The downside to life in a supertall tower (2021) | Hacker News Reader

The downside to life in a supertall tower (2021)

nytimes.com

I'm a board member and observer in two luxury low-rise buildings in NYC, and both have these kinds of problems, irrespective of their height.

What causes $500,000 in water damage is having $100,000 custom paint jobs, which has nothing to do with height.

Building sway trapping people in elevators, or putting them out of use?

Supertalls definitely have more sweaty but my 16 floor building has noticeable sway. I guess it has to do with skinniness?

I guess I think of "low-rise" as being 4 or 5 floors. 16 feels rather high rise to me!

There are a myriad number of ways to get $500000 in damage. No question.

You're also correct in your assertion that a lot of downsides have nothing to do with supertalls.

I think the author was just talking about issues that crop up in supertalls. I didn't take away any explicit assertion that issues don't crop up in low or medium rises for instance.

Wouldn't supertalls need much higher water pressure to reach top floors, resulting in both higher chance of ruptures and larger spills in such cases?

https://archive.ph/CtdNi

“Everybody hates each other here.”

That reminded me of J. G. Ballard’s “High-Rise”, a 1970s novel with a unique twist on the post-apocalyptic landscape familiar from scifi:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Rise_(novel)

Decent book, but personally I found it like a lot of Ballard’s other work: fascinating concept that somehow didn’t turn into an interesting story. It just emphasizes how a cool idea doesn’t replace storytelling skills.

I found Ballard's works strangely attractive. Definitely not because of "fascinating concepts" or some superb writing skills but because of the mood they project. I keep coming back every once in a while.

Same for me. I can certainly understand why someone wouldn’t like Ballard’s novels. The plotting isn’t necessarily memorable. But there’s something unique in the combination where both the physical landscapes and the characters’ mental landscapes are simultaneously tormented and transformed.

I often think of the TV producer in “High-Rise” driving back from work to his apartment building, his mind taken over by the alternate cosmos inside the building as he moves through the parking lot. It’s a strong image for me. But I’m sure other Ballard readers have completely different touchpoints in the same work.

I love this novel so much. From the opening paragraph the tone is set!

I find it extremely ironic that people would be able to pay for "one of the wealthiest addresses in the world" and still in turn obtain a subpar experience.

There's a grifter for every budget.

Not only that but we talk about the bait-and-switch that is common practice by some companies, and this reminded me of that too:

> When the building opened in late 2015, homeowners were required to spend $1,200 a year on [the building’s private Michelin-star level restaurant]; in 2021, that requirement jumps to $15,000, despite limited hours of operation because of the pandemic. And breakfast is no longer free.

Well, that sounds like quite the spike in service prices! Especially if it's a required expense.

This is essentially the condo experience almost anywhere. You 'buy' a unit, and then it's a non-stop parade of rising fees and special assessments.

Can you explain how this happens to me as a non-american? I own an apartment in a multi apartment complex (so I guess that would be called a condo in the US?) and together with the other owners we have an association and we vote on stuff once a year, including anything that causes expenses. Is there some external party that makes these decisions in the US?

Many associations in America are managed by a third party. That association manager has a different incentive/goal versus the board which is to profit from the association. This is just the first level of disagreement.

It is similar in the US and the complaints usually come from people who purchased older condos where the original owners didn’t accrue enough for maintenance.

This happens in new or recently built condo buildings because they are aggressively marketing to potential buyers. The buildings are, often, cheaply made, go overboard on costly amenities, and made to maximize ROI for the builders/developers. They lure in buyers with low fees. Then, once the building is full, the buyers and the condo board discover that the quality of a lot of the materials and building is subpar, the amenities now need expensive repairs, or a lot of the building's charm is a bandaid to cover clear cost cutting. To fix all of these issues, the condo boards, usually made up of residents in the building, vote and raise fees in order to repair or correct these issues. This practice can make the cost of owning a condo sky-rocket in a very short time.

There is also the nightmare of insurance problems for a building.

The recommended move, in NA at least, is to look for older buildings with less amenities and a history of consistent condo fees that they will gladly give to you in a report if requested, which allows the potential buyer to get a clearer idea of the potential cost of owning a condo over time.

