying
3:55
Speaker 1: to see how metaphoric that was that Nimrods. Didn't he
3:59
Speaker 1: build at you know that Nimrod and think so I
4:03
Speaker 1: don't remember, but go ahead, sorry, well, uh forget the
4:08
Speaker 1: Tower of Babel. Just ancient buildings, like from the Pyramids
4:12
Speaker 1: to the cathedrals. Everyone has always wanted to build things
4:15
Speaker 1: tall because it's a striking thing and it probably has
4:20
Speaker 1: a lot to do with the ego of the man
4:22
Speaker 1: who wanted his name either on it or behind it. Yeah,
4:27
Speaker 1: especially if you're part of a civilization that believes in
4:30
Speaker 1: God and you tend to think that God is in
4:33
Speaker 1: the sky. It's a bit saying like, hey, look at
4:37
Speaker 1: look at how close I am here. This building is
4:39
Speaker 1: in my name, Look at me, Look upon me and
4:43
Speaker 1: my building. It's a giant Pallas. Yeah, to the point
4:47
Speaker 1: where there are literal competitions and like I'm gonna add
4:52
Speaker 1: one extra story or build the little antenna five ft
4:55
Speaker 1: higher just to have that claim. You know, there's something
4:59
Speaker 1: very similar in the roller coaster world, which I think
5:01
Speaker 1: we talked about. But at least it's a roller coaster,
5:04
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. It's not just a building.
5:06
Speaker 1: This is like I'm going to build the taller roller
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Speaker 1: coaster than you and the people who ARRIVEE me, you're
5:11
Speaker 1: going to be seven percent more scared than your riders.
5:14
Speaker 1: That's that's doing something, if you ask me, you know.
5:18
Speaker 1: But yeah, so there is a there's there's a definite
5:22
Speaker 1: um benefit to building up and early on, yes, it
5:26
Speaker 1: was just basically to glorify a king or a god
5:30
Speaker 1: or something like that. Right. But over time, as people
5:34
Speaker 1: um started settling together in city centers, uh and wanting
5:39
Speaker 1: to be close to the city center, there was a
5:42
Speaker 1: good reason to start building upward. Is that space outward
5:47
Speaker 1: was either at a premium or people didn't want it.
5:49
Speaker 1: They wanted to be in one specific spot. So the
5:52
Speaker 1: the only option you have aside from outward is either
5:55
Speaker 1: upward or downward. We haven't gotten a subterranean buildings yet,
5:59
Speaker 1: I hope to God would never do. So we started
6:02
Speaker 1: building upward. And that's where skyscrapers first came up came from.
6:07
Speaker 1: And um they came about I think in the late
6:10
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, the eighteen eighties, and I believe the first
6:13
Speaker 1: one was the Home Life building in Chicago ten whopping stories. Yeah,
6:19
Speaker 1: that was a skyscraper back then, and I tried to
6:22
Speaker 1: found the first person who said that, but I couldn't. Um,
6:25
Speaker 1: I found something on it. Oh well, I heard Chicago
6:28
Speaker 1: is where it originated the term. Yeah, yes, as far
6:33
Speaker 1: as buildings go, but it's been in use for a
6:35
Speaker 1: long time before that to describe anything tall, including people.
6:41
Speaker 1: What So, like a very tall woman, you could be
6:43
Speaker 1: like that, gal's a real skyscraper, ain't for real? Fresh
6:51
Speaker 1: It's right, that's exactly how that go down. But yeah,
6:55
Speaker 1: you could use it for like a tall sale on
6:56
Speaker 1: a boat. I've heard that tall horse. Anything tall would
7:01
Speaker 1: be called the skyscraper. So it was just inevitable people
7:04
Speaker 1: are going to start referring to tall buildings as skyscrapers.
7:07
Speaker 1: All right, Well there you have it. So what you're
7:11
Speaker 1: doing with the skyscrapers literally fighting gravity? Um? And you
7:16
Speaker 1: know we mentioned pyramids. When you think about uh like
7:19
Speaker 1: a cheerleader pyramid, how they how they reference it in
7:21
Speaker 1: the article. You need the higher you go, you need
7:24
Speaker 1: more uh support underneath, And so with the pyramid you
7:29
Speaker 1: just go wider. And in theory, you could build something
7:33
Speaker 1: as tall as you want as long as you kept
7:35
Speaker 1: going wider and wider with its foundation to support it.
7:39
Speaker 1: But like you said, you can't do that because people
7:42
Speaker 1: live near one another and these are in city centers.
7:45
Speaker 1: So they had to come up with some you know,
7:47
Speaker 1: with with the eighteen hundreds skyscrapers that were brick and mortar,
7:51
Speaker 1: you could only go so high before it just wasn't
7:55
Speaker 1: possible anymore. They'd just be simply too much weight on
7:58
Speaker 1: that foundation. So it took advancement, and a very specific
8:02
Speaker 1: advancement iron and steel, uh, in order to build these
8:08
Speaker 1: things taller, right, and and so look, one of the
8:11
Speaker 1: other problems with brick and mortar is that and not
8:14
Speaker 1: just supporting the weight. You could add more brick and
8:17
Speaker 1: more mortar, but either you're going to start spreading further
8:21
Speaker 1: and further out and create a bigger and bigger footprint
8:23
Speaker 1: for your building and start running up against your neighbors,
8:26
Speaker 1: or you're using up more and more of the space
8:29
Speaker 1: and the lower floors, so you have like maybe like
8:32
Speaker 1: a little chamber corridor that you can make it through
8:37
Speaker 1: and then that's it for your lower floors. So it
8:39
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. But with the advent of iron
8:42
Speaker 1: and steel, you suddenly had relatively um lighter, stronger, and
8:49
Speaker 1: thinner basically building materials to work with, so you could
8:54
Speaker 1: go way taller and use up way less of a
8:58
Speaker 1: footprint on the ground. Yeah. And you know, it started
9:01
Speaker 1: with iron, so you could get these super long, sturdy,
9:04
Speaker 1: solid beams. Uh. And then of course steel was even
9:07
Speaker 1: lighter and stronger than iron. Actually came from iron or
9:11
Speaker 1: comes from iron. Yeah, it's like super pure iron. Yeah,
9:15
Speaker 1: and that the deal. I looked up that Bessemer process
9:17
Speaker 1: a little bit, and then it glazed over a bit.
9:20
Speaker 1: They mentioned the Bessemer process, but it was really something
9:23
Speaker 1: called the open hearth process from sixty five that really
9:26
Speaker 1: like brought steel into mass production. Is that just literally
9:30
Speaker 1: removing impurities from iron is how you get steel. From
9:33
Speaker 1: what I understand, it's super pure iron um. And I
9:37
Speaker 1: mean steel has been around for since I think the
9:40
Speaker 1: thirteenth century BC, so thousands of years we've been using steel.
9:45
Speaker 1: But for the most part it's just been like some
9:48
Speaker 1: some artists in blacksmith who like works with one small
9:51
Speaker 1: piece at a time, and the steel that they were
9:54
Speaker 1: making was not very good. It was pretty brittle, and
9:57
Speaker 1: it was stronger than like you know, your average rock
9:59
Speaker 1: or some thing like that, but you couldn't make a
10:01
Speaker 1: building out of it. Then once they figured out that
10:04
Speaker 1: Bessemer process and then the open hearth process where they
10:07
Speaker 1: purified iron and could make large amounts of it at once.
