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ammg-old2 · 1 year

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We’re living through the birth of a new species of skyscraper that not even architects and engineers saw coming. After 9/11, experts concluded that skyscrapers were finished. Tall buildings that were in the works got scaled down or canceled on the assumption that soaring towers were too risky to be built or occupied. “There were all sorts of symposiums and public statements that we’re never going to build tall again,” one former architect told The Guardian in 2021. “All we’ve done in the 20 years since is build even taller.”

There are skyscrapers, and then there are supertalls, often defined as buildings more than 300 meters in height, but better known as the cloud-puncturing sci-fi towers that look like digital renderings, even when you’re staring at them from the sidewalk. First supertalls were impossible, then a rarity. Now they’re all over the place. In 2019 alone, developers added more supertalls than had existed prior to the year 2000; there are now a couple hundred worldwide, including Dubai’s 163-story Burj Khalifa (a hypodermic needle aimed at space), Tianjin’s 97-floor CTF Finance Centre (reminiscent of a drill bit boring the clouds), and, encroaching on my sky, Manhattan’s 84-floor Steinway Tower (a luxury condominium resembling the love child of a dustbuster and a Mach3 razor).

Some supertalls have an even more futuristic designation: superslim. These buildings are alternately described as “needle towers” or “toothpick skyscrapers” (though not every superslim is a supertall). Early superslims shot up in Hong Kong in the 1970s, though lately they’ve become synonymous with New York City; four supertall superslims loom over the southern end of Central Park in a stretch of Midtown dubbed “Billionaires’ Row.” Building engineers, like judgy modeling agents, have varying definitions of superslim, but they usually agree that such buildings must have a height-to-width ratio of at least 10 to 1. To put that in perspective, the Empire State Building (one of the world’s first supertalls, completed in 1931) is about three times taller than it is wide—“pudgy,” as one engineer described it to me. Steinway Tower is 24 times taller than it is wide—nearly as slim as a No. 2 pencil, and the skinniest supertall in the world. (The developer’s official name for the building is 111 West 57th Street.) These superslim buildings—and supertalls generally—have relied on engineering breakthroughs to combat the perilous physics that go with height. A 2021 article in the journal Civil Engineering and Architecture declared: “There is no doubt that super-tall, slender buildings are the most technologically advanced constructions in the world.”

Like many cutting-edge innovations, supertalls can behave unpredictably. In strong winds, occupants have reported water sloshing in toilet bowls, chandeliers swaying, and panes of glass fluttering. The architect Adrian Smith, who has designed numerous supertalls, contends that you’re in supertall territory not just when you hit 300 meters, but when you build so high that you get into “potentially unknown issues.” And, he acknowledges, there are “still mistakes being made.”

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amtrak-official · 6 months

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Find me a building worse than 432 Park Avenue, the most useless evil capitalistic ugly twink in the world, home of stupid holes, billionaires, and Tax Evasion

#architecture

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wannab-urs · 1 year

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Build Me Up Buttercup | Ch. 3

And mess me around

Summary: Inappropriate thoughts. A not-so-chance encounter. A run in with street rabble. Something more?

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: allusions to female masturbation. Horny thots. Teasing. Bickering. (flirting). Drinking. Catcalling. Protective Joel. Calming breaths. A smooch?

“Hi there, Sweetheart”

You freeze, eyes boring into the table in front of you. You take a deep breath, mustering all the confidence you can before meeting his eyes.

“Miller. What do you want?” It comes off a bit forced.

“Oh, nothin’. Just heard my name and thought I’d pop over and say hi.”

“Oh! We were just discussing how you graded my essay without even looking at it,” you snark at him.

“Not quite what it sounded like, darlin’, but I’ll let it slide,” and he winks and saunters off.

Your friends are staring at you slack jawed.

“What?” you demand.

“I know you said he was hot but God. Damn,” Cooper says under their breath.

“He’s not that hot, and he’s a dick, so… fuck off.” Well that was a lie.

“You have to try to bang him,” Em pleads.