Yeah, this happens in Europe. In Spain, it is well known that most apartments built at around 2000-2009 tend to be of very poor quality. It's not uncommon that a building from 1995 is in better shape than another, more expensive, from 2005.

It didn't matter, because builders would sell them all "over the plan" (literal translation, not sure if that's an expression in English) i.e. even before having actually started building. People were buying like crazy, they needed the houses. Not sure why it got worse in the decade I mentioned, but there is a clearly perceived drop (albeit, this is just opinion based) in the price/qualities ratio. So once the developer had the money in their hands, why would they make more effort than the absolute minimum?

The solution is as you say, or litigation. My parent's condo board has recently won a years-long legal dispute and now the developer is forced to pay for all the repairs and improvements in the whole premise.

That's basically what a condo board is.

There are just a lot of condo boards, and a lot of them are 1) poorly managed, and 2) run by busy-bodies with their own agendas leading back to 1).

Same story as HOAs, really. Keep in mind that both have a selection bias, too -- well run neighborhoods or buildings don't generate controversy and lead to lawsuits or 6 paragraph screeds about how terrible they are.

Ah, it's the UK ground rent scandal, only for rich people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_rent#Ground_rent_scanda...

"Let's wring every penny out of this tiny plot of land." It says that right on the tin. Yeah THAT'S the guy you want to buy quality housing from! /s

Nah, seriously, it's just more money laundering. Who cares if it works for housing, main mission accomplished.

https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/advisory/2017-08-...

A really important point:

> The group commissioned SBI Consultants, an engineering firm, to study mechanical and structural issues. Initial findings showed that 73 percent of mechanical, electrical and plumbing components observed failed to conform with the developers’ drawings, and that almost a quarter “presented actual life safety issues,” Mr. Slinin wrote.

Corruption exists at every level. The builder (as suggested by the above quote) skimped to increase their profit margins. These ultra-luxury NYC supertalls do not pay their fair share of property tax (as a percentage of price). Cities allow substandard buildings to be built (eg [1][2] not being drilled into bedrock). The city is allowing buildings to be built that are really too skinny (eg [3]). Real estate in major cities is driven by money laundering [4]. Real estate is exempt from a lot of foreign asset reporting like FATCA.

All this while we're having a housing and affordability crisis pretty much everywhere.

These supertall and skinny buildings just shouldn't be built. If you can't secure enough land to a decent base to go that high well that's your problem.

Housing for the ultra-wealthy really needs to be taxed at probably 10x the current rate too.

[1]: https://boingboing.net/2022/12/30/not-to-be-outdone-manhatta...

[2]: https://sf.curbed.com/2016/9/16/12945600/why-millennium-towe...

[3]: https://hyperallergic.com/724360/nyc-skyscraper-is-being-com...

[4]: https://gfintegrity.org/press-release/new-report-finds-u-s-r...

> Both events occurred on mechanical floors that have been criticized for being excessively tall — a design feature that allowed the developers to build higher than would otherwise have been permitted, because mechanical floors do not count against the building’s allowable size.

I've never heard of an allowable size expressed in terms of number of non-mechanical floors. That sounds rather ill-conceived. Why would you have limits beyond a plain maximum height ?

I’d be curious to know the maximum height of a skyscraper that doesn’t have these issues with draining or elevators. Or is the height not actually a problem, only the design of this particular building? Central Park Tower and three others are taller than the one mentioned in the article, although they hint that other towers have similar issues.

It unironically depends on the weather. Specifically the wind. If weight was the only issue we could build towers multiple kilometers high.

Stupid question: If you had sensor good enough, could you build active structures, that anticipate the forces of the wind and angle themselves to "lean" into it, neutralizing the forces at play?

I don't see a problem with anticipation i.e. detect the prevailing forces and apply an equal but opposite force.

I DO see a problem with making the strength on each corner of a building dynamic - if you aren't moving the building back and forth to counter the wind, how would you counter the wind?

One option (almost certainly not practical) would be to have the building shaped like a giant vertical wing, and have it rotate into the wind. It could be tuned to be resistant to wind forces by directing it around, but the apartments may face a different way each day.

Hah, a bit like the roof of an oast house. I like it.

> One option (almost certainly not practical) would be to have the building shaped like a giant vertical wing,

Like a weathercock?

Well, dunno about anyone else, but I'd jump at the chance to live in a (safe) building that always rotated to face the wind.

