2 questions that I really wished to hear their answers in this video: 1) How the heck can you replace the skeletal beams of a skyscraper? 2) How long will they last without maintenance?
@@tacovansambeek I think the answer depends heavily on the climate the ruin will find itself in. Constant frost and thaw cycles will erode structures much faster than a desert climate. But yes, I wish the video had gone into more detail there. I'd love to hear some ballpark numbers for different buildings.
The refitted tower in Shenzhen gives a hint to the answer of your second question: since it was in use from 2002 it lasted 20 years. But if you wonder how long it would last after an apocalypse, I guess it will require a disaster or two before you can answer that questíon as there probably won't be many people surveying building safety lol
"How many buildings over 300 years old do you know that are still being occupied?" Me living in New England: A LOT of them. And Granted that's nothing compared to Europe/Asia
@@JohnFromAccounting Can confirm. A little bit of retrofitting and maintenance and thing can last forever. House im living in rn existed since atleast the 1900's. And when it comes to structure these things are tough even when they go without any maintenance they don't collapse.
My previous house (in England) was built in the 1670s and it still had it's original timber frame. Okay, it had warped with age, but none of the beams had needed to be replaced.
Me (Germany) looking out the window: oh, a massive church from 1200ad and a whole historic town centre built in the years around and after.... We had luck with the bombs here, nothing significant was around to bomb in WW2...
Most of Europe has plenty of building exceeding 200 years old that are still being occupied. I live in one here in the Netherlands, built around 1720, still in great condition.
There a building on my road a chapel build in 1850 & still occupied by group of religious people according to Siri & Alexa it’s 172 years old, house I live in with my parents is 117 years ago build in 1907 & still standing only the utility room & conservatory aren’t that old the rest of the house is. Hypothetically Sky Scraper could last 1000 years but it would have to be maintained in & out & lobby part probably would of been flooded by then with rising sea levels.
@LTNetjak all the stone is still the same. worden doorframes, window frames etc have been replaced. Rooftiles were replaced in 1890 and have since been replaced one by one whenever one broke. Wooden floor was replaced in 1860, and a new kitchen was added in 1930.
@@howieduwit2551 skyscraper is a building too, both require maintenance, and the better they're built, the longer they last. One is just taller than the other.
“How many two hundred or three hundred year old buildings do you know”-I'm puzzled. Aren't centuries old churches, for example, entirely normal? I can't count how many I've been in. And there are plenty of old (and still active) administrative and residential buildings, in England and in continental Europe; with stone construction it largely seems to be a question of whether the roof is maintained. And whether there's a pogrom.
@@JohnFromAccounting I've just looked it up and a number of the churches I used to go to in Northumberland when I was a kid were 12th and 13th century, with only fragments of older buildings remaining. So not _that_ old. ;)
@@Sp4mMe Not exactly, poke around Europe and you will find entire towns abandoned due to Shit old construction standards no one wishes to live in said death traps. Yes, a few iconic buildings were overbuilt, vast majority are not and will subsequently deteriorate faster and fall down sooner. How many Chinese buildings are built with complete Shit? Look at all these concrete/steel structures built near salt water... 100% guaranteed to fail and fail soon. Only question is HOW soon.
I feel like on of the most important considerations is the financial aspect. The pyramids have lasted millenia but they haven't needed refurbishment every 100 years, like the steel beams in skyscrapers will need according to this video. While it's possible, if its not profitable or affordable, then skyscrapers won't last very long
@ Well there was no concept of profit at the building period, so that's not really relevent. At they have only really erroded in the last few hundred years because the protective cover stones were removed.
This is true in the USA also, however after the war there was a significant up tick in materials robustness, many houses have asbestos siding which is just about impervious to the elements, if the roofing was asbestos also it'd last just about forever. That the thing about asbestos as long as you don't disturb it its very very very stable. In fact there was vastly more danger from disturbing asbestos than just leaving it alone. Anyway alot of mill houses in the USA have asbestos siding and will approach 100 years old soon millions of them having been build in the 40s and 50s. I wouldn't be supprised if as long as the roof is kept in repair and the asbestos siding left alone those houses could last hundreds of years.... they aren't great houses but the shell is quite robust.
The concrete of the Parthenon is quite different from modern concrete. We use steel reinforced concrete, which is stronger but because the steel inside it corrodes it's not as long lasting.
There's building in my local city approaching 1,000 years old, the house I grew up in was built is almost 400 years old. For a list that's "not that long", I can think of countless examples of older buildings still standing
The impressive thing about the pyramids and the 2 thousand year old buildings in Rome is that they have made it through millennia without even having proper maintainance or preservation efforts for most of their history. I really wonder how long would skyscrapers last if we just left them there, without fixing or modifying anything.
Yep, that's the real question. I think the steel/glass towers would last only a few decades. Once a decent amount of windows break moisture gets in everywhere it will rust away.
@@Sunlight91 That´s what I was thinking. Stone and metallic skyscrapers like the Empire State or the Chrysler building... I can see them lasting for centuries even without maintenance. They were built in a similar fahsion as old churches and cathedrals. But the One World Trade Center or the Burj Khalifa? Yeah, I really don´y think they could last a whole century if they were suddenly abandoned. Plus, the fact that a hundred years ago people didn´t have the exact numbers and built everything with a fat margin of error, makes them be unnecessarily more solid and resistant than what they actually have to. In contrast with todays buildings which are "just as solid as they need to be" for a building that keeps itself in use and in constant maintenance.
Survivor bias with ancient buildings is a consideration, also. The Romans built concrete structures left, right, and center, but there aren't all that many left standing today in marvelous condition! Roman buildings not infrequently fell apart before they had time to be abandoned if contemporary accounts are anything to go by--the insulae of Rome were incredibly dangerous. Most of the surviving Roman mega-structures were used as churches/or mosques at some point, and were either maintained or modified extensively over the millennia. I don't know that the pyramids are a good 'ancient equivalent' for skyscarpers--impressive that they were engineered and built in the first place, less impressive that they remain standing. They'll last as long as the stone does, because they're essentially a highly engineered, very elegant, pile of rocks in an environment ideally suited for their preservation. We also tend to think the pyramids amazingly well preserved because we've never seen them with their original cladding--all the exterior stones they had originally are either worn away or were scavenged for other construction projects. They're still impressive, but definitely don't look how they would if they'd received maintenance & been fixed up occasionally! I think it would be immensely cool for one of the space billionaires to offer some pocket change for the restoration of a pyramid or two, along the lines of what's being done for the Athenian Acropolis and the Colosseum of Rome.
@@Strider_Bvlbaha Hi, could you provide your sources of ancient romans writing about the instability of the buildings please? I am very interested in the matter. Didn't the people in the middle ages had a distaste for roman architecture though? They repurposed temples and turned them into churches but grand roman villas and amphitheaters were of no use to them. The colosseum was notably used as quarry which is the reason why it is in ruins.
The Antwerp Tower (in Antwerpen) is a former office tower from 1974, located next to the Flemish Opera in the heart of the city. The existing tower building has been stripped and transformed into a residential tower with 200+ apartments and commercial functions and offices in the base of the building.
The Ship of Theseus thought experiment comes to mind! At what point does a skyscraper ceases to be the original itself, as most of its constituent parts are replaced with newer modern materials 😁
A thing only has meaning until you give it meaning. The Ship of Theseus’ meaning was given. Its meaning was not inherent to its materials. It would be like if a residential high rise had all of its parts refurbished, but the original attendants still occupied it.
@@madmanthan21 The building itself doesn’t care if it’s the original or not. So long as everyone observing it agrees that it’s the same building, then for all practical purposes, it’s the same building.
I think the point is being lost by the above comments in that, the Pantheon and Giza piramids are largely still the originals hence you can call it preservation. If a skyscraper or any historic building is largely replaced by new parts is it still preservation or is it closer to just tearing it down and building an exact replica?
My current office building was built in 1630. It's almost 400 years old. Still stands, and the climate inside the building is much better than any modern building I've worked in, that had automatic climate control BS. :D
Most of Edinburghs Old Town is centuries old, still used, occupied today and are grade listed heritage buildings. So unless there’s a major disaster, the Old Town of Edinburgh will look the same for the next 500 years as it has for the last 500 years ! Who needs skyscrapers !
Old town Edinburgh is wonderful. I have been there twice. I was gobsmacked when I was told those four story stone buildings had been occupied for four and five hundred years! I had the pleasure of drinking a pint at many pubs throughout Scotland and the UK that had been serving adult beverages for longer than my home country , America has existed.
@@tomcartwright7134 There are a few pubs in Britain which claim to be older than Scotland itself! Keep in mind, Scotland is the oldest country in the UK, too.
Have stayed there and can confirm. However, the floors in the place we stayed could not be considered level. You could not have set a marble on the floor anywhere in the flat and then expect it to stay put.
My house is 325 years old and a pleasure to live in. Building fabric is cob (adobe), rubble, wood. Roof is stone tile and lead on semi squared wood structure. All systems have been updated through its life. Maintenance is light but vital. Currently warmed in winter by Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP). It works great because of the basic qualities of the structure. Naturally warm in winter and cool in summer. Longevity is about a quality, reparable structure that can accept new technologies as they happen. I bet this house will last another 325 years (our local cathedral is older than 650). Location is Exeter, England.
