Weber Thompson - Future of the High-Rise

The Future of the High-Rise Building Market

September 11 hurt the industry, but one A/E firm leader says the trends today will make for a strong market in the future.

By Robert Gardner
The Zweig Letter
April 24, 2006

Five years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the high-rise building market is as strong as ever, says Blaine Weber, principal of Weber + Thompson (Seattle, WA), a 42- person architecture firm specializing in the design of high-rise buildings.

The firm, he says, at the time of the attacks had two buildings in the design stage and one under construction. "All three ultimately proceeded and were successful," he says, "but there was concern on the part of our clients about lenders, insurance, carriers, and buyer perception."

He adds that, for a year after the attacks, there was tremendous fear about living and working in tall buildings, but that people do not seem overly concerned today."

Design changes post 9-11

Weber says that the attitudes of his current clients about high-rise buildings haven't changed much since September 11, "other than wanting to ensure that newer buildings conform to the very latest and most stringent building and fire codes." The demand for high-rise projects, he adds, is stronger than ever, taking regional fluctuations into account.

Weber says that, among the retrofitting and upgrading projects his firm has done, very few clients have mentioned September 11 as a motivating factor. The exception has been improvements to building security.

"The hard, cold truth is that structurally retrofitting a building to guard against terrorist-type actions is often just not economically feasible," Weber says. Indeed, he adds, it's impossible for a designer to design a building that sufficiently accounts for a September 11 type attack. "It is well understood that there is no way to preclude major damage that a fuel-laden, flying incendiary device could put on a structure," he says.

He does add, however, that architects and engineers have certainly adjusted their design priorities. "It goes without saying," Weber says, "that architects and engineers will pay more attention to redundancies, the type of structure that supports gravity loads, and to fire and life safety systems, in general, having learned from 9-11 how difficult it was, for example, just to escape a building that had damaged vertical circulation."

The future

Weber says that, the concern about terrorist attacks on high-rise buildings, while always present, is not causing an inordinate amount of concern. "Substantive measures have been taken to guard against airline hijacking," he says, "and while the likelihood of another event is always there, most people don't seem overly concerned."

In concert with people's comfort living and working in high-rise buildings, Weber says, is a movement of Americans back into urban centers. Regarding the residential side of high-rise market, he says that "there is a confluence of trends and drivers that will continue to bring people back to live in American cities and urban centers." These include having to meet growth management restrictions by building more high-density urban housing and Americans' desire to spend less time commuting. He adds that this is a major change in the way Americans want to live and not a fad.

He believes that the demand for urban living will remain strong through the next decade. Weber says that his firm is currently working on 10 high-rise residential projects and has had to turn down work.

The office high-rise market is down from a late '90s high, Weber says. "We have seen a dip in the number of office high-rise projects, but that is more market-related since the collapse of the dot-com period," he says. He says that he believes the majority of the larger office high-rises will be built overseas. "Most of the corporate icon office buildings will be built in Asia where they operate on a different set of conditions," he says.

Weber advises firms to study and follow the trends in the market to capitalize on the new demand. "Stay on top of trends, understand your clients' market, listen to the experts, and push for innovation and better design by showing your clients ways in which good design can demonstrably improve value," he says.

Firms should also not forget about the importance of research into building design and the design of fire and life safety systems. "Just like doctors and attorneys," Weber says, "we all have an ethical responsibility to learn from knowledge that is out there."

This article originally appeared in The Zweig Letter. To subscribe, call 1-800-466-6275 or visit the thezweigletter.com.