Skyscraper Problems

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 158, 24 September 1927, Page 24 (Supplement)

Skyscraper Problems

America Is Solving Them

DURING the last 20 years, since the time when skyscrapers first began to be really numerous in America, these huge buildings, each of which houses during working hours the population cf a small New Zealand city, hare come to be regarded as the typical mark ot the New World’s prosperity. The earliest buildings of the type, which were simply floor upon floor in a huge pile, each storey aspiring to a scheme of decoration of its

own, were justly regarded as hideous; hut since the introduction of zoning laws, making compulsory the setting back of the upper floors, so that the streets below will not be deprived of their share of sunlight and air, skyscraper architecture bps developed immensely and the most modern buildings have a type of beauty which is quite a new thing to the world. The Woolworth Building, whose 65th story is 792 ft from the sitreet level, is a thing of grace with an almost delicate tower, while other and more massive buildings have their unique grandeur. In spite of the great developments of the lasit few years, it seems that the skysciaper has not yet reached its limit. The Graybar has recently superseded the Equitable as the biggest building in the world, while the New Vork City authorities have only two of three months ago issued a licence for a skyscraper ot 110 stories, which will dwarf the Woolworth and will probably be higher than the Eiffel Tower. 1 1

Originally rendered necessary by the severe limitation of the ground area available in the centre of New York’s business life, Long Island, the skyscraper soon proved that it had other advantages than the mere saving of space. Industries, trades and businesses that are closely inter-con-nected are brought together, and time, the vital element of modern business, is saved. The tall building, too, limits the size of the town, and thus reduces the distance which the worker has to travel to and from home. The total number of travellers carried in lifts in New York is supposed to be double that carried in trains, buses, and all other horizontal traffic facilities. It is certain that if much of this up and down traffic were forced on to the streets the death-rate from accidents would immediately go up. Undeniably great as are the advantages of the skyscraper, however, there is to-day in America a party which is agitating seriously for height restriction, as it believes that the good points are outweighed by the disadvantages, which if not individually so important in this age of hustle when the saving of time has become a fetish are at any rate more numerous.

The first drawback noticed when the Americans had any time to feel anything hut pride in their unique method of building was the lack of light and air in the streets below. Almost as soon as this problem became serious a remedy was found, and with a promptitude rare in civic matters affecting property rights laws were passed making compulsory the setting back of the upper floors, and limiting the height of the buildings in proportion to the width of the streets fronted and the ground area occupied. It was incidental that these regulations, as has been explained, gave the skyscraper a. new beauty and a new dignity, and cleared it of a charge which had formerly been laid against it, that of being an eyesore. It was realised, too, that in these huge buildings, however cunningly they might be designed with bays and inlets, it was inevitable that many of the workers would be deprived of natural conditions. Modern science came to the aid of the skyscraper, with lighting and ventilating systems which approximated very closely to Nature.

While all these minor disadvantages were being cleared away, or at least minimised, the one great problem of the skyscraper city was getting more and more out of hand. The great increase in the number of motor-cars was for a long while blamed for the almost, intolerably bad traffic conditions, but it was at last, though only recently, realised that this evil had followed in the train of upward growth. Traffic is the great problem with which American cities are now faced!, and for the moment is insoluble. Every added story brings more traffic to the street on which the building stands, and it Is for this reason that it ieems that the limit in height of

American skyscrapers must soon he reached; for it is obvious that more traffic will only mean a waste of time out of all proportion to the advantages of further height. Another factor brought to the notice of the civic authorities by those who believe in height restriction is the tremendous wear on the streets and the necessary increase in the sewerage, but it may be found cheaper to cope with these two difficulties than to expand horizontally. The one solution of the traffic problem, visionary though it may seem, is to pierce the upper building levels with elevated highways. Yet it is already being'seriously considered by skyscraper architects and engineers. Another problem in skyscraper economics is that of blighted districts, or areas from which the population has been drained by sudden expansion elsewhere. Such districts are an economic drag on the community, which, though one of its sections has suddenly gained enormously in population, is as a whole no better, but rather worse off.

While all these arguments against the skyscraper may seem to point to the view that It is a freak result of the sudden expansion of American industry and business, it will be seen | on examing them more closely that

they are not in fact arguments against skyscraper in themselves, but rather against their position, their height purely in relation to the ground on which they stand, or to the grouping of too many of them in a small area. The trouble lies not in the height, but in the fact that the streets on which they must he built are too narrow to cope with the traffic they cause; and for this we can hardly blame the designers of the cities, who did their work before either motor-cars or buildings that lifted their heads so high were dreamt of. It must be remembered that the skyscraper is a growth of only the last 30 years, all too short a time for city authorities to evolve a technique of town-plan-ning that will either dispense with their necessity or remove their disadvantages. Artificial regulations are not likely to be successful in limiting height for long, even should they be introduced. The only thing that will really limit height is the determination of the point when the addition of further stories will not be economical. This time will come when so much extra space Is required for ventilation and elevator shafts that the useful space of lower floors will be too much reduced, a condition which seems unlikely but which in reality is not far ; | distant.