The Empire State Building and others from the same era will out last the modern and taller structures. Many of the new buildings are held together by smaller gauge steel, and adhesives which have not been tested over long periods of time.
Also money. Cheaper to build a building that's closer to an IKEA furniture in quality, than build actual quality that will stand for hundreds of years. Build cheap, knock it down in 30-50 year, build something new, repeat.
Also, people actually like the Empire State Building and it has historical significance, so people are more likely to put money into keeping it standing
@@LordManhattan how true is this? The Empire State Building was built in almost a year with a lot less technology. While construction these days takes a lot longer. The Shanghai tower took around 5 years for example.
A building will last longer if it becomes iconic too. The Empire State and Chrysler building will probably always have people to protect and maintain them (like a piece of art), but most skyscrapers in history just end up being demolished when they are no longer required.
The same applies to aircraft in my opinion. The older aircraft were designed using slide rules and the margin of safety was wide due to not having exact numbers. Aircraft today are build using CAD and the margin of safety is calculated exactly. No adding margins “just in case” so the added margins aren’t there to add to its life time.
Aircraft are very, very far in the opposite direction. With the exception of Boeing in the last decade or so (heh) aircraft are far, far safer nowadays than they were even a few decades ago. CAD has only improved aircraft safety.
@@planefan082 my point wasn’t they are less safe. It was to say that instead of having a large fudge factor for margin of safety today the margin is quantified almost exactly. For instance a 50% margin in the 60’s really would have been 75% or more. Today a 50% margin is almost exactly 50%.
For those who are curious how long skyscrapers (especially in the United States) would last WITHOUT maintenance, there is a History Channel TV show called "Life After People" from around 2008-2010 which looks at exactly this subject. The show doesn't posit some kind of disaster scenario, it just examines what would happen to the built remnants of human civilization over the centuries if every human on earth suddenly vanished. You can find parts of it on RUclips, since I don't think they play it on History anymore.
The first skyscrapers were built on solid granite foundations but more recent ones are built on less solid foundations that rely on displacement to prevent subsidence. These foundations must have a limited lifespan which will affect the lifespan of the building.
While I enjoyed the video and the information that it was trying to present, I can't help but think the answer was slightly misleading. The answer to the question was basically, "Skyscrapers will last indefinitely if we refurbish them a couple of times every century and spend copious amounts of money on maintaining them". When you look at some of the old buildings in Europe that have stood for centuries, and they've probably had very little maintenance in that time- I'm sure St Paul's Cathedral or the Pantheon haven't needed to be completely pulled apart piece by piece, and then reassembled every century.
You'll be surprised at the amount of maintenance old cathedrals in Europe had. They are always undergoing some work : the roof, an arch, heavy cleaning of the facade, the wooden work, etc.
The Great Pyramid didn’t get shorter due to “erosion”, at least not primarily. The outer casing stones were removed and recycled to build other things over the millennia. That’s also why so many other pyramids haven’t survived, because they had cores made up of rubble, and when the casing stones were taken they crumbled.
The biggest issue is that Art Deco skyscrapers like the Empire State are no longer being built and those designs are replaced by flimsy glass and concrete buildings that probably can’t last 30 years without major maintenance, and will have to have all their materials replaced probably within the century if we don’t tare them all down, which is much more likely
@@texxstalker the world's tallest building for hundreds of years was Lincoln cathedral, England, whose spire reached to 500ft high, it only lost that title when an earthquake felled it around 300 years ago, but the main church is still there and over 900 years old
The problem with modern skyscrapers they are engineered to maximize usable (profitable) space. The old buildings mentioned here made with totally another engineer mindset.
@@BrBill Exactly, modern structures deteriorate VERY quickly -- a lot faster than I think most people would even be comfortable knowing about. Both steel and reinforced concrete are inherently susceptible to deterioration. And a lot of people forget that the interiors of buildings are not designed for the elements. And so once you have leaky roof or broken window, then all bets are off, particularly in climates where there are wide temperature ranges with rain and snow.
"Afterall how many 200 or 300 year old building do you know, that are currently still standing, and being occupied?" Hello, this is Czech republic, come to almost any historic town center and you will see even 500 yo building still lived in.
Important to remember that the pyramids and the Pantheon are only one of the many thousands of buildings from their eras that survived. Today's skyscrapers are built with excellent engineering, and top materials and have gone through tons of computer modeling. It'll be really cool to see these buildings last hundreds or even thousands of years. Even as the cityscape around them would constantly evolve.
They won't.... almost all of them have varies types of seals that are relatively vulnerable to UV... meaning they have a lifespan of 50-100 years max. After those fail mainly in the windows... the rest of the building will go in another few years, and the structure will probably fail not long after.
A pyramid is nothing more than a pile of bricks in the shape of a triangle. Not hollow but with a few passages inside. Not really a building is it. It's a giant mausoleum.
yeah those buildings were actually the result of tens of thousands of years of trial and error plus we dont know the Roman formula for cement. Whatever they used worked better than what we use now.
I will suggest that part of the video is somewhat inaccurate or maybe an exaggeration. However I've been involved in a lot of repairs and retrofits so yes you can do it. You shore up the loads that the beam is carrying then you can remove the beam and replace it or you can add strengthening to it.
@@katbryce The great fire destroyed only a small portion of London. It was also 350 or so years ago. London is over 2,000 years old. It was once called Trinovantes, or New Troy. This apparently was because exiled Trojans settled there.
Two facts popped up that had me gasp: The Empire State Building is so robustly designed, it weighs twice as much as the taller Burj Kalifa. There are 100+m tall buildings in China that barely see 20 years of use. That is a super short shelf life for such a massive investment.
Frankly your situation is rarer than most. It should be “excuse me, I live in Europe.” To a large extent Europe is one of the only places with buildings of that age still standing and in widespread use. If you think of Australia, Asia and Africa, as well as the Americas, except a few really old religious or government structures, they’re mostly newer structures.
Definitely missed a couple of key questions as noted already. One critical one; the steel reinforcing embedded inside the concrete. Once moisture gets to that steel it rusts, creating concrete cancer. It’s not trivial to repair and I imagine not possible in some cases. The answer to this surely is to use marine grade stainless steel. Sure, it costs more in the beginning yet it avoids the need to replace it.
The problem is, hypothethically, all else but technology doesn't change. At some point it would be more costly to maintain an old building than to scrap it and build a new one. This is how most infrastructure fades. At some point it becomes an economical question whether it is good to maintain a old building.
@@agorillawithaplan1996 I would be flattered that you agree with me, if you hadn't prefaced it with wrinkled old man. If you have the bad luck of living as long as I have, I hope people treat you with equal respect.
I think reinforced concrete can have a relatively short life without maintenance. Once moisture gets to the reinforcing steel, it rusts and swells, cracking the concrete and admitting more moisture. Eventually the structure crumbles.
@@dannypipewrench533 It's not that simple, actually. Steel is strongly preferred for use with concrete because: - Its coefficient of thermal expansion is very similar to concrete's. Temperature differences cause little disturbance as the materials expand/contract together, so long as the structure is not restricted to expand/contract. - Iron, the main metallic component of steel, is an exceptionally abundant and cheap metal. Structural construction materials must be cheap because we use an awful lot of them when building stuff. - Aluminium, the one other highly abundant metal for structural use, has a critical flaw in its performance--it experiences fatigue failure once it goes through enough cycles of loading. Steel does not, so long as it remains loaded below its elastic limit, it can perform well for a much longer time. Aluminium also happens to be more expensive than steel on a per-volume and per-mass basis, because its processing from ores is far more energy-intensive.
@@LucarioBoricua Alright, then how can we prevent the moisture from reaching the reinforcing steel? I love it when somebody gives me a quick breakdown of materials science on RUclips, this is not the first time by the way. (Not being sarcastic.)
@@LucarioBoricua So is there an artificial alternative to steel or concrete? Like could we in theory develop a material that has better performance and safety margins, but is cheap to engineer on a large scale?
@@sorcerykid people could use brick structures like the romans. its not very fashionable to build arches and vaults but they last very long. the colloseum is 57m tall, thats like 20 floors. but they built towers up to 150m . we have machines now that make the work os a mason in minutes and we produce much more bricks nowadays, it would be cheaper
We have buildings in my town (Oregon) that date to the 1840's and 50's. Some restored, some pretty much original. It amazes me that newer 20th century buildings are tumbling down. But the old stuff is still standing!
0:35 how many 200 or 300 years old buildings do i know? well.. obviously not in the US since its just about 300 years old.. but in europe there are entire towns with every building older then that. im from Lucerne (switzerland), and there are at least 100 buildings older then 300 years in and around that town... and you can find churches and cathedrals even older then 1000 years near almoust every larger town in europe.. except for germany since the US dropped bombs on most of them.
