In conversation with Steve Watts on tall buildings and vertical farms

By Steve Watts and Jamie Harris2020-02-28T06:00:00

Steve Watts, chair of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, talks to Jamie Harris

The past decade has been a boom time for high-rise development.

Between 2009 and 2019, 1,119 buildings of at least 200m high were completed worldwide, bringing the overall total to more than 1,600. The average in the 1990s was just 12 a year. They are also getting taller. The average height of the 100 tallest buildings worldwide has been moving steadily upward, from 307m in 2009 to 393m in 2019.

The function, form and location of skyscrapers is changing.

In the 1960s, a typical tall building would be described as an office building in North America built out of steel. And now, it is probably mixed-use, in Asia or the Middle East, and built out of composite construction. Of the 1,119 buildings, 52% were constructed in China.

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