“Uh… absolutely not. That’s fucked up.”

It IS fucked up, but he really is hot.

And you really liked the sound of his voice in your ear.

And you really liked him calling you darlin’.

NOPE.

“So!” you say too loudly, “how are your classes going Em?”

And for the rest of the night, none of you mention Dr. Miller.

You certainly didn’t think about him in your bed last night. Your hand didn’t slip under the covers and into the waistband of your panties. And you absolutely did not come with a whisper of his name slipping past your lips.

So why is it so hard for you to look at him right now? You’re in his class, and he’s lecturing about… something. Some architectural style from some country or some time period and it really doesn’t fucking matter right now.

All you can focus on is how good he looks in his sportcoat and band t-shirt. You’re spacing out, staring at the way his shoulders stretch the fabric of his jacket while he jots something down on the board. The way his throat bobs as he swallows a sip of water. The way his jaw ticks when someone answers a question in a way he doesn’t fully agree with.

Finally, blessedly, the class is over. You decide to head to the bar to get a drink and try to clear your head a little.

You slide onto a barstool, flagging down the bartender and ordering a smoked old fashioned. You’re about halfway through your drink when someone sits down next to you.

“Hello, darlin’” It’s Dr. Miller. Again.

“Miller. How are you?”

He smirks at you, “I’m fine, but you seemed a little out of it in class today. And call me Joel, sweetheart.”

“I’m fine,” you lie through your teeth. “I’m surprised you noticed, considering you didn’t even know my name a few days ago.”

“Fair enough.”

You stare down into your drink, fiddling with the glass. You can’t think of anything else to say and this is really awkward. Dr. Miller… Joel... orders a whiskey, neat, and you roll your eyes.

“You would order it neat.”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“You just seem like exactly the kind of asshole who would order a drink that hurts going down your throat.”

“Aren’t you drinking whiskey right now, darlin’?” Your eyes flick back down to your glass.

“It’s a smoked old fashioned. It actually tastes good, you should try it. Maybe you’ll enjoy something for once.”

“Point taken.” He calls the bartender back over. “Could you actually make that two ‘smoked old fashioneds’?” he asks, throwing a smirk in your direction. He slides a 20 on the bartop.

“You don’t need to buy my drinks, Miller.”

“Joel, please, we aren’t in class. And I didn’t read your paper, ’s the least I can do.”

“The least you could do, Joel, is give me the A I deserve.”

You and Joel debate the merits of your paper, the merits of neo-gothic architecture, and how much you hate 432 Park Avenue. At some point you order a pizza to split. It doesn’t feel like you’ve been talking all that long when the bartender hollers out the last call.

“Shit. Is it that late? I have an 8 am!” You had really not meant to stay at the bar this long.

“Let me walk you back to your apartment, ‘s late. Not safe.” Is he being nice to you?

“Oh, you don’t have to do all that, Joel. I’m a big girl, I can handle myself.”

“I don’t mind, really,” and there’s not a hint of his usual snark. He’s actually being kind of… sweet. God. Ew. What is this? He’s still a dick. He just wants to feel like a big strong man, taking care of the weak little girl.

“If it’ll make you feel good about yourself,” you’re being rude, but you’re entirely too uncomfortable with the easy camaraderie you’ve felt with him since you started talking. Best to steer you both back into familiar assholery.

On the way back to your apartment, you walk in companionable silence. Nothing like the flowing conversation back at the bar, but not nearly as awkward as you’d expected it would be. Your shoulder brushes his as you walk and you resist the slightly tipsy urge to lace your fingers with his. It’s just the alcohol and the late hour. You’re not into him. Right?

Lost in your thoughts, you miss a step on the curb and nearly fall over, but Joel’s strong arms catch you around your shoulders and pull you to his chest.

“Careful there, darlin’,” he drawls, looking down at you. His face is so close his lips could brush yours easily. You lift your hands with the intention of pushing him away, but they rest on his chest instead. You meet his eyes and your breath catches in your throat.

After a beat too long, you step out of his grasp. “I’m fine! Just clumsy,” just tipsy and more into him than you want to admit.