I originally thought more along some pneumatic nuzzles, basically like direction controll nozzles on a space ship capsule

We are already doing that. Most of these very tall structures have mass dampers, huge weights which are manipulated to compensate the swing induced by wind or ground movements.

That's 1-not active, 2-doesn't compensate, but dampens

Tuned mass dampers don’t but active mass dampers do. Both are in use.

Also damping is achieved by dissipating energy through the counter mouvement of the tuned mass which is literally compensating for the movement put in place by the external force. It doesn’t totally offset it but still.

This is already accomplished passively with tuned mass dampers.

More commonly you'll see things like tuned mass dampers (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuned_mass_damper) to try to reduce the amplitude of the swaying from wind, earthquakes, elevator vibrations, etc.

So giving this a push, that cancels wind forces out..

No, you don't have to give it a push. You just leave it hanging there and inertia and resonance do the rest.

You would then have to add mechanical devices, which would likely be heavier (requiring even more support structure strength), that would have to move hundreds or thousands of tons of building mass, and with high precision, and then return it to the initial position, while canceling the inertial forces to prevent it from ping-ponging and making it worse. I only have basic engineering knowledge but I can almost hear one of my professors screaming, 34 years later. :)

Many tall buildings have a tuned mass damper near the top that helps to dampen oscillations. It doesn't require any active mechanical devices. Taipei 101 has it out in the open, you can easily find videos of it during earthquakes.

You really, _really_ do not want a skyscraper that collapses if the latest Windows update has a regression.

(I mean, I'm being slightly facetious, but in general things which will kill thousands of people if there's a bug... well, you should be cautious)

> I’d be curious to know the maximum height of a skyscraper that doesn’t have these issues with draining or elevators.

This might be predictable only for elevators (and even then, maybe cable designs/elevator designs can be changed to mitigate the effect of the height).

Everything else can have a design that allows ever larger height (larger vents for drainage, larger pumps for water supply, etc).

Around thirty stories is the limit for concrete apartment buildings made with unskilled labor (usually Indian or Chinese), so those appear all over Asia and the Middle East where migrant labor is common.

It doesn’t really answer your question, but it’s an interesting reference point.

Thanks, yeah that was sort of my question: what’s the “Model-T” of skyscrapers.

I think the majority of residential towers in Hong Kong are well over 40 floors. Even in the 1990s I remember most buildings that I visited were already over 40.

Are sure it wasn’t 36 or something? Also, not sure how they count floors in HK, but they count them oddly in Beijing, skipping 4, 13, 14, 24, and 34 (if any), which inflates the floor count a bit.

Not completely sure, but AFAICT in post-1990s towns like [1], 45 to 50 floors are fairly common.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_Shui_Wai

Maybe HK property prices are too expensive so they spend on more skilled labor and not overbuilding the concrete so much? That would allow them to go 40-50 floors with concrete. You can go pretty high with concrete using more advanced building techniques.

Don't ever let people tell you only software has bugs. After watching "snagging" [1] videos on TikTok, I'll never buy a new house again:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_list

Wow, you have opened a world for me.

What would be the best way to search for these videos? Just "snagging" or are there other keywords I should use? Is Tiktok the best way to find such videos?

I think #snagging works for TikTok.

It's clear that we don't need supertalls but rather they are a mechanism for the most rich and corrupt (including the builder) to launder money.

How exactly do you launder money by buying a super-luxury apartment?

Let's say you are a druglord from Mexico, and have a minivan full with one hundred dollar bills. You want to come and buy a 100 million apartment in NYC. How do you imagine that transaction will happen? Do you think the building developer will just agree to take the bills? And then they'll go to their bank and attempt to deposit it? How will the real estate broker get their fee? In bills too?

Here's the thing: in this country, if you agree to take large amounts of cash, no questions asked, and then try to deposit them at a bank, you just painted a huge bull's eye on you, as far as the US law enforcement is concerned. At a minimum you become an accessory to money laundering.

You don't think all these owned, yet empty luxury apartments in cities isn't money laundering? Give me your occam's razor version then, because that's my take (and clearly many other people think the same).

What's the most likely explanation? In the UK there are loads of examples of this. Maybe the US is miles ahead of the UK on this, but somehow I doubt it.

https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/property/anti-money-lau...

