The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is a not-for-profit organisation for professionals focused on the inception, design, construction, and operation of tall buildings and future cities. By attending the conference, our delegation of buildings experts from WSP offices around the world could share their project experiences and learn from others.

Three of our engineers spoke at the event. Fatih Yalniz, Senior Vice President, USA presented the technical challenges and solutions of designing more practical, sustainable and livable tall buildings. His talk centred on the lessons learned from three major projects in New York.   

Alex Black-Roberts, Associate and Diego Padilla Philipps, Technical Director and Net Zero Lead, Building Structures, both based in the UK, presented their ground-breaking study on how to reduce carbon in tall buildings. By assessing different building types and materials, they are able to demonstrate how different design parameters impact the amount of upfront carbon, and discussed how they are using this tool to meet London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI) targets.

Many of the talks centred on decarbonisation – highlighting the most efficient methods of new build construction, the use of lower carbon materials like timber and reused steel, and best practice examples of high-rise building refurbishment and retrofit. Discussions also focused on the value these buildings bring to our cities, including the importance of providing critical infrastructure and placemaking as part of their development.