10:11
Speaker 1: Now you suddenly have the kind of climate that skyscrapers
10:15
Speaker 1: couldn't be built in. Yeah, you know, the old saying
10:17
Speaker 1: was you can't make a building from a long sword.
10:20
Speaker 1: Now you can't or is it a broadsword either one?
10:23
Speaker 1: It depends on what country you're in. Okay, alright, so
10:28
Speaker 1: let's talk about my favorite part of this whole thing,
10:30
Speaker 1: which is the skeleton and the superstructure. It's just so
10:35
Speaker 1: beautifully simplistic. Again, the steel skeleton is the support structure
10:40
Speaker 1: of a skyscraper. And these are literally just vertical columns
10:46
Speaker 1: made up of metal beams that are riveted together end
10:50
Speaker 1: to end right in a big giant box. And then
10:54
Speaker 1: at every floor, first floor, a second floor, third floor,
10:57
Speaker 1: I'll keep going. You're gonna have obviously horizontal girders and
11:04
Speaker 1: those are just I was gonna say strapped. That wouldn't
11:08
Speaker 1: be very safe there. Those are just riveted. A good
11:11
Speaker 1: ratchet strap will do it right. Strapped with like a
11:14
Speaker 1: bit of leather, that's it. That's what holds them together.
11:18
Speaker 1: Those are riveted to the columns and that's it on top. Right,
11:24
Speaker 1: So yeah, you've got we've got vertical columns going up,
11:28
Speaker 1: you have girders going horizontally, and then you'll have like
11:31
Speaker 1: diagonal supports that stabilize the girders. Right, came along a
11:36
Speaker 1: little later, right. But all of these things put together,
11:39
Speaker 1: it forms like like what it's called the skeleton, the
11:42
Speaker 1: structure of the building, and it holds up everything because
11:45
Speaker 1: everything is connected to those vertical columns, right, which is
11:51
Speaker 1: pretty great, but it creates an issue in that all
11:55
Speaker 1: the weight is getting transferred straight down through those vertical columns. Yeah,
12:00
Speaker 1: that's what it does. So like all the horizontal weight,
12:03
Speaker 1: like from the floors, from like the desks you put
12:05
Speaker 1: in there, from the dry wall, from everything, it all
12:08
Speaker 1: gets transferred to those vertical columns, which means that you
12:11
Speaker 1: better have some number one sturdy vertical columns. But you
12:14
Speaker 1: can't just build this thing on the sidewalk. You've got
12:18
Speaker 1: to You've got to you've got to mount them pretty
12:20
Speaker 1: well to the to the earth. And the way you
12:22
Speaker 1: do that is there's a sub layer of clay that
12:26
Speaker 1: you want to dig down to. Depending on how heavy
12:28
Speaker 1: your building is if it's really heavy, you want to
12:31
Speaker 1: dig down to the bedrock, which is the actual crust
12:34
Speaker 1: of the earth. The rest is, you know, just debris
12:36
Speaker 1: and detritus. Yeah. This, this substructure, I think is the
12:39
Speaker 1: kind of the coolest thing. I agree. So you remember
12:42
Speaker 1: we were talking about how, um, if you build with
12:45
Speaker 1: brick and mortar, the taller you build, the thicker the
12:48
Speaker 1: walls have to be to where you have like basically
12:50
Speaker 1: no room left in the lower levels. They figured out
12:53
Speaker 1: how to take that and put it underground and then
12:56
Speaker 1: build a superstructure on top of it. And that's they did. Yeah.
13:01
Speaker 1: So each little vertical column, and to make it simple,
13:03
Speaker 1: let's just think of four corners of a building. Um
13:06
Speaker 1: though the structure is much more complicated than that with
13:09
Speaker 1: huge buildings obviously, But each one of those vertical columns
13:12
Speaker 1: sits on a spread footing, which is basically and if
13:15
Speaker 1: you look at the picture on the website article or
13:18
Speaker 1: just google it, it's really again beautifully simplistic. It sits
13:22
Speaker 1: on a big square cast iron plate, and then that
13:25
Speaker 1: sits on what's called grillage, which are just stacks of
13:30
Speaker 1: horizontal steel beams and they're just lined up and then
13:33
Speaker 1: it's almost like a jinga tower. You'll you'll line them
13:36
Speaker 1: up going one way, and then the next layer will
13:38
Speaker 1: be lined up going the other way. And they've done
13:41
Speaker 1: little math to figure out how many they need. And
13:44
Speaker 1: that grillage sits on concrete, this big concrete pad. It's
13:49
Speaker 1: on that clay or the bedrock, and then all of
13:52
Speaker 1: that stuff is buried in concrete, very good measure, just
13:56
Speaker 1: for good measures, and then they coat that. And Butter Scott,
14:01
Speaker 1: I know that that's not getting good. So you've, like
14:04
Speaker 1: you said, you just got this this pyramid essentially underground
14:08
Speaker 1: supporting each column. The toughest pyramid anyone has ever made
14:13
Speaker 1: in the history of humanity is one of these these
14:15
Speaker 1: um spread footings. Tougher than the one from Bringing On
14:18
Speaker 1: the movie. Yes, tougher than that one. This is a
14:21
Speaker 1: good movie, by the way, that's what I've heard. Um.
14:24
Speaker 1: But that's just under one vertical column. And again, if
14:28
Speaker 1: you have just a simple four column structure, you've got
14:31
Speaker 1: four of those taking the weight and distributing the force
14:35
Speaker 1: of gravity pressing down on every square centimeter of this building.
14:40
Speaker 1: It's it's going down to the spread footing and just
14:42
Speaker 1: being distributed back into the earth, saying there you go, fellas,
14:46
Speaker 1: go on your very way and leave this building. Be
14:49
Speaker 1: that's right. I will take your load and spread it thin.
14:53
Speaker 1: And before we take a break, we should mention that
14:55
Speaker 1: all of this means this, this skeletal structure mean is
15:00
Speaker 1: that your outer walls, which are the curtain walls, um,
15:03
Speaker 1: they can be wide open. And so that's why you
15:06
Speaker 1: see floor to ceiling glass and a lot to most
15:10
Speaker 1: of these. Yeah, you don't need it to support anything, no,
15:15
Speaker 1: just itself. That's the only thing it has to support.
15:17
Speaker 1: So that was like a huge revolution in in construction.