“Sure, sweetheart,” Joel winks at you. Asshole. “I think I’m gonna hold on to you though. Just in case.” He takes your hand in his much much larger one, and you don’t protest.

You’re almost home when you see a group of guys approaching. “Hey momma! What are you doing with an old guy like that?” one of the guys yells out. “Come home with me and I’ll show you a real man!” His buddies bust out in a fit of laughter.

Joel stiffens and stops moving. He tugs you by the hand to the other side of his body, away from the boys heading your way, and tucks you into his side. His arm wraps around you protectively and his hand holds your hip in an iron grip, and he begins pulling you forward.

You stumble along with him, struggling to match his long strides while being pressed so hard against him.

“Oh don’t be like that, sweetheart! Come over here!” the main guy shouts.

Joel’s hand curls into a fist on your hip and you hear him take a deep shuddering breath. “Listen,” he growls out, voice lower than you’ve ever heard it before. “You wrap your arm around me and you drag me away from those little boys over there, or there’s gonna be a problem.”

“Joel-” you start, shuddering at the gravelly way he’s speaking.

“No! You move. Now.” Something in his voice, the way his brow is lowered, the way his shoulders are tight with tension, tells you to listen to him. You wrap your arm tight around his waist, gripping his flannel in your hand and pull him away, not letting go until you reach your apartment.

As soon as you get to your door, you untangle yourself from Joel’s arm and turn to face him. He’s got a far off look in his pitch dark eyes and his whole body is trembling with anger. You have never seen him look anything like this. It’s kind of scary, but also kind of hot.

“Joel?” He doesn’t acknowledge you, just keeps standing there with his hands balled into fists at his sides. You grab his face in your hands and force him to meet your eye. “Hey. Joel. Breathe, dude.” He tries to look away, but you don’t let him, keeping his eyes locked on yours. “Breathe with me, Joel.” You take deep calming breaths, waiting for him to match you.

The tension in his body finally melts away, so you move to drop your hands from his face, but he catches your wrists in his hands before you can. “I’m sorry,” he says sincerely, brow furrowed.

“Hey, no, it’s okay. It’s fine.” You’re not really sure what he’s sorry for. Protecting you? You rub soothing circles into his cheeks, feeling his rough stubble against the pads of your thumbs. His eyes drop from yours down to your lips and back up. He sighs and lets go of your wrists, but before he can move away, you slide your hands into his hair and surge forward to kiss him.

He’s shocked into stillness at first, not really meeting the kiss, but all at once he’s wrapping one arm around your back and burying his other hand in your hair, holding you flush to him.

Your lips move together perfectly, like all your bickering back and forth had given you an intuitive sense of each other’s rhythm. He slides his tongue along the seam of your lips and you groan, opening up for him. He tastes like whisky and something uniquely Joel and god you don’t ever want to stop kissing him.

The scratch of his beard on your face and his arms completely surrounding you and his earthy scent filling your nose and his tongue invading your mouth… it’s all completely overwhelming.

The world narrows to you and him, in this moment together.

And then, suddenly it’s all crashing back into focus. Joel pulls away from you completely, putting several feet between your bodies. “Fuck! I’m sorry,” Joel says again, before turning on his heel and walking away.

You stand in front of the door to your apartment, a little dazed and completely breathless, until you can’t see him anymore.

Asshole.

A/N: This one gave me the runaround a bit. I couldn't figure out how to push them past arguing (flirting), but I think I got there. To my dear friends, thanks for the help, I needed it.

Tag List: @beskarandblasters, @cutesyscreenname, @atinylittlepain, @wednesdayday, @whoiscaroline, @goldenhxurs, @northernwindd, @djarinxore, @worhols, @amanitacowboy, @silkiers, @4ueijos, @livinxdeadxgrl, @chknikkbxss, @thepriceofpepper, @lexic-22, @sunshinebtrfly, @ccelinea, @harriedandharassed, @leeeesahhh, @suzmagine, @strang3lov3, @thereaperisabitch

#joel miller #joel miller fics #joel miller fan fiction #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fanfiction #Joel Miller AU #Professor!Joel #Professor!Joel Miller

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facts-i-just-made-up · 2 years

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Fun facts about ancient Mesopotamia?

