The state-of-the-art of building tall

Following on paper titled 'Tall Building Boom-Now Bust?' which concluded that Britain's recent demand for tall buildings was of an unprecedented high level, directly comparable in size to Americas Manhattan Island skyscraper boom of the 1920's, but that the construction market was ultimately heading for a recession, this second paper determines the global state-of-the-art of building tall buildings. This has been achieved by designing a questionnaire which captures the most pressing issues of the tall building process, targeting the questionnaire at the most active specialist tall building professionals around the globe, then delivering these questionnaires face to face, resulting in an 80% response rate. The results give great insight to the consensus of professional opinion across the globe and across the specialist sectors of the industry. This paper investigates five key areas: current state-of-the-art of the international tall building industry; build process of a tall building; tall building principal contractor key attributes; 'wins' and 'losses' inherent with building tall and new techniques from overseas or other industries.