15:20
Speaker 1: The idea that you could build with this new material,
15:24
Speaker 1: well not new but newly refined material, newly available material
15:28
Speaker 1: that could support huge tall building and that you could
15:31
Speaker 1: just put an outside wall onto. Well, then now you
15:34
Speaker 1: can do whatever you want with these things. It really
15:37
Speaker 1: kind of open things up and there was a huge
15:39
Speaker 1: change in construction design and skyscrapers pretty quickly after they
15:44
Speaker 1: were introduced. You want to take a break before we
15:47
Speaker 1: talk about that, Yeah, because the functionality of this, which
15:50
Speaker 1: comes next is uh, probably my second favorite thing. Oh boy,
16:17
Speaker 1: All right, Chuck. So we're talking functionality, which, as you said,
16:22
Speaker 1: is your second favorite thing about skyscrapers, right, Well, yeah,
16:25
Speaker 1: because you think of an architect thinking, man, let's just
16:29
Speaker 1: build this tall thing. But there's there's a function of
16:32
Speaker 1: the building beyond let's make it look cool or impressive,
16:36
Speaker 1: which is people live and work and run business out
16:40
Speaker 1: of these things. Hey, by the way, I'm sorry man,
16:43
Speaker 1: this is so it doesn't even qualifies a tangents so
16:46
Speaker 1: off base, but you just said architect. One of our
16:49
Speaker 1: architect friends, Adam Puffin and his wife Serena, welcome their
16:53
Speaker 1: second son recently. Oh great, So congratulations you guys. And
16:57
Speaker 1: I also while I'm at it, I want to give
17:00
Speaker 1: out out to my friends Laurel and Branden for their
17:04
Speaker 1: second son as well. So everybody's having second sons these days.
17:08
Speaker 1: In congratulations to all of you guys. That's great. You
17:10
Speaker 1: know Adam, Um, I'm actually building my house up and
17:14
Speaker 1: putting on a second story. And sent some plans to
17:18
Speaker 1: Adam that didn't quite look right. Said, hey, man, you
17:21
Speaker 1: know you told me in New York to hit you
17:23
Speaker 1: up for a little free consult And he said, here's
17:26
Speaker 1: what's wrong. And he went and just sent me back
17:29
Speaker 1: a little advice sketch. Oh that was very cool, and
17:33
Speaker 1: I was like, he kind of solved it. He's like,
17:35
Speaker 1: it was fine. They just head it upside down. Now
17:39
Speaker 1: it's fixed, gonna be weird looking. Yeah, that was nice
17:41
Speaker 1: of him. Did you send him like a muffin basket
17:43
Speaker 1: or something. I didn't, but maybe I'll send him like
17:45
Speaker 1: some baby booties. Now, Oh, there you go, because made
17:48
Speaker 1: of muffets, baby booties. All right, So these things have
17:54
Speaker 1: to be functional because people work in them. Big business
17:57
Speaker 1: runs out of these things. Important things happen, and much
18:01
Speaker 1: like when we were designing our second floor, it's not
18:05
Speaker 1: as easy as just boom, there's a second story. When
18:09
Speaker 1: we were working with our local architect, he was like, well,
18:12
Speaker 1: you gotta get up there. And that's when it first
18:14
Speaker 1: hit me of the problem. What wait, what did he
18:17
Speaker 1: mean by that? You have to be able to access
18:19
Speaker 1: the second story. So that's when it really hit home
18:22
Speaker 1: the problem of stairs. And he was like, no one
18:26
Speaker 1: ever thinks about it. And he said that's usually the
18:28
Speaker 1: biggest issue when designing, like a second floor build on
18:32
Speaker 1: an existing home is that you've got to fit stair somewhere.
18:36
Speaker 1: In the case of skyscrapers, those stairs become elevators. Right,
18:41
Speaker 1: which you don't think about it at all. And yeah,
18:46
Speaker 1: it's you would not have skyscrapers if you didn't have elevators,
18:50
Speaker 1: and it just so happens that they coincided at about
18:52
Speaker 1: the same time. Yeah, I think in New York a
18:55
Speaker 1: department store in eightifty seven was the first passenger evader.
19:00
Speaker 1: It was an Otis brand elevator. That's great, was it really? Yeah? Yeah,
19:07
Speaker 1: I think built by Elijah Otis himself. I love that.
19:10
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's a him. I'd feel really terrible
19:13
Speaker 1: if that was, like, like the inventor of the elevator
19:15
Speaker 1: was a woman and I didn't know it. You know,
19:18
Speaker 1: I agree for shame. I guess the h makes it
19:21
Speaker 1: a him. If it was Eliza Otis, then it'd be
19:24
Speaker 1: a woman. But Elijah Otis is the man's version of
19:27
Speaker 1: that probably so okay, but we'll check on that. Uh
19:31
Speaker 1: and if we're wrong, then we will have re recorded
19:34
Speaker 1: that and you will never know. But this elevator is
19:38
Speaker 1: it points out this article is very plainly like it's
19:41
Speaker 1: a balancing act, like you need to get you can't
19:45
Speaker 1: have a lobby full of people standing in line for
19:47
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes because you don't have enough elevators, but then
19:50
Speaker 1: elevator chefts take up a lot of room in the building.
19:53
Speaker 1: So you've got to do the math and figure out
19:56
Speaker 1: the perfect little balance between how many people can we
20:00
Speaker 1: have in this office tower and how many elevators do
20:03
Speaker 1: we need to get them there in due time? Right?
20:05
Speaker 1: And so first of all, we talked about elevators in
20:08
Speaker 1: our elevators episode. Great episode if you remember correctly. Um,
20:13
Speaker 1: but when you add elevators, you're taking up valuable real estate, right, Like,
20:17
Speaker 1: that's just a place where you can't put in office
20:19
Speaker 1: because you've got an elevator shaft going there. So if
20:22
Speaker 1: you want to make your money back on the that
20:24
Speaker 1: real estate, you got to add more floors. But if
20:27
Speaker 1: you have more floors, you have more people. If you
20:30
Speaker 1: have more people, you need more elevators. So they're an
20:32
Speaker 1: architect to do, right. You just go home for the day.
20:36
Speaker 1: Elijah O just by the way, either a magnificently bearded
20:40
Speaker 1: woman or an actual man. Good okay, remedia update. Yeah,
20:48
Speaker 1: and look at the hair too. He's basically got my haircut,
20:51
Speaker 1: except it's a little wavier on the sides. Nice. So
20:55
Speaker 1: we couldn't have skyscrapers without elevators. Apparently, think five or
21:00
Speaker 1: six floors is about the max you would want to
21:02
Speaker 1: not have an elevator in. And this is all before
21:05
Speaker 1: the American with Disabilities Act, right, So just just from
21:10
Speaker 1: just logistically speaking, you couldn't go more than five or
21:13
Speaker 1: six floors, So we've got elevators. There's also another innovation
21:17
Speaker 1: that had to happen, and that was with um like
21:20
Speaker 1: fire sprinklers, which those came surprisingly late for a lot
21:25
Speaker 1: of commercial buildings, like there are a lot of hotel
21:27
Speaker 1: fires up until the early nineteen eighties that killed a
21:31
Speaker 1: lot of people before they finally mandated that you need
21:34
Speaker 1: sprinklers in these things because it's ridiculously dangerous to not
21:40
Speaker 1: have fire sprinklers. But with the advent inspired fire sprinklers,
21:43
Speaker 1: it made buildings a lot, a lot safer um and
21:48
Speaker 1: that was one thing that you want to have in
21:50
Speaker 1: a high rise or a skyscraper because it's really it
21:54
Speaker 1: takes a while to get downstairs during a fire, so
21:57
Speaker 1: you just want the fire to be put out so
21:59
Speaker 1: you can get back to work. Yeah, and then the
22:01
Speaker 1: final little piece of that puzzle of design is uh too,
22:06
Speaker 1: it should be a place people want to be in
22:08
Speaker 1: an office they want to work in within reason, so
22:12
Speaker 1: the comfort of the occupants is a big deal. Um,
22:15
Speaker 1: when they designed the Empire State Building, they wanted to
22:18
Speaker 1: make sure that no one would ever be more than
22:22
Speaker 1: fifty sorry, thirty feet away from a window, which is
22:25
Speaker 1: a nice a nice thing to do. It is because sunlight,
22:29
Speaker 1: everyone knows, reaches thirty two ft. So there you get.