@@ungesagt lol.. totally forgot about the farmhouses. But i guess proud farmers would not change that date if they replaced the farmhouse with a new one, so im not so sure if all of them are really as old as they say.... :)
@@falsch4761 lmao, those houses get blown away with a bit of wind That drywall material also is just shit since it already breaks if you even as much as bump into it softly
@@evo3s75 "A bit of wind" The vast majority of wood houses would only get blown away in 200 mph + wind. Imagine calling a tornado or hurricane "A bit of wind"
Yeah that’s all awesome - but if you don’t keep them up to date, as in my home city of Detroit, they don’t even last 100 years. We lost many of our sky scrapers put up in the early 1900s due to abandonment - they did not last that long. Some only lasting less than 80 years… and we’re not usable before their demolition as well.
In New Orleans we have abandoned skyscrapers and we recently had collapsed partially built skyscrapers and it's very demoralizing to think about the future of these tall buildings from that perspective
3:39 The Pantheon was built of "roman" (pozzolan) concrete, which has a much longer lifespan than modern steel-reinforced concrete, especially in wet, salty environments. That's why bridge abutments are sometimes made of the much-more-expensive Roman concrete. I doubt the Pantheon has been completely re-built every 100 years, but today's concrete skyscrapers will need at least that kind of maintenance. As we saw last year in Miami, extreme conditions can make medium and high-rise buildings extremely unsafe in only a few decades.
Came looking for this comment. Yes it's all very well saying tower will last with maintenance, but don't we just know that literally most building owners will not do this unless things are critical. I really hope we don't see more Champlain Towers incidents but unfortunately, we probably will.
As the others stated, you're conflating "skyscrapers" with "towers". No one lives in the Eiffel Tower's entire trunk, though there is a restaurant/observatory I believe on the lower level (can't remember, been decades since I've been).
As someone who massively prefers older architecture styles, I honestly hope that most of these modern skyscrapers won’t be around in 100 years, and that we revert back to more traditional styles.
Older styles of homes were built using peasant/slave labor and an abundance of natural resources. We would be paying multitudes of journeyman carpenters and masons 50/hr plus for that quality of work.
@@dirtyorganboy2264 not every house built in those times was a palace. most of these glass skysrapers cost hundreds of millions and if you talk about slavework look to dubai and china. most of these modern projects go over the budget and cost countries lots of money. people didnt invent robots, automation and cnc machines to live in concrete boxes, those technologies were made so that everyone could live in a great house without paying a lot. imagine living in a time when machines can do the work of a sculptor, a mason or a carpenter in minutes and build uninteresting glass boxes that dont make use of that.
I mean, yeah. A pyramid is the perfect shape and there's not much that can go wrong with (mostly) solid stone except surface erosion. However, it also takes the cake for lowest ratio of occupiable to total space.
Great video. The UK has been on a post-modern building boom last 12 years and has built more than ever. I wondered how long they could last in reality.
Most blocks are meant to last 50-75 years according to two Architects I knew. It is a con that you are sold 125 years /150 or 900 years lease!! I watched some of them being erected and they all look flimsy. Mind you, I am no expert so I stick to an old fashion brick constructed house.
I wish you could tell the reasons for replacing steel beams/colunns in these buildings other than corrosion, and how can they replace members in major structural elements. Nice video, keep this good work up.
Beams probably can be replaced, with some meticulous engineering. But it's highly unlikely that columns can be replaced without hugely costly reinforcements put in place (You're basically talking about putting a giant steel web around the floors where the column(s) are to be replaced to distribute the loads).
@@sorcerykid Yup, basically you have to strip everything nonstructural out from the interior of building so you can build a termporary supporting infrastructure.
0:40 - uhm... where I live it feels like it would be harder to find a lot of buildings which are not. The pharmacy I go to opened in the 13th century and is occupying the current store since the mid 1600s. So yeah - doubt the modern ones will stand this long and I am absolutely certain only ruins will remain of the crazy gulf monarchies in 100 years but with proper intensive and serious care I don't see why some of the very iconic landmarks won't make it into the 2300s.
I would suggest looking at the channel Building Integrity. It has some excellent videos discussing how reinforced concrete ages. TLDR, water infiltrates the concrete, makes it less alkaline, it eventually stops protecting the rebar, which rusts and causes concrete spalling. Their discussion about concrete punch-through is also interesting. There are good designs poorly executed and poor designs properly executed, and both will fall down.
You should travel to Europe, lot of buildings are 200-300 years old. My mom building has been build in 1808… so above 200 year old… and it will certainly be occupy for a very long time… these kind of thick stone wall do not ages… and even the roof support in wood (meaning whole tree trunk) also do age when well maintained)… neighbor house is 600 years old and still very fine.
Great video, was always curious about this. Another threat is whether society values maintaining the property. For example, the pandemic work from home phenomenon. Just imagine how much less people will value offices when we have sufficient virtual reality (e.g. Facebook Horizons Workrooms) for training, brainstorming, creativity, etc. The most valuable buildings will probably be maintained for residential, hotel, hospital, and other uses but many will probably face abandonment and eventual demolition.
2:30 That "small b25 plane" was a B25 medium bomber, like the ones launched from USS Hornet for the Doolittle raid, you made it sound like a piper cub but it's an armored twin engine medium bomber.
If you built the taller New York skyscrapers in Egypt, on the Giza plateau they would last far longer than in New York City or any region in the United States.
I’m a copywriter for a building design company. Construction is one of the most high tech industries around and they don’t get enough credit for it. They can literally send someone out in a field in the Finland wearing a helmet with 3D cameras and feed back a model of a finished megastructure back to someone in Australia within the hour. In that model, they’ve even plotted plug points. They even have robot dogs that go into the skeleton of a building, scans it and creates an image of the completed product. This narrator makes a very good point here though: engineers designing by hand over compensated by adding extra. The cheapness of modern buildings is actually a strange sign of progress. But I’m not ready to admit that the Shard or One Canada is as awe inspiring as St Paul’s or the Chrysler Building.
How does the generell corrosion takes effect with increasing temperatures and longer periods of rain/heat over time, besides weather extremes as mentioned in the video? Couldn‘t this lead to a faster and more building global decay that might not be fixable? And: how is the foundation effected by these changes? Doesn‘t the math of the building start to fail once ground water levels drop or rise, causing the very ground underneath the building but also its surroundings to get less dense and so on? What about changed wind systems in the city when entire blocks are redone/removed, higher amplitudes from city to rural areas could also impact this, right? Soo many questions… 😅 Thanks for your videos, much love from Berlin xx 🐒
My house is 150 years old and it doesn't feel old, and I know people that live in older ones. I guess we don't have hurricanes or earthquakes often (if at all) in the U.K. but I believe property should be designed with maintenance, liveability and resourcefulness in mind
It should be noted that roman concrete is still a bit of a mystery. Their concrete had ingredients that have been lost to time which allowed for much stronger concrete than we have today.
This question presupposes that a civilization will have the means and will to maintain these buildings uninterrupted for this span of time , something we don't have an example of . The ancient buildings survived periods of neglect lasting centuries or even millennia when their builders' civilization declined and/or lost interest in them . Modern construction just isn't engineered to survive that . As a side note , though we are more than capable of producing roman quality concrete , modern concrete is s#@t ; it's engineered to last long enough for the checks to clear .
Ice-free arctic by 2040. Massive agricultural output disruption (already occuring). Society as we know it may not be able to weather those "storms". Video should have discussed how long these building could survive in neglect.
Exactly, your answer is what I expected to hear addressed in the video. But the narrator only seemed to paint a rosey-coloured picture of how skyscrapers CAN hypothetically last forever with ongoing maintenance-- yet that's not the big question. It's whether society will deem these structures worthy of such investment and usage.
Half way through and this started reminding me of the only fools and horses episode with trigger and his broom with all its new parts! Of course they will last for centuries if you keep replacing pieces
Having grown up in Europe, I’m always amused when an American friend breathlessly talks about a building in America that’s over 100 years old. My _elementary school_ was over 300 years old.
By technicality, we already have examples of a 500 year old skyscraper; there's an interesting city of mud buildings in Yemen, that place has been dubbed "Manhattan of the Desert" if I'm correct
Lesson n1. Steel rusts. Anything that has steel cannot last forever and will not be economically viable to repair it as well. Pantheon, Hagia Sophia, Florence cathedral and other great buildings that still stand they do not use steel! You want forever buildings? Stone or brick and mortar are your options.
It’s very economically viable to repair, refit and remodel steel buildings. We do it everyday in every city in the world. Entire structures (like the Golden Gate Bridge) are forever being replaced. We have good examples of structures made of stone and brick that still exist but millions have also deteriorated, collapsed etc.
The Parthenon in Athens was built with iron connectors between the marble segments, designed to add resistance to earthquakes and other lateral forces. The iron connectors were coated with a lead alloy to prevent rust, and as such remained operational for thousands of years. About 100 years ago, a restoration attempt used new non coated steel connectors and they quickly rusted.
@@heidirabenau511 I'm from a mid sized (90k) city in Germany. I know of at least 30+ buildings in the historic parts that are older than his time mark, mostly bei g of late medieval and pre 30years war time. And it was even bombed during WW2. Its ridiculous to put everything in American time frames. I mean for Peters sake, we do have two pubs that are more than twice the age of the American constitution.
