Two decades after the devastating terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, builders and architects are continuing to place an emphasis on safety in tall building designs.
New technology has increasingly seen advanced security systems integrated into structures via the use of smart technologies, with a greater embrace of international building codes.
That more universal standard has also made it easier for architects and structural engineers to share safety design information specific to high-rises.
Skyscrapers are also today required to have in place enhanced radio coverage systems to allow for greater emergency crew communication.
The United States has additionally approved nearly two dozen building and fire code modifications following investigations into what happened inside the World Trade Center on the day of the attack.
Designers have since placed a new emphasis on stairwell space. The stairwells in the 110-story twin towers were on the narrow side, contributing to a slow evacuation after the attacks.
According to the architectural magazine dezeen, “Scissor stairs are now discouraged and more logical pathways to multiple egress points are required. Wider stairways and backup lighting have also become mandatory.”
Lessons from the tragic day have also changed how elevators should be used in such structures.
The number of available elevators in the World Trade Center buildings varied depending upon the floor. “The system was not designed to be used in an emergency,” according to social research scientist Erica Kuligowski in the website The Conversation.
Today, many such new buildings are required to be “fitted with dedicated emergency elevators or an additional staircase.”
That elevators remain important in an emergency building situation, notes Kuligowski, was seen in the fact that at least 3,000 people in the WTC’s South Tower were able to safely evacuate the building via its elevators in the hour after the attack.
Notes the publication Quartz: most high-rise designs today include “using thicker glass on the lower levels, using reinforced concrete for a building’s core, installing back-up power systems, and reserving a dedicated elevator for firefighters.”
By Garry Boulard