22:33
Speaker 1: And did you uh did you see? Did you look
22:36
Speaker 1: up this commerce bunk in Germany? No? I didn't, I
22:41
Speaker 1: did not. It's really lovely. They have all these indoor
22:44
Speaker 1: gardens and it's just gorgeous. It's like a place that
22:48
Speaker 1: you look at and you think and you know it's
22:50
Speaker 1: not they're not silk plants. They're real trees and things.
22:54
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it is beautiful. I love that, Like, I
22:58
Speaker 1: just love that about buildings that have like indoor straight
23:02
Speaker 1: up like gardens. You know, there's, um, there's one I
23:07
Speaker 1: can't remember where it is, somewhere in Dunwoody that has
23:10
Speaker 1: like waterfalls and stuff like that and trees going in there.
23:14
Speaker 1: Like I always appreciated embassy suites because they usually I
23:17
Speaker 1: don't think they do anymore, but they used to have
23:19
Speaker 1: like whole like gardens and stuff in the in the
23:22
Speaker 1: lobby and everything. There's just something about a garden inside
23:26
Speaker 1: a house or a building that says like we own
23:30
Speaker 1: you nature, you know, wonderfully oppressive thing. Maybe that's what
23:36
Speaker 1: I appreciate about it. What's the one in Atlanta with
23:38
Speaker 1: the great interior atrium. I don't know, Oh, the Marriott Marquis. Yeah,
23:46
Speaker 1: the one with the elevators. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Marquis. Yeah.
23:49
Speaker 1: I mean it's still I can't remember. It is a
23:51
Speaker 1: pretty famous architect and designer who I think passed away
23:56
Speaker 1: within the last year or so. Yeah, and that's one
23:59
Speaker 1: of the great And there are a lot of good
24:01
Speaker 1: plants in there too, But that's one of the great
24:03
Speaker 1: sort of retro interior atriums that I've seen. Yeah, it's
24:07
Speaker 1: got that great like mod feel to it. Um. It's
24:12
Speaker 1: just it's a good, good building. I wonder who did it.
24:15
Speaker 1: I can't remember. Um. I remember though, being in when
24:18
Speaker 1: I was a I believe a senior in high school.
24:20
Speaker 1: That was where the party was on New Year's Eve
24:23
Speaker 1: and they, you know, somehow rented rooms to a bunch
24:26
Speaker 1: of seventeen year olds throughout the building. Yeah, that's dangerous
24:31
Speaker 1: and it was dangerous like for real, Like I remember,
24:35
Speaker 1: I remember hugging the only covered part was the very
24:38
Speaker 1: like you had to kind of hug the wall and
24:41
Speaker 1: you had a at a lip that you could walk under,
24:43
Speaker 1: and I remember walking under there and seeing televisions and
24:47
Speaker 1: potted plants like smashing on the on the floor from
24:52
Speaker 1: idiot children off the balconies. That is so dangerous. Oh
24:58
Speaker 1: my god. They changed. That was like the last year.
25:00
Speaker 1: They had a big policy shift after that. That's like
25:03
Speaker 1: the Lord of the Flies. It was, I mean, my
25:06
Speaker 1: friends and I we were I mean I didn't drink
25:08
Speaker 1: in high school, but all my friends were. But we
25:10
Speaker 1: were all like, man, we're getting out of here. This
25:12
Speaker 1: is bad news. So we were good kids. Good for you, buddy.
25:18
Speaker 1: By the way, it was John C. Portman Jr. Who
25:22
Speaker 1: was the architect. Nice work, all right, Chuck. Now we
25:26
Speaker 1: come to it might be my favorite, if not second
25:30
Speaker 1: favorite part, which is what wind does to a skyscraper
25:34
Speaker 1: take it away? So when does some crazy stuff to
25:37
Speaker 1: a skyscraper the end it blows on it. Yeah, actually
25:44
Speaker 1: it does crazy stuff. So like the when when when
25:47
Speaker 1: wind encounters a skyscraper, a skyscraper will sway. Okay, that's
25:53
Speaker 1: actually Okay, they have designed skyscrapers taking into account really
25:58
Speaker 1: heavy gusts of wind, and the building is almost certainly
26:03
Speaker 1: not going to fall down. There's actually this really great
26:06
Speaker 1: New Yorker story from the nineties about a it's called
26:11
Speaker 1: the fifty nine Story Crisis, and it's about the City
26:14
Speaker 1: Corps Center, which in eight opened and after it opened,
26:19
Speaker 1: basically the architect or the engineer realized he like didn't
26:23
Speaker 1: carry a one or something like that, and that the
26:26
Speaker 1: whole building was in danger of collapsing fully occupied now,
26:30
Speaker 1: and that there were there were hurricanes headed toward New
26:33
Speaker 1: York that had just the kind of wind that could
26:37
Speaker 1: knock this building down. So they did like this emergency
26:40
Speaker 1: retro like um like support structure addition, like they carved
26:47
Speaker 1: out the interior walls and just started working on it,
26:50
Speaker 1: and they managed to save the building for so the
26:55
Speaker 1: dampers different. This was like they added like basically extra rivets.
26:58
Speaker 1: He went cheap on the river, It's or something like that. Well,
27:01
Speaker 1: I did think it was funny. In the article it said,
27:03
Speaker 1: you know one thing you can do is just simply
27:05
Speaker 1: tighten up the rivets and things. Right, I'm like, when
27:08
Speaker 1: do you go? May I feel like it's tight enough. Well,
27:12
Speaker 1: so I think, right, more than perfectly tight. Right. I
27:17
Speaker 1: think they're saying, if you add more rivets and more places,
27:20
Speaker 1: it'll it'll make the building stronger, and and um, it won't.