I never, ever do requests, ever, and will absolutely not respond to this prompt on ancient Mesopotamia with any fun facts at all, ever.

Fun facts about ancient Mesopotamia:

Mesopotamia is Latin for "The Middle Potamia."

The region was also called "The Fertile Crescent," for reasons far too disgusting and inappropriate to mention on the internet.

Mesopotamia was situated between the rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates, which are named for the Tiger and an extinct mammal called the Euphrate, which resembled a llama with horns.

This area was the home to one of the world's first civilizations, called Sumer. Its main city was called Ur, probably because ancient humans weren't into multi-syllabled words and names, keeping things simple. They also worshipped a god named Ninḫursaĝadamgalnunaninmah.

Sumerians are thought to have invented the wheel, irrigation, writing, astronomy, and memothepalopatioscion, a science which is lost to time but probably had something to do with infinite clean energy and perpetual motion. They may also have invented shoes.

The ancient Mesopotamians buried their dead by placing them in large jars. This kept the dead safe and ready for their reincarnation, though the Sumerians feared the eventual coming of a boy who would smash all the pots and doom the afterlife, known as "Link."

Sumerian art mostly consisted of men with beards, women with beards, animals with human faces and beards, and beards on their own, enjoying their freedom to pursue a life of religious fulfillment.

They liked to build vaguely pyramid-like structures called "ziggurats." These ziggurats kept growing in size over the years until one reached so high it was considered an affront to God, who in turn made everyone speak different languages according to the Bible. According to authentic Sumerian texts however, the structure really reached only 1,396ft, and was intended as a residential complex for the super rich where they could over look Chalcolithic Park West. Unfortunately it was poorly designed and ineptly constructed and the rich people abandoned it in favor of yachts, the building being left in disrepair as a sign of toxic Mesopotamian capitalism run wild.

Thank goodness we have learned from their ancient errors and would never do such things in modern New York. At 432 Park Avenue.

#mesopotamia #sumer #ur #history #unreality

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wumblr · 1 year

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i've given the issue some thought and i think medieval armies wouldn't take skyscrapers, on a tactical basis, because they would recognize how easily sieged they are. 432 park avenue and the gherkin are prime examples of this. of course you could lay siege to them, but then what would you do with them afterwards? they're useless, and the invisible hand of the market reveals their uselessness by their vacancy.

you know the modernist architectural adage, form follows function? well, in postmodern architecture, form follows funding, which explains why everything is so formless. the prime example of this is the millennium tower, which despite being the most expensive building in the bay area, is hideously forgettable and irreparably sinking, because the sandstone below cannot withstand the weight of the capital it bears.

this formlessness is purposely designed to channel attention towards the fact that the structural integrity or physical security of the building itself is both useless and pointless, when the integrity and security (of the economy that funded the construction) is sited in the form of a police state. the prime example of this is las vegas hotel demolitions, followed immediately by a new, even more useless and formless, and more importantly higher price construction, terminally culminating in the supremely formless and aptly named "MSG sphere," to sprinkle in the flavor the skyline severely lacks, while the hoover dam fails to maintain the colorado river in the form of the lake mead reservoir. so, the real question is, could a medieval army covertly excavate enough sinkholes to consume the police, as we saw in west virginia last year?

in any case, i don't think a medieval army could take the bass pro shop pyramid. the implied mysticism of the crystal skull would appeal to their superstitious ways and completely put them off, and the stock of the bass pro shop would lead them to assume it is the provenance of a powerful and well-equipped military. i am inclined to doubt that a medieval army would naturally and inherently understand elevator buttons upon first encountering them, but the design and purpose of camouflage cargo pants would be instantaneously self-evident. it would not matter that it is all surface deep

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emaadsidiki · 2 months

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Midtown Manhattan From Queens Over The East River 🗽

#Manhattan #New York City #East River #Midtown Manhattan #Empire State Building #432 Park Avenue #Trump World Tower #Chrysler Building #Towers #Skyscrapers #Gantry Plaza State Park #Hunters Point #Queensboro Bridge #Long Island City #Pier #Queens #New York #Cityscape

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theghostcreator · 8 months

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Hello! I remember you said something about Rafael Vinoly getting the idea to build something from a literal trash can. May I see the source for this? I'm really curious about it!