Buildings aren't really supposed to last forever. Technologies, building codes, design trends, economy and society in general change all the time. You can only retrofit/alter/renovate a building so much that eventually it's more economically feasible to demolish the old building and construct a new one. EDIT: of course, I agree with what they said that we can extend the lifespan of buildings through sensible design decisions at the early stages to consider possibilities for renovation/alteration/retrofitting and to minimize the environmental impact of materials as they undergo through their life cycle. But there's a limit to all that. The challenge is all in balancing the costs.
The Empire States Building resisted in 1945 an impact of a B-25 bomber. The World Trade Center Towers collapsed by an impact of each one B757 passenger jets.
Also the 757 passenger jet flew at maximum speed at a hollow office tower that had more windows than steel slats. The empire bomber was not trying to cause maximum damage by comparison.
no. its all a way for the princes and other criminals to launder money in real estate. just like in china, its building for the sake of building, if they stop, the economy breaks down, thats why they have ghost towns
I think a good discussion would be focusing more on the changing use of these buildings. One of the things that is happening now in some areas is there are old skyscrapers with little to no tenants in their office space, especially after covid. Converting them to residential is an option but the floor plans are larger than most residential buildings and the conversion is costly. I am interested to see what options and projects pop up for buildings like that.
There's always the first iron framed building in the world in Shropshire England. The Shrewsbury Flax mill may only have five storeys, but it's the great great grandpa of all metal~framed skyscrapers and is still standing at 225 years old, built in 1797!
i guess people didnt think about what happens when a 50 puls story building needs renovation or crumbles. skyscrapers are a short sighted solution to poor city planning
The History Channel had a series called Life After People. It hypothesized what the world would be like if humans were gone. In one episode, they specifically discussed skyscrapers. And it was thought skyscrapers would survive without maintenance for 150-200 years. The episodes are posted on YT.
If we're going to make a correct comparison, it would be the towers of Bologna. How many towers of Bologna do you see standing today? People often tout urban myths and legends that things were built better back then, but they often utterly fail to forget that, even old buildings in Europe, have been rebuilt and refurbished in some manner that has largely replaced most of its old components, making it like the Ship of Theseus
@@uhohhotdog You don't have to remodel something built well, and rewire I thinknis mainly an issue because existing structures weren't built with electricity in mind (or even known of). Add utility corridors in the wall and you're fine.
Do you mean stone walls as supports? Because that's more costly than building a steel frame building. Even more so you can only go so tall with stone walls, and this video is talking about skyscrapers.
@@nickoli0101 Ya you certainly couldn't go as tall. I'm not saying we should get rid of concrete and steel, but I would like to see a much higher fraction of builds, say 20%, as 3-5 storey stone buildings. As far as urban density is concerned 5 stories is generally good, and stone architecture adds a lot of value to a neighborhood, along with possibly lower environmental impact and much longer life expectancy. More costly but higher value if you look beyond the individual developer/short pay back period.
Another englishman replies. Yeah yeah, cheers. Like most stats and records it's down to interpretation. There's an argument that the first metal framed building is in Shrewsbury in the UK. Only five storeys high and brick skinned, nevertheless it's the first use of an iron frame with iron beams, columns and tie rods between. Happily it actually beats the two hundred years target too. Still standing, the Shrewsbury Flax mill was constructed in 1797 yes really. 225 years old and counting.
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Wind ~ carried particulates are a worldwide cause of erosion. Enough time, wind and sand create awe inspiring shapes in rockfaces let alone buildings. Basically a timelapse version of you having a go with the odd million or two sheets of glass / sandpaper.
Concrete and steel are inferior to stone, that's why buildings nowadays are lucky if they survive 100 years but ancient buikdings with stone still stand after thousands of years.
@@uhohhotdog The video talks about a 20 year old building already being retrofitted at the end. Yes the monumental buildings might last "indefinitely", but the average tower does not have such an expectancy.
@@XMysticHerox True to both points, although I understand most of the stone buildings were lost not because the building decayed, but because of a limited understanding of foundations and destruction by ground shifting or earthquake.
Thinking that our current levels of engineering knowledge & technological capability will last beyond the effects of climate change is a presumption as big as any of these buildings. Social stability may be the *most* important aspect of maintaining large buildings.
2 questions that I really wished to hear their answers in this video:
1) How the heck can you replace the skeletal beams of a skyscraper?
2) How long will they last without maintenance?
Yes, I wanted to ask question 2 as well. How long would they last without maintenance?
And what i wonder is what happens if nothing is done, do they collapse?
@@MaxxMcGeePrivate eventually, yes.
@@tacovansambeek I think the answer depends heavily on the climate the ruin will find itself in. Constant frost and thaw cycles will erode structures much faster than a desert climate.
But yes, I wish the video had gone into more detail there. I'd love to hear some ballpark numbers for different buildings.
The refitted tower in Shenzhen gives a hint to the answer of your second question: since it was in use from 2002 it lasted 20 years. But if you wonder how long it would last after an apocalypse, I guess it will require a disaster or two before you can answer that questíon as there probably won't be many people surveying building safety lol
"How many buildings over 300 years old do you know that are still being occupied?" Me living in New England: A LOT of them. And Granted that's nothing compared to Europe/Asia
A simple brick row house is more reliable that a pencil in the sky made of glass, concrete and steel.
@@JohnFromAccounting Can confirm.
A little bit of retrofitting and maintenance and thing can last forever.
House im living in rn existed since atleast the 1900's.
And when it comes to structure these things are tough even when they go without any maintenance they don't collapse.
My previous house (in England) was built in the 1670s and it still had it's original timber frame. Okay, it had warped with age, but none of the beams had needed to be replaced.
When the writer only knows the suburban hellscape prevalent in the US..
Yeah lol when he said this my immediate response was... a lot.. haha
"How many 200 or 300yo buildings do you know that are still being occupied" an Italian- "my garden shed dates back to 200ad"
That's so beautiful. I hope I could go to Europe in the future. It's just too expensive.
Me (Germany) looking out the window: oh, a massive church from 1200ad and a whole historic town centre built in the years around and after.... We had luck with the bombs here, nothing significant was around to bomb in WW2...
Pretty much every cathedral in Europe?
@@omniyambot9876 Most of Europe is considerably cheaper than the USA.
@@eduardof7322 oh interesting, unfortunately, I live in SEA 3rd world.. The day will come I will see you nice European people and your masterpieces.
Most of Europe has plenty of building exceeding 200 years old that are still being occupied. I live in one here in the Netherlands, built around 1720, still in great condition.
A thatched-roof cottage listed in the Domesday book is still occupied, closing in on a thousand years later.
There a building on my road a chapel build in 1850 & still occupied by group of religious people according to Siri & Alexa it’s 172 years old, house I live in with my parents is 117 years ago build in 1907 & still standing only the utility room & conservatory aren’t that old the rest of the house is. Hypothetically Sky Scraper could last 1000 years but it would have to be maintained in & out & lobby part probably would of been flooded by then with rising sea levels.
What part of "skyscraper" don't you understand?
@LTNetjak all the stone is still the same. worden doorframes, window frames etc have been replaced. Rooftiles were replaced in 1890 and have since been replaced one by one whenever one broke. Wooden floor was replaced in 1860, and a new kitchen was added in 1930.
@@howieduwit2551 skyscraper is a building too, both require maintenance, and the better they're built, the longer they last. One is just taller than the other.
“How many two hundred or three hundred year old buildings do you know”-I'm puzzled. Aren't centuries old churches, for example, entirely normal? I can't count how many I've been in. And there are plenty of old (and still active) administrative and residential buildings, in England and in continental Europe; with stone construction it largely seems to be a question of whether the roof is maintained. And whether there's a pogrom.
same tought ... the answer in my head was ... "more then i would be able to count ... just walk through european citys"
Yes, not just century old there are dozens an dozens of churches that are over a thousand years old.
@@JohnFromAccounting I've just looked it up and a number of the churches I used to go to in Northumberland when I was a kid were 12th and 13th century, with only fragments of older buildings remaining. So not _that_ old. ;)
It's a bit like the "Earthquakes are rare" line, uuh, depends on where you live, obviously? Seems to have been kinda US/NYC focused.
@@Sp4mMe Not exactly, poke around Europe and you will find entire towns abandoned due to Shit old construction standards no one wishes to live in said death traps. Yes, a few iconic buildings were overbuilt, vast majority are not and will subsequently deteriorate faster and fall down sooner. How many Chinese buildings are built with complete Shit? Look at all these concrete/steel structures built near salt water... 100% guaranteed to fail and fail soon. Only question is HOW soon.
I feel like on of the most important considerations is the financial aspect. The pyramids have lasted millenia but they haven't needed refurbishment every 100 years, like the steel beams in skyscrapers will need according to this video. While it's possible, if its not profitable or affordable, then skyscrapers won't last very long
@@rajanarasimhan Tell that to the Pharaoh's immortal spirit. Enjoy the curse.
@@rajanarasimhan the roman temples and catholic churches are less old but heavily used
Yes, but they eroded away, they were 0% profitable and they were only used as a tomb.
@ Well there was no concept of profit at the building period, so that's not really relevent. At they have only really erroded in the last few hundred years because the protective cover stones were removed.