27:26
Speaker 1: It won't um strain underneath the wind. The problem is
27:32
Speaker 1: is what you've just done is create like a very
27:34
Speaker 1: solid pole, and just with any kind of pole, when
27:38
Speaker 1: it sways, the end of it, like a fishing pole,
27:41
Speaker 1: is the part that bobbles the most. Right, same thing
27:44
Speaker 1: with the skyscraper. So the upper floors are really and
27:48
Speaker 1: they they're subject to sway from the wind. Again, they
27:52
Speaker 1: usually except for this city Corp thing, they usually account
27:57
Speaker 1: for this stuff and then something. But the problem is
28:00
Speaker 1: humans get really freaked out, and not just like psychologically,
28:05
Speaker 1: like on a primal level, get really freaked out when
28:08
Speaker 1: we're high up and we start moving and we're not
28:11
Speaker 1: we're not under it's not under our control. So like
28:16
Speaker 1: the building might be sound, but if word gets out
28:18
Speaker 1: from people that that it sways, people will think it's
28:22
Speaker 1: not sound, and so you'll never sell the upper floors,
28:26
Speaker 1: you'll never run out the upper floors, and maybe the
28:28
Speaker 1: whole building will be stayed away from because people will
28:30
Speaker 1: think it's going to collapse at any moment. So because
28:33
Speaker 1: of this rumor, mill engineers actually designed for the most
28:37
Speaker 1: sensitive people, um, who I think can sent something like
28:42
Speaker 1: fifteen milli ges. So a G is like a force
28:45
Speaker 1: of acceleration, which is actually what you're sensing when you're
28:49
Speaker 1: swaying somewhere, like in the top of a building. This
28:52
Speaker 1: is fifteen thousands of one G. Right when you're on
28:56
Speaker 1: a roller coaster, you're experiencing like three four five g's
29:00
Speaker 1: is fifteen thousands of one G. And that's what they
29:04
Speaker 1: designed for. Because beyond that, they found people will start
29:07
Speaker 1: complaining and then word might get out to the buildings unsound,
29:10
Speaker 1: like bring more in here. He's a real whimp. Yeah,
29:13
Speaker 1: exactly what do you think more? Oh right, Okay, tighten
29:17
Speaker 1: it up, everybody. But tight tightening it up only goes
29:21
Speaker 1: so far, right, Um, If the taller you get, tightening
29:25
Speaker 1: doesn't help. So you've got to add other stuff. They
29:27
Speaker 1: come up with some pretty ingenious stuff for that. Yeah,
29:30
Speaker 1: Like in the sort of I guess what I would
29:32
Speaker 1: call the Middle period, like empire state building period, they
29:35
Speaker 1: started just around that elevator shaft in the middle just
29:39
Speaker 1: trusting that up with more beams, diagonal beams, and then
29:43
Speaker 1: more recently they've just built these huge concrete cores right
29:47
Speaker 1: in the center of the building. But that's not the
29:50
Speaker 1: coolest part, is it. No, the dampers the coolest part,
29:54
Speaker 1: or the mass tune damper. I think, yeah, you're tuned
29:57
Speaker 1: mass damper. I'm sorry, and I think we' talked about this.
30:00
Speaker 1: It must have been in the nine eleven memorial. Yeah,
30:03
Speaker 1: I think so. But this is one of those things
30:05
Speaker 1: that again it seems like, whoa, they're getting really complex
30:09
Speaker 1: because they're using computers and things now, but at its root,
30:13
Speaker 1: tuned massd amper system is also super rudimentary, don't you think, Yeah,
30:19
Speaker 1: it really is. So like if the building swaying one way,
30:22
Speaker 1: they'll put like a huge like concrete disc on top
30:26
Speaker 1: of some oil or something so it can slide, and
30:29
Speaker 1: they'll move that the opposite way. So it's like, you know,
30:32
Speaker 1: how like if you're walking a tight rope or on
30:34
Speaker 1: like a train track or something like that, and you
30:37
Speaker 1: start to sway one way like you're gonna fall off,
30:39
Speaker 1: you shift your body's weight the other way and you
30:42
Speaker 1: managed to stay upright. This is the same thing but
30:45
Speaker 1: with the building going one way, the concrete disc goes
30:48
Speaker 1: the other way, and the building sway is kept within
30:51
Speaker 1: an acceptable limit. Yeah, I mean, it's it's amazing that
30:54
Speaker 1: someone just said, what if we what if we swung
30:57
Speaker 1: a big weight up there to interact this way? And
31:01
Speaker 1: you know, it gets a little with you know, hydraulics,
31:03
Speaker 1: and the computer is actually is what's what's monitoring the
31:07
Speaker 1: wind and operating this thing. So that's where it gets
31:10
Speaker 1: a little complicated. But at its root, it's just like
31:13
Speaker 1: like again like a kid said, well, why don't you
31:15
Speaker 1: just do this right? And so so there's some that
31:18
Speaker 1: use like the huge concrete weight. Some will use enormous
31:22
Speaker 1: gallon like um vats of water to slash back and
31:25
Speaker 1: forth against this way. Um there's this stuff called magnet
31:31
Speaker 1: or heological fluid, which changes from a solid It's normally
31:36
Speaker 1: in a solid state, and then when you pass a
31:37
Speaker 1: magnetic field over it, it just instantly turns to fluid.
31:41
Speaker 1: So they have some dampers and some buildings. I don't
31:45
Speaker 1: know if it's actually in use or not, or if
31:46
Speaker 1: it's still proposed, but on each floor towards the center
31:50
Speaker 1: of the building, you'll have a damper made of this
31:52
Speaker 1: stuff in like a vat, and then when like say,
31:56
Speaker 1: an earthquake is detected or some sort of seismic ac
32:00
Speaker 1: ativity is detected, it'll trip a magnet that runs a
32:03
Speaker 1: magnetic field over these things, and all of a sudden
32:05
Speaker 1: they turn into liquid and they start slashing the opposite
32:09
Speaker 1: way and keep the building from swaying too far too
32:13
Speaker 1: All right, well, that's not rudimentary. No, it's not. That's magic,
32:16
Speaker 1: that's voodoo. It is pretty pretty much. Should we take
32:19
Speaker 1: a break, I think? I think so, man, all right,
32:22
Speaker 1: well we'll talk a little bit about design right after this. Okay, chuck,
32:50
Speaker 1: So we're on the design now, by the way. Yeah,
32:54
Speaker 1: And the earliest ones were basically like, look at the
32:57
Speaker 1: size of this building I built, and everyone said, well,
33:00
Speaker 1: it's ugly as sin, And the architect and an engineer
33:04
Speaker 1: and the builder and the owner would say, it doesn't matter.
33:06
Speaker 1: It's taller than any of your buildings. And everyone would say,
33:10
Speaker 1: that's that's true. But as as billings got taller and taller,
33:13
Speaker 1: and like a new one went up every few months
33:15
Speaker 1: or a few you know, every year, and some of
33:18
Speaker 1: the city's um around the world, like New York London
33:23
Speaker 1: those two, Um, like, it became a lot more um
33:30
Speaker 1: important what the building looked like. Yeah. So, I mean
33:34
Speaker 1: in the twenties and thirties into the forties with what
33:37
Speaker 1: one of my favorite movements, the Art Deco movement. Love it.
33:41
Speaker 1: You get my favorite building, which is the Chrysler Building, uh,
33:44
Speaker 1: and the Empire State Building, which is still just gorgeous
33:47
Speaker 1: to look at. You know. So when we're in New Zealand,
33:50
Speaker 1: if you have time, there's a town there called Napier
33:54
Speaker 1: and it got leveled by an earthquake in n and
33:58
Speaker 1: they said, well, we're gonna rebuild the town. What's like
34:01
Speaker 1: the current um trend in architecture. Oh, it's Art Deco.