This eyesore by Vinoly was inspired by trashcan by Josef Hoffman.

It's a pretty expensive trashcan at around $200

But it's still a trashcan

Decided to post three links although there's many more sources I think a .edu site should be good enough to prove the statement's legitimacy

https://viewing.nyc/architect-of-432-park-reveals-buildings-design-inspired-by-a-trash-can/

https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-news/ccpzp/inspiration-knows-no-limits-for-architecture-a-trashcan-inspired-the-432-park-avenue.html

https://sites.psu.edu/kopassion/2018/09/10/432-park-avenue/

Here are a few links among many that state this. I'm sorry this is real...

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robbialy · 1 year

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Star Syster signed, titled and dated "Futura STAR SYSTER 1985" on the reverse spray paint on canvas 51 1/5 x 39 2/5 in. (130 x 100 cm) Executed in 1985. • Untitled spray paint and felt marker pen on unstretched canvas 169 1/4 x 224 3/8 in. (429.9 x 569.9 cm) Executed in 1982. • Untitled acrylic and spray paint on canvas 24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm) Executed circa 1980s. PHILLIPS 432 Park Avenue New York NY 10022 +1 212 940 1200 [email protected] https://www.instagram.com/p/CqJQ_Vrju_ZzRfsmY3kTDNLX7GxuatDxJivLms0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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xylophonetangerine · 1 year

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I'm sorry to say this but 432 Park Avenue is the tallest building in New York. It's taller than the spire proper on the Empire State Building (only the antenna reaches higher) and the spire on One WTC is so insubstantial it shouldn't count at all.

#ugly ass stick building #text

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quotesfrommyreading · 1 year

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Yet supertalls not only ascend; they also sway, flutter, vibrate, bend, and lean. Often a lot. Chicago’s Willis Tower—which is more than 50 feet taller than 432 Park—can move up to three feet in strong winds. If you were to look down at the spire of a tall building during a windstorm, you’d see that it careens left, right, and around, like an inebriated giraffe.

All of that motion can cause people to feel a little drunk themselves. Occupants of tall buildings have, in high winds, reported nausea, distractibility, difficulty working, and fatigue, though researchers report that skyscrapers “rarely, if ever, induce vomiting.” As winds howl, buildings can moan like creaky container ships, or clatter like subway cars. “No Realtor would ever give a potential tenant a handbook that explains how these buildings behave, because they wouldn’t buy them, probably,” says Peter Weismantle, the director of supertall-building technology for Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, which designed Central Park Tower.

And yet some motion is safe and normal, and often goes unnoticed. In fact, evolving approaches to handling high winds are a big reason contemporary supertalls have gotten to be so numerous, and so thin.

Tall buildings get celebrated as gravity-defying, but it’s their defiance of the wind that should inspire awe. Imagine a strong wind blowing south over Central Park. The wind hits the supertall and pushes it backwards into a lean, then causes the structure to sway as the gust picks up and dies down. Wind can get stronger at higher altitudes and intensify as it whips off neighboring high-rises, so what registers as a gentle breeze on the fifth floor may give way to howling on the 45th. Wind barreling around the supertall creates turbulent eddies on the building’s exterior that cause the structure to wag from side to side. These are the accelerations that tenants are most likely to perceive, and slender supertalls are even more susceptible to them.

Developers know they cannot control the wind. What they can do—and this is an industry term—is confuse it. For this, they recruit a wind-whisperer like Derek Kelly. Kelly, an engineer with the consulting firm RWDI, is a garrulous Canadian who, when I asked about superslims, told me the company has worked on “almost every building you see out your window.”