The pyramids for sure had maintenance during the Egyptian empire, they are standing right now but far from their original look
In England & Europe you can't throw a stone without hitting a 100+year old building
This is true in the USA also, however after the war there was a significant up tick in materials robustness, many houses have asbestos siding which is just about impervious to the elements, if the roofing was asbestos also it'd last just about forever. That the thing about asbestos as long as you don't disturb it its very very very stable. In fact there was vastly more danger from disturbing asbestos than just leaving it alone. Anyway alot of mill houses in the USA have asbestos siding and will approach 100 years old soon millions of them having been build in the 40s and 50s. I wouldn't be supprised if as long as the roof is kept in repair and the asbestos siding left alone those houses could last hundreds of years.... they aren't great houses but the shell is quite robust.
Plesase don't throw that 600 million year old stone
Sorry it just had to be said. England=Europe
@@itsalexcollin yeah I first started with just England and cba to change it to much.
@@itsalexcollin not for long once i step in
The concrete of the Parthenon is quite different from modern concrete. We use steel reinforced concrete, which is stronger but because the steel inside it corrodes it's not as long lasting.
You mean Pantheon in Rome right? Parthenon of Athens is made of marble and stone, not concrete
@@penguasakucing8136 Yes.. the roman pantheon was in the video.
Duh
I hope that someday concrete would be strong without steal beams. And skyscrapers wouldn't had this problem.
Just use stainless steel reinforcement 💰💰💰💰💰
There's building in my local city approaching 1,000 years old, the house I grew up in was built is almost 400 years old. For a list that's "not that long", I can think of countless examples of older buildings still standing
The video is specifically about skyscrapers though, none of which are that old.
@@Antonio-wh3oq The statement was about any building...
@@Antonio-wh3oq But he makes comparison to pyramids and roman structures and then refers to such old buildings as rarely inhabited.
The list is pretty long. Most larger cities in the world have a few. The Americas are the exception obviously as most cities are quite new.
The taller the building the more upkeep they require
The impressive thing about the pyramids and the 2 thousand year old buildings in Rome is that they have made it through millennia without even having proper maintainance or preservation efforts for most of their history. I really wonder how long would skyscrapers last if we just left them there, without fixing or modifying anything.
Yep, that's the real question. I think the steel/glass towers would last only a few decades. Once a decent amount of windows break moisture gets in everywhere it will rust away.
@@Sunlight91
That´s what I was thinking. Stone and metallic skyscrapers like the Empire State or the Chrysler building... I can see them lasting for centuries even without maintenance. They were built in a similar fahsion as old churches and cathedrals. But the One World Trade Center or the Burj Khalifa? Yeah, I really don´y think they could last a whole century if they were suddenly abandoned. Plus, the fact that a hundred years ago people didn´t have the exact numbers and built everything with a fat margin of error, makes them be unnecessarily more solid and resistant than what they actually have to. In contrast with todays buildings which are "just as solid as they need to be" for a building that keeps itself in use and in constant maintenance.
@@eduardof7322 The "stone" in old skyscrapers is never structural. They're not built like old churches and cathedrals.
Survivor bias with ancient buildings is a consideration, also. The Romans built concrete structures left, right, and center, but there aren't all that many left standing today in marvelous condition! Roman buildings not infrequently fell apart before they had time to be abandoned if contemporary accounts are anything to go by--the insulae of Rome were incredibly dangerous. Most of the surviving Roman mega-structures were used as churches/or mosques at some point, and were either maintained or modified extensively over the millennia.
I don't know that the pyramids are a good 'ancient equivalent' for skyscarpers--impressive that they were engineered and built in the first place, less impressive that they remain standing. They'll last as long as the stone does, because they're essentially a highly engineered, very elegant, pile of rocks in an environment ideally suited for their preservation. We also tend to think the pyramids amazingly well preserved because we've never seen them with their original cladding--all the exterior stones they had originally are either worn away or were scavenged for other construction projects. They're still impressive, but definitely don't look how they would if they'd received maintenance & been fixed up occasionally!
I think it would be immensely cool for one of the space billionaires to offer some pocket change for the restoration of a pyramid or two, along the lines of what's being done for the Athenian Acropolis and the Colosseum of Rome.
@@Strider_Bvlbaha Hi, could you provide your sources of ancient romans writing about the instability of the buildings please? I am very interested in the matter. Didn't the people in the middle ages had a distaste for roman architecture though? They repurposed temples and turned them into churches but grand roman villas and amphitheaters were of no use to them. The colosseum was notably used as quarry which is the reason why it is in ruins.
The Antwerp Tower (in Antwerpen) is a former office tower from 1974, located next to the Flemish Opera in the heart of the city.
The existing tower building has been stripped and transformed into a residential tower with 200+ apartments and commercial functions and offices in the base of the building.
I can see that tower from my bedroom window.
The Ship of Theseus thought experiment comes to mind! At what point does a skyscraper ceases to be the original itself, as most of its constituent parts are replaced with newer modern materials 😁
I mean, does it even matter? as long it's still being used well, who cares if some philosopher says x and another philosopher says y?
A thing only has meaning until you give it meaning. The Ship of Theseus’ meaning was given. Its meaning was not inherent to its materials.
It would be like if a residential high rise had all of its parts refurbished, but the original attendants still occupied it.
@@madmanthan21 The building itself doesn’t care if it’s the original or not. So long as everyone observing it agrees that it’s the same building, then for all practical purposes, it’s the same building.
This thought was heavy on me as well. When does it stop being the original building? We'd be inadvertently creating modern iconography
I think the point is being lost by the above comments in that, the Pantheon and Giza piramids are largely still the originals hence you can call it preservation. If a skyscraper or any historic building is largely replaced by new parts is it still preservation or is it closer to just tearing it down and building an exact replica?
My current office building was built in 1630.
It's almost 400 years old. Still stands, and the climate inside the building is much better than any modern building I've worked in, that had automatic climate control BS. :D
It’s because they actually used to insulate old buildings.
I’d bet my last dollar that the climate (location) has a lot more to do with it than the building’s climate control.
we cannot even build a Millenium Tower in San Francisco, without it turning into a leaning tower of Piza.
@@Gumshrud1 San Francisco is built for Europe style structures no taller than 7 stories high.
Most of Edinburghs Old Town is centuries old, still used, occupied today and are grade listed heritage buildings. So unless there’s a major disaster, the Old Town of Edinburgh will look the same for the next 500 years as it has for the last 500 years ! Who needs skyscrapers !
Old town Edinburgh is wonderful. I have been there twice. I was gobsmacked when I was told those four story stone buildings had been occupied for four and five hundred years! I had the pleasure of drinking a pint at many pubs throughout Scotland and the UK that had been serving adult beverages for longer than my home country , America has existed.
@@tomcartwright7134 There are a few pubs in Britain which claim to be older than Scotland itself! Keep in mind, Scotland is the oldest country in the UK, too.
Some of Edinburghs old buildings are higher than 10 stories high. You never notice as they're built in a valley.
Have stayed there and can confirm. However, the floors in the place we stayed could not be considered level. You could not have set a marble on the floor anywhere in the flat and then expect it to stay put.
My house is 325 years old and a pleasure to live in. Building fabric is cob (adobe), rubble, wood. Roof is stone tile and lead on semi squared wood structure. All systems have been updated through its life. Maintenance is light but vital. Currently warmed in winter by Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP). It works great because of the basic qualities of the structure. Naturally warm in winter and cool in summer. Longevity is about a quality, reparable structure that can accept new technologies as they happen. I bet this house will last another 325 years (our local cathedral is older than 650). Location is Exeter, England.
The Empire State Building and others from the same era will out last the modern and taller structures. Many of the new buildings are held together by smaller gauge steel, and adhesives which have not been tested over long periods of time.
Also money. Cheaper to build a building that's closer to an IKEA furniture in quality, than build actual quality that will stand for hundreds of years. Build cheap, knock it down in 30-50 year, build something new, repeat.
Also, people actually like the Empire State Building and it has historical significance, so people are more likely to put money into keeping it standing
@@LordManhattan how true is this? The Empire State Building was built in almost a year with a lot less technology. While construction these days takes a lot longer. The Shanghai tower took around 5 years for example.
The problem with metal frame buildings is that metal has fatigue. They will eventually come crashing down.
A building will last longer if it becomes iconic too. The Empire State and Chrysler building will probably always have people to protect and maintain them (like a piece of art), but most skyscrapers in history just end up being demolished when they are no longer required.
The same applies to aircraft in my opinion. The older aircraft were designed using slide rules and the margin of safety was wide due to not having exact numbers. Aircraft today are build using CAD and the margin of safety is calculated exactly. No adding margins “just in case” so the added margins aren’t there to add to its life time.
Airplanes in video about scyscrappers? Daring today, aren´t we?
@@PROVOCATEURSK yup that’s way I’m rolling today..
Aircraft are very, very far in the opposite direction. With the exception of Boeing in the last decade or so (heh) aircraft are far, far safer nowadays than they were even a few decades ago. CAD has only improved aircraft safety.
@@planefan082 my point wasn’t they are less safe. It was to say that instead of having a large fudge factor for margin of safety today the margin is quantified almost exactly. For instance a 50% margin in the 60’s really would have been 75% or more. Today a 50% margin is almost exactly 50%.