34:07
Speaker 1: So it's an Art Deco town. The town is it's gorgeous. Man,
34:12
Speaker 1: it's all in like pastels and everything is just a
34:15
Speaker 1: beautiful town from the nineteen thirties that they just rebuild
34:18
Speaker 1: all all Art deco. Um. So you know that was
34:25
Speaker 1: that rang true for a while, but then eventually you know, like, um,
34:28
Speaker 1: you know, architecture goes and trends, and we had a
34:30
Speaker 1: bad trend in the nineteen sixties. And in Atlanta certainly
34:34
Speaker 1: has its share of international style buildings that is what
34:37
Speaker 1: it's called, which I don't know why, but for some reason,
34:41
Speaker 1: they sort of just reverted back to these monoliths. Uh
34:47
Speaker 1: and and a lot of them were torn down Atlanta,
34:49
Speaker 1: but some of them are still here and they're just
34:51
Speaker 1: they're the ugliest buildings in the city. I like some
34:54
Speaker 1: of them, like not necessarily the ones in Atlanta, but
34:57
Speaker 1: like the Sears Tower, the Willis Tower is is an
35:00
Speaker 1: international style. Yeah, the un interesting at least because it's staggered, right, Okay,
35:06
Speaker 1: that's still technically international style. UN Headquarters in New York
35:11
Speaker 1: International style. Some of them can have a retro style, now, right,
35:14
Speaker 1: I think that's what I appreciate about something. But yeah,
35:16
Speaker 1: you're right, and some of them are also just like that.
35:18
Speaker 1: It's just fuggle. Yeah you know. Uh and this year's
35:23
Speaker 1: are Willis Tower. We still call it this Year's tower.
35:25
Speaker 1: Let's be honest. Um, that one is unique in that
35:29
Speaker 1: it is uh it's it's tubes, right, yeah, and they're
35:35
Speaker 1: staggered in height. So they kind of played with this
35:38
Speaker 1: new thing for um. I think I don't know if
35:41
Speaker 1: it was for the skeleton or what, but they built
35:44
Speaker 1: like steel tubes and then fill them with concrete, so
35:47
Speaker 1: that provided the structure. But they they they staggered them,
35:50
Speaker 1: so it created this cool look to the building that
35:54
Speaker 1: it's known for. Yeah. I did the Architectural River tour
35:58
Speaker 1: in Chicago when I was there last summer, and the
36:01
Speaker 1: lady we had was great and she told us the story.
36:03
Speaker 1: I just couldn't remember it quite right. Yeah, it is
36:06
Speaker 1: the Series Tower. I feel bad for Mr Willis, but
36:11
Speaker 1: it's it's just the Series Tower. Um. And then you've
36:16
Speaker 1: got now kind of like like whatever, whatever you want
36:21
Speaker 1: to do, that's that's what we want. Like in some
36:24
Speaker 1: some are great, some are not so great. But I
36:28
Speaker 1: think that's always been the way with skyscrapers. Some are great,
36:30
Speaker 1: some are not so great. But either way, you've got
36:33
Speaker 1: a big old sky scraper in your city now, whether
36:36
Speaker 1: you like it how it looks or not. Yeah, they're
36:38
Speaker 1: getting kind of funky, like in a place like New
36:41
Speaker 1: York where it's um like even one uh is it
36:45
Speaker 1: one World Trade Center now of the Freedom Tower? Oh right,
36:50
Speaker 1: but I believe they call it one WTC still as well,
36:54
Speaker 1: now is it? I don't know, Well, it's just called
36:56
Speaker 1: the Freedom Tower. We'll call it one World Trade Center.
36:59
Speaker 1: You're right, um that one fits in even though it
37:04
Speaker 1: has a newish look, but it fits into the landscape
37:07
Speaker 1: because it's there's a lot of tall buildings in New York.
37:09
Speaker 1: When you see like sometimes in the Middle East, like
37:12
Speaker 1: in Um although Dubai has got a lot of tall
37:15
Speaker 1: ones now or Malaysia, there will be so much taller
37:19
Speaker 1: than the surrounding buildings that it's just sort of odd
37:22
Speaker 1: looking to me. Well. Plus also, you know, you you
37:27
Speaker 1: hope that the architect is going to design the thing
37:30
Speaker 1: to fit the surroundings rather than really stand out. And
37:35
Speaker 1: but regardless, I mean, these are not public buildings. These
37:37
Speaker 1: are privately owned buildings almost across the board, and you,
37:42
Speaker 1: the city dweller who lives there and has to look
37:44
Speaker 1: at this thing every day, are totally at the mercy
37:47
Speaker 1: of the person designing it. Like that's that's whatever gets
37:50
Speaker 1: put up gets put up, and you had no say whatsoever.
37:53
Speaker 1: And um, which can be good in a lot of cases,
37:56
Speaker 1: it can also be bad. Um, but there are it
38:01
Speaker 1: seems like more often than not, the stuff that they're
38:03
Speaker 1: putting up these days is pretty pretty interesting to look at.
38:07
Speaker 1: Like there's um zahahidid who I think when the prints
38:11
Speaker 1: cure prize a couple of years ago, and I think
38:13
Speaker 1: she died. Recently, she put up this um building. I
38:17
Speaker 1: don't know if it's done yet or not, but it's
38:19
Speaker 1: called one thousand Museum Tower in Miami, and it is gorgeous.
38:25
Speaker 1: It's super Miami, like the exterior skeleton actually twists and
38:29
Speaker 1: curves and they snakes around the outside of the curtain
38:33
Speaker 1: wall even in some points. But it fits like it
38:37
Speaker 1: fits Miami. Like you just look at this building, You're like,
38:40
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that building anywhere else in the world,
38:42
Speaker 1: or more at home anywhere else in the world that Miami.
38:46
Speaker 1: So it's good. Like it's neat, it's interesting, it's it's
38:48
Speaker 1: cool to look at, but it also fits the surroundings, Yeah,
38:52
Speaker 1: for sure. And you know that one. I just looked
38:55
Speaker 1: at it. It's that's pretty cool looking. It looks uh
38:58
Speaker 1: some of them are looking very futuristic. Now me, that
39:00
Speaker 1: looks very futuristic. Yes, yeah, which is uh, you know,
39:05
Speaker 1: it's fine. I'm kind of I like the throwback style,
39:07
Speaker 1: but uh, I don't mind a little future every now
39:10
Speaker 1: and then. The question of how high can you go
39:15
Speaker 1: is very hotly debated. Some designers and architects say, if
39:19
Speaker 1: you had enough money, you could go a mile high.
39:23
Speaker 1: Other people say, no, you probably couldn't. Um, it's not
39:27
Speaker 1: very feasible, at least not now. Yeah, but in the future,
39:32
Speaker 1: you know, And they say this is an efficient way
39:34
Speaker 1: to builds up and environmentally friendly is to go up, right,
39:40
Speaker 1: it is? It depends, It depends. Did you read that
39:43
Speaker 1: one article about glass. Yeah, so that's that's pretty hotly
39:48
Speaker 1: debated right now in the architectural community. Huh yeah. I
39:51
Speaker 1: don't know if they're trying to start it up or
39:53
Speaker 1: if it is actually already a thing of debate. But
39:56
Speaker 1: there are some architects, some pretty prominent ones too, who
39:59
Speaker 1: said we should stop like building glass towers. They're kind
40:04
Speaker 1: of cold, they're unfeeling, they just don't create a sense
40:08
Speaker 1: of community. Plus they're super wasteful, like they're really expensive
40:12
Speaker 1: and consume a lot of energy to um heat and
40:16
Speaker 1: cool because there's a lot of um loss of heat
40:19
Speaker 1: and a lot of heat creeping in depending on the
40:23
Speaker 1: time of the year, and they're just kind of wasteful actually,
40:27
Speaker 1: And that coupled with the idea that there's now this
40:31
Speaker 1: trend moving toward tearing down taller and taller buildings and
40:37
Speaker 1: replacing them with even taller new skyscrapers, especially when there's
40:41
Speaker 1: really nothing wrong with that skyscraper in the first place.