Take 432 Park. Once the developer had an early design for the new tower, Kelly began by making the proposed supertall—a solid, skinny, square column—super small. Kelly and his colleagues 3-D-printed a knee-high model of the building, and stuck it into a miniature Midtown Manhattan, complete with dozens of neighboring high-rises that can affect the windscape at 432 Park’s site. They put the model buildings on a turntable inside a wind tunnel, then subjected them to smoke and powerful fans. RWDI adjusted the wind tunnel’s settings to mimic Manhattan’s gusts and rotated the tiny neighborhood in 10-degree increments to get a baseline measurement of how the proposed supertall would sway, absorb winds careening off other structures, and shift the wind around it—all of which remains too complex to accurately predict with algorithms, Kelly said.

Even a 10-story building will move, and most of us can handle our homes wiggling about five milli gs (a measure of acceleration) in any direction. Early tests on 432 Park’s prototype revealed poor aerodynamic performance. Rafael Viñoly, 432 Park’s architect, said in a 2014 lecture at the Skyscraper Museum that tests on one version of the building revealed the supertall would dance 30 milli-gs—just shy of the threshold found to “cause some occupants to lose balance,” according to research published in the International Journal of High-Rise Buildings. “If you’re standing here, your cup of tea moves,” Viñoly said at the lecture, rocking his lectern back and forth to demonstrate. He called the experience of 30 milli gs “absolutely frightening.”

When problems like these arise, Kelly brings the developer and the design team to RWDI’s wind tunnel for a “shaping workshop.” Architects and engineers tweak the shape of their supertall, 3-D-print new versions, then put each one in the wind tunnel to see how much it moves. “For some of these buildings in New York,” Kelly said, “we’ve done 12, 16 versions in an afternoon.”

The decorative flourishes on a supertall that seem ornamental can be key to diffusing the suction-filled whirlpools that sway a building as wind whips around its sides. You could notch the corners, like on Taipei 101, which resembles a towering stack of gifts. You could twist the building, like the Twizzler-esque Shanghai Tower. You could taper it to look like the tip of a paintbrush, like the Lakhta Center, or cut out sections to let wind blow through it, like the Shanghai World Financial Center, which is nicknamed “The Bottle Opener.” 432 Park’s designers decided to make it more porous: Every 12 stories, there are two “blow through” floors with cutouts for windows, but no glass.

But can you comfortably host a dinner party on a blustery evening? To try to experience for themselves how hospitable 432 Park would be, Viñoly and his colleagues traveled to the Marine Institute in Newfoundland to be jostled around inside its simulator—a 20-ton steel ship’s bridge mounted on hydraulic pistons and surrounded by screens. Typically, ships’ crews use the simulator to practice for encounters with icebergs and roiling seas, but for the past 15 years, the institute has hosted supertall designers who want to double-check their work before they build. On these occasions, the institute covers up the nautical instruments, projects a city skyline on the screens, lugs in a forest-green sofa, puts water-filled glasses on a wooden kitchen table, and hangs a glass chandelier. Once the supertall’s team of designers settles in, the room starts rocking and rolling to mimic what tenants will feel on a windy day, during a strong gale, or during a once-a-century hurricane. At 432 Park, the blow-through floors alone wouldn’t settle the building, so the developers ultimately installed two tuned mass dampers—a pair of 600-ton counterweights between the 86th and 89th floors that can move 11 feet, to offset the supertall’s sway.

That’s the goal, anyway. New cars and planes go through rigorous testing before hitting the assembly line, but each supertall is essentially a prototype. “We’re going into production on one-offs every single time with the hopes that we get it right,” the structural engineer Stephen DeSimone told me. If you could crawl out over the side of 432 Park and look down at the facade during a windstorm, “you’d have not one but two heart attacks. Because the thing does move,” Viñoly said in his 2014 lecture. “Don’t tell the tenants that.”

— The Marvels—And Mistakes—Of Supertall Skyscrapers

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