@@kaptainkaos1202 I'm simply stating that most manufacturers aim higher than 50%, that's all
For those who are curious how long skyscrapers (especially in the United States) would last WITHOUT maintenance, there is a History Channel TV show called "Life After People" from around 2008-2010 which looks at exactly this subject. The show doesn't posit some kind of disaster scenario, it just examines what would happen to the built remnants of human civilization over the centuries if every human on earth suddenly vanished. You can find parts of it on RUclips, since I don't think they play it on History anymore.
You need to also consider the foundation. How steady is the bedrock, will the structure shift, will the building topple over?
The first skyscrapers were built on solid granite foundations but more recent ones are built on less solid foundations that rely on displacement to prevent subsidence. These foundations must have a limited lifespan which will affect the lifespan of the building.
Cough... Millennium Tower... cough
But they can’t be demolished practically either so the result is mass destruction
While I enjoyed the video and the information that it was trying to present, I can't help but think the answer was slightly misleading. The answer to the question was basically, "Skyscrapers will last indefinitely if we refurbish them a couple of times every century and spend copious amounts of money on maintaining them".
When you look at some of the old buildings in Europe that have stood for centuries, and they've probably had very little maintenance in that time- I'm sure St Paul's Cathedral or the Pantheon haven't needed to be completely pulled apart piece by piece, and then reassembled every century.
You'll be surprised at the amount of maintenance old cathedrals in Europe had. They are always undergoing some work : the roof, an arch, heavy cleaning of the facade, the wooden work, etc.
The Great Pyramid didn’t get shorter due to “erosion”, at least not primarily. The outer casing stones were removed and recycled to build other things over the millennia. That’s also why so many other pyramids haven’t survived, because they had cores made up of rubble, and when the casing stones were taken they crumbled.
The biggest issue is that Art Deco skyscrapers like the Empire State are no longer being built and those designs are replaced by flimsy glass and concrete buildings that probably can’t last 30 years without major maintenance, and will have to have all their materials replaced probably within the century if we don’t tare them all down, which is much more likely
Here in Hungary we have buildings that are over 500 years old and they're in great condition
But none of them skyscraper
I like
@@texxstalker
The Ulm Minster
161.53 meters high
Start of construction: 1377
Opened: 1890
@@texxstalker the world's tallest building for hundreds of years was Lincoln cathedral, England, whose spire reached to 500ft high, it only lost that title when an earthquake felled it around 300 years ago, but the main church is still there and over 900 years old
The problem with modern skyscrapers they are engineered to maximize usable (profitable) space. The old buildings mentioned here made with totally another engineer mindset.
My house is well over 200 years old. Still standing strong 😎 even holding up over 1 meter of snow fall on the roof every year.
Must be a nice skyscraper.
I feel like anything can last a millennia under the guise of "as long as we keep replacing pieces of it and bringing it up to code"
A lot of the old buildings are still working with all of the original stonework, half-timbering, etc. though ... even with updated utilities
True. Amazing how fast highways deteriorate when not maintained. Abandoned sections of Route 66 are often barely discernible as roads.
@@BrBill that's because cars and trucks absolutely love to destroy their infrastructure. Completely unsustainable.
Trains however...
@@BrBill Exactly, modern structures deteriorate VERY quickly -- a lot faster than I think most people would even be comfortable knowing about. Both steel and reinforced concrete are inherently susceptible to deterioration. And a lot of people forget that the interiors of buildings are not designed for the elements. And so once you have leaky roof or broken window, then all bets are off, particularly in climates where there are wide temperature ranges with rain and snow.
Just like Triggers broom🤣
A lot of 200-300 year old buildings are still standing and being occupied. Its a very US-centric view of the world to say there not.
My house literaly predate collumbuse's discovery of the americas, and its still standing just fine
Yeah, 200+ year old buildings are everywhere except in the US
Yeah, my building predates the fall of Constantinople.
Not really. The channel owner isn’t from the US so it’s a bit silly to call it a US centric view.
I do think he is referring to large buildings.
"Afterall how many 200 or 300 year old building do you know, that are currently still standing, and being occupied?"
Hello, this is Czech republic, come to almost any historic town center and you will see even 500 yo building still lived in.
Important to remember that the pyramids and the Pantheon are only one of the many thousands of buildings from their eras that survived. Today's skyscrapers are built with excellent engineering, and top materials and have gone through tons of computer modeling. It'll be really cool to see these buildings last hundreds or even thousands of years. Even as the cityscape around them would constantly evolve.
They won't.... almost all of them have varies types of seals that are relatively vulnerable to UV... meaning they have a lifespan of 50-100 years max. After those fail mainly in the windows... the rest of the building will go in another few years, and the structure will probably fail not long after.
A pyramid is nothing more than a pile of bricks in the shape of a triangle. Not hollow but with a few passages inside. Not really a building is it. It's a giant mausoleum.
yeah those buildings were actually the result of tens of thousands of years of trial and error plus we dont know the Roman formula for cement. Whatever they used worked better than what we use now.
@@Wingnut353 that’s why we have maintenance
Kailasa Temple is far greater than the Parthenon ever was.
I'd like to see a video on them replacing steel beams in a skyscraper.
I will suggest that part of the video is somewhat inaccurate or maybe an exaggeration. However I've been involved in a lot of repairs and retrofits so yes you can do it. You shore up the loads that the beam is carrying then you can remove the beam and replace it or you can add strengthening to it.
I had this question for so long, thanks for clarifying Tomorrow's Build
You did not.
TB: How many 200 year old buildings you know, that are still occupied?
Me, being from Europe: Like, I guess, few thousand?
There are whole streets and neighborhoods full of 200 year old plus buildings in London.
@@screenname1 not only in London. Greetings from Prague tho
@@screenname1 London is actually relatively new compared to most of the UK due to most of it being destroyed in the Great Fire.
@@katbryce The great fire destroyed only a small portion of London. It was also 350 or so years ago. London is over 2,000 years old. It was once called Trinovantes, or New Troy. This apparently was because exiled Trojans settled there.
@@screenname1 It destroyed most of The City of London, which is only 1 square mile out of what we consider London to be today.
"How many building do you know that are two or three hundred years old that are still occupied"- quite a few even in my own city.
Two facts popped up that had me gasp:
The Empire State Building is so robustly designed, it weighs twice as much as the taller Burj Kalifa.
There are 100+m tall buildings in China that barely see 20 years of use. That is a super short shelf life for such a massive investment.
An interesting side note. The Brooklyn bridge which was made in the 1800’s, is 5x stronger than required!
0:37 excuse me, I don’t live in the USA.
Frankly your situation is rarer than most. It should be “excuse me, I live in Europe.” To a large extent Europe is one of the only places with buildings of that age still standing and in widespread use. If you think of Australia, Asia and Africa, as well as the Americas, except a few really old religious or government structures, they’re mostly newer structures.
Definitely missed a couple of key questions as noted already. One critical one; the steel reinforcing embedded inside the concrete. Once moisture gets to that steel it rusts, creating concrete cancer. It’s not trivial to repair and I imagine not possible in some cases. The answer to this surely is to use marine grade stainless steel. Sure, it costs more in the beginning yet it avoids the need to replace it.
Or do what they do in Miami, and just let the buildings collapse with the people still in them.
I'd be really interested to see a follow up video on how we would go about demolishing a super tall skyscraper?
Set fire on it.
By floor by floor deconstruction. You can see the process in the Deutsche Bank Building in NYC.
The problem is, hypothethically, all else but technology doesn't change. At some point it would be more costly to maintain an old building than to scrap it and build a new one. This is how most infrastructure fades. At some point it becomes an economical question whether it is good to maintain a old building.
You have never visited Europe, did you ? There are still buildings being used and occupied since Roman times.
Technology doesn't change? What are you smoking?
That wrinkled Old man is absolutely right, technology changes constantly and architecture technology is no different
@@agorillawithaplan1996 I would be flattered that you agree with me, if you hadn't prefaced it with wrinkled old man. If you have the bad luck of living as long as I have, I hope people treat you with equal respect.
Technology doesn't change? You must be smoking some good shit
0:41 : me living in a city with buildings 700+ years standing around and still being occupied:
Am I a joke to you?
I think reinforced concrete can have a relatively short life without maintenance. Once moisture gets to the reinforcing steel, it rusts and swells, cracking the concrete and admitting more moisture. Eventually the structure crumbles.
Then let's use a metal that does not corrode as easily as steel.
@@dannypipewrench533 It's not that simple, actually. Steel is strongly preferred for use with concrete because:
- Its coefficient of thermal expansion is very similar to concrete's. Temperature differences cause little disturbance as the materials expand/contract together, so long as the structure is not restricted to expand/contract.
- Iron, the main metallic component of steel, is an exceptionally abundant and cheap metal. Structural construction materials must be cheap because we use an awful lot of them when building stuff.
- Aluminium, the one other highly abundant metal for structural use, has a critical flaw in its performance--it experiences fatigue failure once it goes through enough cycles of loading. Steel does not, so long as it remains loaded below its elastic limit, it can perform well for a much longer time. Aluminium also happens to be more expensive than steel on a per-volume and per-mass basis, because its processing from ores is far more energy-intensive.