40:44
Speaker 1: But say, like in in Chicago, if the Willis family
40:48
Speaker 1: had known that they were their their tower was still
40:52
Speaker 1: going to be known as the Sears Tower, no matter what.
40:54
Speaker 1: They may have torn that thing down and built something
40:56
Speaker 1: else in its place, right, And that seems to be
40:59
Speaker 1: the trend. It's like, oh, that'll always be known as
41:02
Speaker 1: you know this, this this building. I want to tear
41:04
Speaker 1: it down and put up my own building that is
41:07
Speaker 1: super duper wasteful. And there's those are two big criticisms
41:11
Speaker 1: as far as skyscrapers are going right now, um in
41:14
Speaker 1: the world from what I can understand. Yeah, that one
41:16
Speaker 1: article you since said that to seventy Park in New
41:19
Speaker 1: York will be the first building taller than two hundreds
41:22
Speaker 1: to be demolished, and that the average lifespan. There was
41:28
Speaker 1: a study from the the Council on Tall Buildings and
41:31
Speaker 1: Urban Habitat that found the average lifespan of the one
41:35
Speaker 1: hundred tallest demolished buildings is forty one years. That is,
41:40
Speaker 1: that is not long enough for the amount of expense
41:43
Speaker 1: that goes into them, the amount of materials and energy
41:47
Speaker 1: you like, I think that same article says like these
41:50
Speaker 1: things should be built for a hundred to two hundred years.
41:52
Speaker 1: I mean, what is it a football stadium? Basically, Yeah,
41:56
Speaker 1: they don't even have forty one years. You could me
42:00
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen years now, Yeah, I think about it. Man.
42:02
Speaker 1: So like the with the Brave Stadium, the ted was
42:06
Speaker 1: like built nine for the Olympics and it's it was
42:11
Speaker 1: abandoned two years ago and two so it made it
42:14
Speaker 1: um twenty years, twenty years and it's being used now.
42:18
Speaker 1: Georgia State took it over. But it was a perfectly
42:21
Speaker 1: good baseball stadium fifteen minutes from my house. And then
42:24
Speaker 1: with the Falcons Stadium, that one there was nothing wrong
42:29
Speaker 1: with that one. Was there the Georgia Dome Yeah uh no.
42:32
Speaker 1: But I gotta say, man, that new Mercedes Been Stadium
42:35
Speaker 1: is it nice? Man, it's awesome. I haven't been in
42:38
Speaker 1: it yet. It's very cool. It feels like you're at
42:40
Speaker 1: an outdoor game, even with the roof closed. Oh cool.
42:44
Speaker 1: The way they built it, it's just you should check
42:46
Speaker 1: it out at some point. I mean, it is beautiful,
42:48
Speaker 1: Like I get that it's not lost on me. I'm
42:50
Speaker 1: not just such a like a a grump or a
42:52
Speaker 1: critic that I'm just like, no, it doesn't matter, Like
42:56
Speaker 1: I get that. There's also a lot of like civic pride,
42:59
Speaker 1: especially that goes into a building like that. Yeah, but
43:02
Speaker 1: it's also super wasteful. We'll just tear something down while
43:05
Speaker 1: it's still totally fine rather than renovating it. And of
43:08
Speaker 1: course all the controversy for especially for sports stadiums, around
43:12
Speaker 1: tax dollars paying for them, even though it's usually a
43:15
Speaker 1: hotel tax, so they can say like it's not on you,
43:18
Speaker 1: it's on the people that come to Atlanta. Yeah. I
43:20
Speaker 1: don't know if they did that in Cobb County. I
43:22
Speaker 1: think it was a straight up like citizens tax. I
43:24
Speaker 1: think so for the baseball one. Um. You also send
43:28
Speaker 1: a cool article though about wood skyscrapers and how this
43:33
Speaker 1: is a new trend and apparently ahead of schedule. Brock
43:38
Speaker 1: commons a student Uh, like, I guess it's a dormitory
43:43
Speaker 1: at University of British Columbia is now the tallest as
43:46
Speaker 1: of now the tallest wooden uh structure at eighteen stories. Yeah,
43:52
Speaker 1: and you think, like, well, would that's not good? We
43:54
Speaker 1: don't want to start using wood for sky screen is good.
43:57
Speaker 1: Apparently it is good that it that it can it
44:00
Speaker 1: can be sustainably sourced UM and that it can actually uh,
44:05
Speaker 1: it uses like in some cases less UM energy than
44:12
Speaker 1: creating a skyscraper using concrete and steel UM. And that's
44:17
Speaker 1: not including like transport costs or transport emissions as well.
44:22
Speaker 1: That's strictly in production UM. And that the stuff they're
44:26
Speaker 1: making or using that's called cross laminated timber, which supposedly
44:30
Speaker 1: is as strong as steel. The big drawback to it
44:33
Speaker 1: is like twice the price, right now. Yeah, it's just
44:36
Speaker 1: a it's it's like what you get with like press board.
44:39
Speaker 1: It's it's sheets of wood glued together and compressed together.
44:44
Speaker 1: And when you look at this brock Commons, it just
44:46
Speaker 1: you know, looks like a ordinary building. And there's another
44:49
Speaker 1: building going up somewhere in Japan I couldn't find where.
44:51
Speaker 1: It's called the W three fifty building, which I guess
44:54
Speaker 1: stands for wood and it's tall, which is that's a
44:59
Speaker 1: that's like a thirty five story skyscraper made of wood
45:03
Speaker 1: and I think ten percent steel, but the rest is
45:05
Speaker 1: would UM. And that's going to be really something and
45:10
Speaker 1: I imagine a pretty big proving ground for you know,
45:13
Speaker 1: this this new material. Yeah, and you mentioned that it
45:16
Speaker 1: is can be sustainable and uh, because the first thing
45:19
Speaker 1: I thought of, of course, is like, now we're going
45:21
Speaker 1: to tear it on the forest to build buildings. But
45:23
Speaker 1: they say that less than one percent of the world's
45:26
Speaker 1: forests are harvested each year. Um. It sounds like a
45:30
Speaker 1: hornets nest to me. It does. But you know, they
45:33
Speaker 1: did this in Canada and they said it was a
45:35
Speaker 1: super green project and like the way forward. And I
45:38
Speaker 1: trust the Canadians on that stuff, me too, man. Um,
45:42
Speaker 1: So like we just would be the worst human beings
45:46
Speaker 1: alive if we didn't talk about the tallest buildings in
45:49
Speaker 1: the world and the competition for it. Yeah. And also
45:51
Speaker 1: real quick, you mentioned the glass didn't what didn't they
45:53
Speaker 1: have that one building in London that like melted a car? Yeah,
45:57
Speaker 1: the walkie talkie building. Yeah, that was one of the
46:00
Speaker 1: problems with glasses. Um. Do you remember And when we
46:03
Speaker 1: were in Buckhead, the sovereign building next door. Yes, if
46:06
Speaker 1: did you ever walk past it and through the beam
46:08
Speaker 1: of light it was blinding. It was really hot too.
