is there a limit to how high a skyscraper can be built?

Answer 1

The only real limit is economics. Developers are in the business of making money, like everyone else. If you're going to build a building that high, would you be able to sell/rent the floorspace to get your money back plus profit? Is there a demand for that much floorspace? Would the cost of building it, with all the technical, political, statutory and planning issues involved make it worthwhile?

Of course there are other difficulties, but these are generally not the ones that ultimately determine whether or not a skyscraper project goes ahead. Site selection is one such criterion. Would a site suit the construction of a very tall building? What is the soil condition? What's its composition and is suitable? What's the density of the existing cityscape? If you're building an office building that could have half a million people working in it, what would happen at 5:30pm every weekday? Would the roads be able to cope? What would that do to the surrounding economy? And so on..

Technical obstacles can be overcome with the right technology, and most of the time the design of a building is determined by the technical constraints/difficulties. A lot of the time, this actually makes the building better aesthetically. The issues concerning lift heights and speed can be resolved with clever use of different shafts (the Petronas Towers in KL use express lifts up to about half the building, to go up further you'll need to change lifts. They also use double decker lifts to reduce waiting times). It's all within the wit of man.

But the ultimate determinant of whether a skyscraper project goes ahead are the depth of the paymaster's pocket, and his business sense.

Answer 2

For a steel frame sky scraper the practical limit is set by - of all things - the elevators. You would need too many elevators to get all of the people to the top in a practical way if they were bigger. Most tall skyscrapers are thinner at the top precisely because you want to have fewer people to get to the top floors.

The important limits on elevators are:

1. only one per shaft for safety
2. speed - go to fast and people throw up

Answer 3

No there is no limit. One (country) can built high skyscraper as much as he has the money. Limit is the money.

Answer 4

There will be limits imposed by Health and Safety for evacuation times and fire prevention measures for a start.

From an Engineering point of view the limiting factor will be the properties of the materials used to build it compared to the forces the building will be experiencing.

Answer 5

I would assume that once it reaches beyond the earth's atmosphere it would no longer be known as a skyscraper, maybe a spacescraper.

Answer 6

The skyscrapers can be built till it really scraps the sky!!!!

Answer 7

i can't answer that as i'm not a structural engineer but a few years ago there was a suggestion to put an object into a geostationary orbit, suspend cables from it to the ground and then build upwards using the cables as support

Answer 8

space, so it doesn't hit the stalites on it's way past ;)

if a structures base is wide enough, mathimatically, it can go on forever, if it has an incline that offsets structural pressure

like a tree with a wide trunk

Answer 9

Sum Thing to do with scaffoldings or some thing like that, but they do have a limit.

Answer 10

Yes it depends on the quality of the scaffolding!