@@LucarioBoricua Alright, then how can we prevent the moisture from reaching the reinforcing steel?
I love it when somebody gives me a quick breakdown of materials science on RUclips, this is not the first time by the way. (Not being sarcastic.)
@@LucarioBoricua So is there an artificial alternative to steel or concrete? Like could we in theory develop a material that has better performance and safety margins, but is cheap to engineer on a large scale?
@@sorcerykid people could use brick structures like the romans. its not very fashionable to build arches and vaults but they last very long. the colloseum is 57m tall, thats like 20 floors. but they built towers up to 150m . we have machines now that make the work os a mason in minutes and we produce much more bricks nowadays, it would be cheaper
We have buildings in my town (Oregon) that date to the 1840's and 50's. Some restored, some pretty much original. It amazes me that newer 20th century buildings are tumbling down. But the old stuff is still standing!
0:35 how many 200 or 300 years old buildings do i know? well.. obviously not in the US since its just about 300 years old.. but in europe there are entire towns with every building older then that. im from Lucerne (switzerland), and there are at least 100 buildings older then 300 years in and around that town... and you can find churches and cathedrals even older then 1000 years near almoust every larger town in europe.. except for germany since the US dropped bombs on most of them.
Yeah, you are right. I just have to drive across the fields and pass enough farms where it says 16XX or 17XX.
@@ungesagt lol.. totally forgot about the farmhouses. But i guess proud farmers would not change that date if they replaced the farmhouse with a new one, so im not so sure if all of them are really as old as they say.... :)
@@falsch4761 lmao, those houses get blown away with a bit of wind
That drywall material also is just shit since it already breaks if you even as much as bump into it softly
@@evo3s75
"A bit of wind"
The vast majority of wood houses would only get blown away in 200 mph + wind. Imagine calling a tornado or hurricane "A bit of wind"
And back in those days, there was very little steel in the buildings, so the people of the 1700s had much better cell reception
Shelf life is the time between when something is produced and when it is put into service. Service life is the term you're looking for.
Yeah that’s all awesome - but if you don’t keep them up to date, as in my home city of Detroit, they don’t even last 100 years. We lost many of our sky scrapers put up in the early 1900s due to abandonment - they did not last that long. Some only lasting less than 80 years… and we’re not usable before their demolition as well.
In New Orleans we have abandoned skyscrapers and we recently had collapsed partially built skyscrapers and it's very demoralizing to think about the future of these tall buildings from that perspective
"Well, suprisingly the answer is 'maybe'." How is that surprising? It's the most common answer to questions where the answer lies in the future.
3:39 The Pantheon was built of "roman" (pozzolan) concrete, which has a much longer lifespan than modern steel-reinforced concrete, especially in wet, salty environments. That's why bridge abutments are sometimes made of the much-more-expensive Roman concrete. I doubt the Pantheon has been completely re-built every 100 years, but today's concrete skyscrapers will need at least that kind of maintenance. As we saw last year in Miami, extreme conditions can make medium and high-rise buildings extremely unsafe in only a few decades.
Came looking for this comment. Yes it's all very well saying tower will last with maintenance, but don't we just know that literally most building owners will not do this unless things are critical. I really hope we don't see more Champlain Towers incidents but unfortunately, we probably will.
Wow, that building was just 40 years old.. I wonder how many other buildings like this are just waiting to collapse.
I am super interested in how our first wooden skyscrapers will hold up in 50 years.
Keep with termite services.
Never mentioned the Pantheon in the city of Rome completed in 120 AD!
the chrysler building is no the first man made structure to soar above 300m. The Eiffel Tower has been standing at 312m ever since 1889.
They probably meant building
This video is about skyscrapers, which is a tall habitable building. It is not about iron structures.
As the others stated, you're conflating "skyscrapers" with "towers". No one lives in the Eiffel Tower's entire trunk, though there is a restaurant/observatory I believe on the lower level (can't remember, been decades since I've been).
As someone who massively prefers older architecture styles, I honestly hope that most of these modern skyscrapers won’t be around in 100 years, and that we revert back to more traditional styles.
Older styles of homes were built using peasant/slave labor and an abundance of natural resources. We would be paying multitudes of journeyman carpenters and masons 50/hr plus for that quality of work.
@@dirtyorganboy2264 not every house built in those times was a palace. most of these glass skysrapers cost hundreds of millions and if you talk about slavework look to dubai and china. most of these modern projects go over the budget and cost countries lots of money. people didnt invent robots, automation and cnc machines to live in concrete boxes, those technologies were made so that everyone could live in a great house without paying a lot.
imagine living in a time when machines can do the work of a sculptor, a mason or a carpenter in minutes and build uninteresting glass boxes that dont make use of that.
The pyramids takes the cake for the long lasting buildings without any structural maintenance, period.
I mean, yeah. A pyramid is the perfect shape and there's not much that can go wrong with (mostly) solid stone except surface erosion. However, it also takes the cake for lowest ratio of occupiable to total space.
The pyramids have no occupiable space. They're not buildings at all
@@Zimarg that's not true. You could fit a couple of offices in there. Just too bad there's only stairs and no elevator.
Great video. The UK has been on a post-modern building boom last 12 years and has built more than ever. I wondered how long they could last in reality.
Most blocks are meant to last 50-75 years according to two Architects I knew.
It is a con that you are sold 125 years /150 or 900 years lease!!
I watched some of them being erected and they all look flimsy. Mind you, I am no expert so I stick to an old fashion brick constructed house.
I wish you could tell the reasons for replacing steel beams/colunns in these buildings other than corrosion, and how can they replace members in major structural elements.
Nice video, keep this good work up.
Stress causes cracks in steel beams all the time. It can take a long time to occur. Bridge inspections regularly reveal this kind of thing.
Beams probably can be replaced, with some meticulous engineering. But it's highly unlikely that columns can be replaced without hugely costly reinforcements put in place (You're basically talking about putting a giant steel web around the floors where the column(s) are to be replaced to distribute the loads).
@@sorcerykid Yup, basically you have to strip everything nonstructural out from the interior of building so you can build a termporary supporting infrastructure.
5:09 absolutely beautiful shots
0:40 - uhm... where I live it feels like it would be harder to find a lot of buildings which are not. The pharmacy I go to opened in the 13th century and is occupying the current store since the mid 1600s. So yeah - doubt the modern ones will stand this long and I am absolutely certain only ruins will remain of the crazy gulf monarchies in 100 years but with proper intensive and serious care I don't see why some of the very iconic landmarks won't make it into the 2300s.
I’d like to see a video about how the structural elements of older high rise buildings are maintained, upgraded and improved.
I would suggest looking at the channel Building Integrity. It has some excellent videos discussing how reinforced concrete ages. TLDR, water infiltrates the concrete, makes it less alkaline, it eventually stops protecting the rebar, which rusts and causes concrete spalling. Their discussion about concrete punch-through is also interesting. There are good designs poorly executed and poor designs properly executed, and both will fall down.
You should travel to Europe, lot of buildings are 200-300 years old.
My mom building has been build in 1808… so above 200 year old… and it will certainly be occupy for a very long time… these kind of thick stone wall do not ages… and even the roof support in wood (meaning whole tree trunk) also do age when well maintained)… neighbor house is 600 years old and still very fine.
I think you mean they DO age well.
@@VanillaMacaron551 haha! Yes, let me correct my message.
Bruh new york has most planes crashed into skyscrapers at this point 😭💀
Great video, was always curious about this. Another threat is whether society values maintaining the property. For example, the pandemic work from home phenomenon. Just imagine how much less people will value offices when we have sufficient virtual reality (e.g. Facebook Horizons Workrooms) for training, brainstorming, creativity, etc. The most valuable buildings will probably be maintained for residential, hotel, hospital, and other uses but many will probably face abandonment and eventual demolition.
2:30
That "small b25 plane" was a B25 medium bomber, like the ones launched from USS Hornet for the Doolittle raid, you made it sound like a piper cub but it's an armored twin engine medium bomber.
If you built the taller New York skyscrapers in Egypt, on the Giza plateau they would last far longer than in New York City or any region in the United States.
I think about this from time to time. Thanks for addressing it.
Eiffel tower was the first manmade structure that surpass the 300 meter mark, not Chrysler Building.
Fair. But not the first enclosed building. Very little of the Eiffel Tower can be considered "inside".
I’m a copywriter for a building design company. Construction is one of the most high tech industries around and they don’t get enough credit for it. They can literally send someone out in a field in the Finland wearing a helmet with 3D cameras and feed back a model of a finished megastructure back to someone in Australia within the hour. In that model, they’ve even plotted plug points. They even have robot dogs that go into the skeleton of a building, scans it and creates an image of the completed product. This narrator makes a very good point here though: engineers designing by hand over compensated by adding extra. The cheapness of modern buildings is actually a strange sign of progress. But I’m not ready to admit that the Shard or One Canada is as awe inspiring as St Paul’s or the Chrysler Building.
How does the generell corrosion takes effect with increasing temperatures and longer periods of rain/heat over time, besides weather extremes as mentioned in the video? Couldn‘t this lead to a faster and more building global decay that might not be fixable? And: how is the foundation effected by these changes? Doesn‘t the math of the building start to fail once ground water levels drop or rise, causing the very ground underneath the building but also its surroundings to get less dense and so on? What about changed wind systems in the city when entire blocks are redone/removed, higher amplitudes from city to rural areas could also impact this, right?