46:12
Speaker 1: You could imagine like under certain circumstances, it could like
46:15
Speaker 1: burn you. Well, there's a building in London that they
46:18
Speaker 1: had to share it even further because it melted a
46:20
Speaker 1: car that was parked in that beam of melted a car. Yeah,
46:24
Speaker 1: loy alright. So the tallest, I mean it's I think
46:30
Speaker 1: they said there's something like twenty buildings under construction that
46:34
Speaker 1: will eclipse the Birge Khalifa. Oh is that right? Wow?
46:39
Speaker 1: And is I think that's currently number one undisputed. But
46:44
Speaker 1: the the Jettah Tower j E D D A H
46:47
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia will be three thousand, two d and
46:51
Speaker 1: eight feet high and that will be done in just
46:53
Speaker 1: a couple of years. Yeah, that's that's over. It's a
46:57
Speaker 1: thousand meters I think on the nose if I'm not
46:59
Speaker 1: mistake it. And this is one sticks out like a
47:02
Speaker 1: sore thumb too, It definitely does. Um. And then there's
47:05
Speaker 1: also one that might be the tallest for a brief
47:09
Speaker 1: time because I think it's going to be uh completed
47:12
Speaker 1: before the Jetta Tower. But it's in Dubai and it's
47:15
Speaker 1: called the Tower, and it'll be nine eight meters or
47:19
Speaker 1: three thousand and forty five ft. That's that's I mean,
47:22
Speaker 1: I know they say it's good to go up, but
47:25
Speaker 1: I don't know. That stuff makes me nervous. There's a
47:27
Speaker 1: picture of the Jetta Tower to where a substantial portion
47:31
Speaker 1: of it, maybe the top third, is above the cloud lines,
47:37
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, it's it wouldn't necessarily be like
47:39
Speaker 1: that every day, but theoretically, if that's even possible, I
47:43
Speaker 1: can't imagine how much like those upper floor pent houses
47:47
Speaker 1: are going to go for. It's just nuts, man, but
47:51
Speaker 1: they're building them that. I think the tower in Dubai
47:54
Speaker 1: is expected to cost a billion dollars, which I'm like,
47:57
Speaker 1: that seems kind of inexpensive to me for a thousand
48:00
Speaker 1: meter building. Well, I know one person who wouldn't live
48:03
Speaker 1: at the top of that thing, and he's sitting across
48:05
Speaker 1: from me. Yeah, I'd just like to see pictures of
48:09
Speaker 1: it and get woozy down here at sea level. I
48:11
Speaker 1: don't even have a high thing, and that it makes
48:13
Speaker 1: me nervous. Yeah, I'm with you, So I guess it's
48:17
Speaker 1: about it. There's well, one more thing. There's a lot
48:20
Speaker 1: of debate over what constitutes the world's tallest building, and
48:24
Speaker 1: the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban habitat that you
48:26
Speaker 1: mentioned before. They said that there's actually no real definition
48:31
Speaker 1: of a skyscraper, but there are some types subcategories. I
48:37
Speaker 1: guess where there are definitions. There's a super tall which
48:40
Speaker 1: is three or more, Mega tall which is six or more,
48:45
Speaker 1: and then a tall building is is up to three.
48:51
Speaker 1: But I get it doesn't there's no starting basis for it.
48:55
Speaker 1: But there you go. Skyscraper can be anything tall, just
48:58
Speaker 1: like in the old days of it. If you want
49:01
Speaker 1: to know more about skyscrapers, uh, just start looking around.
49:04
Speaker 1: They're everywhere and you can also read about them on
49:07
Speaker 1: how stuff works by typing skyscraper in the search bar.
49:10
Speaker 1: And said, so, I said, that's time for listener mail.
49:13
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this very smart lady emailed us Camilla
49:19
Speaker 1: size or c's s I s E about Akham's razor,
49:24
Speaker 1: and it's very nice about it too. Yeah, did you
49:27
Speaker 1: read this one? She said? I thought i'd give a
49:29
Speaker 1: small clarification uh slash correction. I'd give you some insight
49:33
Speaker 1: on the alleged subjectivity of it. Uh. You explained that
49:36
Speaker 1: principle was, when confronted with competing explanations, one should select
49:41
Speaker 1: the simplest one. She said, this very common misconception. It
49:45
Speaker 1: should be the most parsimonious. How about that word explanation
49:50
Speaker 1: is more likely to be true? She said. It seems nitpicky,
49:54
Speaker 1: but eliminates a lot of the subjectivity you complained about
49:57
Speaker 1: in the episode. The most parsimonious means most economic in
50:01
Speaker 1: the sense that it makes the least amount of assumptions.
50:04
Speaker 1: That makes total sense, because each additional assumption you're making
50:08
Speaker 1: is an additional chance of being wrong. For example, the
50:11
Speaker 1: ghost and the photo makes the assumption that ghosts exists
50:16
Speaker 1: exists something that has not been proven, whereas the naturalistic
50:19
Speaker 1: explanation doesn't need to assume the existence of any light
50:24
Speaker 1: phenomena you used to explain that picture because those all
50:27
Speaker 1: have been proven to exists around that. So I feel
50:31
Speaker 1: like we did talk about that a little bit, but
50:33
Speaker 1: we weren't very explicit, and I think we kind of
50:36
Speaker 1: walked past the idea that that's the basis of the
50:38
Speaker 1: whole thing. Yeah, she said, as you explained very well,
50:41
Speaker 1: it doesn't disprove the ghost hypothesis, it just makes it
50:44
Speaker 1: less likely to be true. Most of science is not
50:47
Speaker 1: about proving things anyway, It's about inferring the most likely
50:50
Speaker 1: explanations to phenomena. I hope that helps keep up the
50:54
Speaker 1: great work that is Camilla size and that is that
50:57
Speaker 1: is a good email. Yeah, thanks a lot, Camilla and
50:59
Speaker 1: well but appreciate that. And a few people wrote in
51:02
Speaker 1: kind of saying something similar, but she definitely put it best.
51:06
Speaker 1: If you want to set us straight, you can hang
51:08
Speaker 1: out with us on Twitter. I'm at Josh Underscore, UM Underscore, Clark,
51:13
Speaker 1: Chuck's at movie Crush Pod, and we're both at s
51:16
Speaker 1: Y s K Podcast on Twitter. Chuck's on Facebook dot
51:20
Speaker 1: com Slash movie Crush Pod. I actually spend a lot
51:23
Speaker 1: of time on the movie Crush Facebook page. Okay, so
51:26
Speaker 1: if you want to hang out with Chuck on Facebook,
51:28
Speaker 1: go to Facebook dot com Slash movie Crush. Uh. He's
51:31
Speaker 1: also on Facebook dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant
51:34
Speaker 1: and slash s Y s K or No Stuff you
51:37
Speaker 1: Should Know. I mean you're all over Facebook, aren't you. Uh.
51:41
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51:43
Speaker 1: you can send it to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff
51:46
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51:49
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51:55
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