Soo many questions… 😅
Thanks for your videos, much love from Berlin xx 🐒
Great questions.
My house is 150 years old and it doesn't feel old, and I know people that live in older ones. I guess we don't have hurricanes or earthquakes often (if at all) in the U.K. but I believe property should be designed with maintenance, liveability and resourcefulness in mind
It should be noted that roman concrete is still a bit of a mystery. Their concrete had ingredients that have been lost to time which allowed for much stronger concrete than we have today.
0:38 literally my house lmao. occupied since the 1770s. ;) Church across the street is 400+ years old and still in service.
This question presupposes that a civilization will have the means and will to maintain these buildings uninterrupted for this span of time , something we don't have an example of . The ancient buildings survived periods of neglect lasting centuries or even millennia when their builders' civilization declined and/or lost interest in them . Modern construction just isn't engineered to survive that . As a side note , though we are more than capable of producing roman quality concrete , modern concrete is s#@t ; it's engineered to last long enough for the checks to clear .
Ice-free arctic by 2040. Massive agricultural output disruption (already occuring). Society as we know it may not be able to weather those "storms". Video should have discussed how long these building could survive in neglect.
Exactly, your answer is what I expected to hear addressed in the video. But the narrator only seemed to paint a rosey-coloured picture of how skyscrapers CAN hypothetically last forever with ongoing maintenance-- yet that's not the big question. It's whether society will deem these structures worthy of such investment and usage.
Half way through and this started reminding me of the only fools and horses episode with trigger and his broom with all its new parts!
Of course they will last for centuries if you keep replacing pieces
Having grown up in Europe, I’m always amused when an American friend breathlessly talks about a building in America that’s over 100 years old. My _elementary school_ was over 300 years old.
🤯
By technicality, we already have examples of a 500 year old skyscraper; there's an interesting city of mud buildings in Yemen, that place has been dubbed "Manhattan of the Desert" if I'm correct
Lesson n1. Steel rusts. Anything that has steel cannot last forever and will not be economically viable to repair it as well. Pantheon, Hagia Sophia, Florence cathedral and other great buildings that still stand they do not use steel! You want forever buildings? Stone or brick and mortar are your options.
It’s very economically viable to repair, refit and remodel steel buildings. We do it everyday in every city in the world. Entire structures (like the Golden Gate Bridge) are forever being replaced. We have good examples of structures made of stone and brick that still exist but millions have also deteriorated, collapsed etc.
The Parthenon in Athens was built with iron connectors between the marble segments, designed to add resistance to earthquakes and other lateral forces. The iron connectors were coated with a lead alloy to prevent rust, and as such remained operational for thousands of years. About 100 years ago, a restoration attempt used new non coated steel connectors and they quickly rusted.
Man… I love Skyscraper videos 🙌
How many buildings that are 200 or 300 years do you know... me an European: Yes.
Me in the UK:my house is from the Victorian era
@@heidirabenau511 I'm from a mid sized (90k) city in Germany. I know of at least 30+ buildings in the historic parts that are older than his time mark, mostly bei g of late medieval and pre 30years war time. And it was even bombed during WW2. Its ridiculous to put everything in American time frames. I mean for Peters sake, we do have two pubs that are more than twice the age of the American constitution.
Buildings aren't really supposed to last forever.
Technologies, building codes, design trends, economy and society in general change all the time.
You can only retrofit/alter/renovate a building so much that eventually it's more economically feasible to demolish the old building and construct a new one.
EDIT: of course, I agree with what they said that we can extend the lifespan of buildings through sensible design decisions at the early stages to consider possibilities for renovation/alteration/retrofitting and to minimize the environmental impact of materials as they undergo through their life cycle.
But there's a limit to all that. The challenge is all in balancing the costs.
Hi Tomorrow Build!!! I love your videos!! Hi from Greece!! I d like to see about a video from Greece and the hellenikon project
The Empire States Building resisted in 1945 an impact of a B-25 bomber. The World Trade Center Towers collapsed by an impact of each one B757 passenger jets.
The passenger jets were twice the size and used different fule
Also the 757 passenger jet flew at maximum speed at a hollow office tower that had more windows than steel slats. The empire bomber was not trying to cause maximum damage by comparison.
Are all those highrise buildings in Dubai fully utilized? Can the occupancy rates (if available) be trusted?
no and no
no. its all a way for the princes and other criminals to launder money in real estate. just like in china, its building for the sake of building, if they stop, the economy breaks down, thats why they have ghost towns
I think a good discussion would be focusing more on the changing use of these buildings. One of the things that is happening now in some areas is there are old skyscrapers with little to no tenants in their office space, especially after covid. Converting them to residential is an option but the floor plans are larger than most residential buildings and the conversion is costly. I am interested to see what options and projects pop up for buildings like that.
There's always the first iron framed building in the world in Shropshire England.
The Shrewsbury Flax mill may only have five storeys, but it's the great great grandpa of all metal~framed skyscrapers and is still standing at 225 years old, built in
1797!
i guess people didnt think about what happens when a 50 puls story building needs renovation or crumbles. skyscrapers are a short sighted solution to poor city planning
The History Channel had a series called Life After People. It hypothesized what the world would be like if humans were gone.
In one episode, they specifically discussed skyscrapers. And it was thought skyscrapers would survive without maintenance for 150-200 years.
The episodes are posted on YT.
If we're going to make a correct comparison, it would be the towers of Bologna. How many towers of Bologna do you see standing today?
People often tout urban myths and legends that things were built better back then, but they often utterly fail to forget that, even old buildings in Europe, have been rebuilt and refurbished in some manner that has largely replaced most of its old components, making it like the Ship of Theseus
Thank you for sharing the constructions of the world...
I would like to see a partial return to building with stone. The apearance, the strength, the environmental impact are all superior.
Until it’s time to remodel or rewire
@@uhohhotdog You don't have to remodel something built well, and rewire I thinknis mainly an issue because existing structures weren't built with electricity in mind (or even known of). Add utility corridors in the wall and you're fine.
Do you mean stone walls as supports? Because that's more costly than building a steel frame building. Even more so you can only go so tall with stone walls, and this video is talking about skyscrapers.
@@nickoli0101 Ya you certainly couldn't go as tall. I'm not saying we should get rid of concrete and steel, but I would like to see a much higher fraction of builds, say 20%, as 3-5 storey stone buildings. As far as urban density is concerned 5 stories is generally good, and stone architecture adds a lot of value to a neighborhood, along with possibly lower environmental impact and much longer life expectancy. More costly but higher value if you look beyond the individual developer/short pay back period.
@@neolithictransitrevolution427 Remodeling is about looks, not structure. Styles change over time.
Ya but how many times did the Pantheon and the Pyramids need to be retrofitted in order to last as long as they have?
Ironic an Englishman narrating saying how long buildings last, as in the UK they never let you knock them down.
Another englishman replies.
Yeah yeah, cheers.
Like most stats and records it's down to interpretation. There's an argument that the first metal framed building is in Shrewsbury in the UK.
Only five storeys high and brick skinned, nevertheless it's the first use of an iron frame with iron beams, columns and tie rods between.
Happily it actually beats the two hundred years target too.
Still standing, the Shrewsbury Flax mill was constructed in 1797 yes really. 225 years old and counting.
In my tiny village of 7000 people in Germany, the oldest building was built in the 14th century
The Gregorian calendar is a lie
Anything will last for centuries if you maintain it. The point of the question in the title is how long will skyscrapers lasts without maintainence?
I was seriously just thinking about this topic a day or two ago. Nice!
Shenzhen growth is incredible, but in the 80s its population was 300k not 30k
Ha this begs the old question. If you replace every piece of something, is it still the same object from when you started?
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Most of Egypt is a very dry desert so there is little to no erosion in that climate.
Wind ~ carried particulates are a worldwide cause of erosion. Enough time, wind and sand create awe inspiring shapes in rockfaces let alone buildings. Basically a timelapse version of you having a go with the odd million or two sheets of glass / sandpaper.
I saw in a documentary that modern skyscrapers (the one's covered in glass) have a estimated lifespan of 100yrs.
Wow, just wow! ✨
Concrete and steel are inferior to stone, that's why buildings nowadays are lucky if they survive 100 years but ancient buikdings with stone still stand after thousands of years.
Correct. Modern skyscrapers covered in glass are suppose to last around 100yrs.
@@dcptiv you didn’t finish the video
@@uhohhotdog The video talks about a 20 year old building already being retrofitted at the end. Yes the monumental buildings might last "indefinitely", but the average tower does not have such an expectancy.
Not any stone. Those buildings have stood for so long because they were built that way. Also survivor bias.
@@XMysticHerox True to both points, although I understand most of the stone buildings were lost not because the building decayed, but because of a limited understanding of foundations and destruction by ground shifting or earthquake.
Thinking that our current levels of engineering knowledge & technological capability will last beyond the effects of climate change is a presumption as big as any of these buildings.
Social stability may be the *most* important aspect of maintaining large buildings.