> Money laundering through property is a major problem

And the example you give of a van full of cash is naive. That isn't how it goes down, and if I'm honest, I think you know that.

I suspect you may be falling victim to the problem shown in XKCD 2501 [0]: "Well, I've paid a lot of attention to it, so I know all about money laundering, but the average person probably only knows one, maybe two basic methods."

"And that a van full of cash never works, of course."

"Of course!"

[0] https://xkcd.com/2501/

Real estate transactions can be used for money laundering, but it's extremely unlikely this would happen for the cases discussed here.

Here's two possible money laundering schemes involving real estate:

1. you buy a multi-unit and rent it out to a number of tenants. You tell them you like them so much that you'll charge them a bit below market price. You'll charge them $1000 per month, when the actual market price would be $1200. The only thing you ask is that theyt sign a contract for $1400/month. You tell them not to worry, they'll need to only pay $1000, the $1400 is a technicality for mortgage purposes, or whatever. Now, every month, when they pay you $1000, you add $400 that you have obtained separately from selling drugs, or some other criminal activity, and you got to the bank and deposit that. you have all the documents to show the source of your funds is legit. The bank inquires about this source of funds, as per the Anti-Money-Laundering regulations. But you're covered.

2. You buy run down properties with legit funds. Then you improve them significantly. You pay the contractors with cash (obtained illegally). Later, you sell the properties. You don't try to make a profit. All you care is the guys who buy the properties are absolutely spotless. Now the proceeds of the sales of the properties are clean. You just converted money spent on renovations in money received on property sales. The weak link in the system is the contractors who are ok with cash payments.

Now it's your turn. Can you please come up with a plausible scenario where one would launder money via a $100 million apartment next to Central Park in New York City?

Here are some examples:

https://crimeline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Shreeve.p...

https://crimeline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Rollins.p...

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2006/2155.html

I won't abide by your requirements (cash in a van / $100m property), because those weren't my initial arguments.

Money fraud through property happens. Money fraud through luxury property happens. It happens. It's rife (In the UK, especially London). Maybe the US is ahead of the curve, but I remain skeptical.

I didn't ask for you to give examples of how money fraud through property could happen, I asked for you to state the simplest explanation for all these empty luxury properties existing, that isn't explained through fraud. Who is buying them? It's corruption!

You are moving the goalposts. Initially you said money laundering, now you are saying fraud, or money fraud, whatever the difference would be. Or corruption.

As for empty luxury properties. I live across a tower, which could be called supertall, since it's just a few feet shy of 800 ft. A penthouse unit is available for sale now for $40MM. It's not the absolute very high end of luxury, but it's very nearly there. It's nighttime now, and I can see the lights. About 80% of the units are lit. In the units on the lower floors, I can see people moving about. I think the whole thing about empty properties is mostly an urban legend.

But on the other hand, until 2 years ago, I lived in an apartment where I could see directly a property owned by Leonardo DiCaprio. I've never seen the guy there. At most I could see various contractors doing various renovations, but never the actor himself. Can I ascribe the emptiness of the property to "corruption"? No. I think DiCaprio has enough money to afford to buy a unit in downtown Manhattan, and leave it empty.

Are there other people like DiCaprio? Why not? The world is big. You asked me for my Occam's razor explanation. That's my Occam's razor.

In our society, there's also another version of Occam's razor, and this one is a particular case of it: it's called "innocent until proven guilty", or "benefit of the doubt". I like it, and I use it.

You can feel free to use the assumption of guilt. It's your prerogative.

While some of these methods likely wouldn't apply to a super-luxury apartment, there are a variety of ways someone might launder money through property, as outlined here: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=4242839e-373c...

Property is seen as good way of holding a relatively large amount of money off-shore for funds that you can’t or don’t want to repatriate. Easy to blend in with millions of rentals held in small LLCs with no centralized reporting requirements like bank deposits or stocks.

https://www.propublica.org/article/china-cartels-xizhi-li-mo...

Many clients bought homes or paid U.S. university tuition.

They're a logical and predictable outcome of zoning laws that make the most efficient and desirable forms of apartments illegal.

I can't honestly imagine upsides of living in anything above few floors, all I see are only downsides.

This is one of the developers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_B._Macklowe#Criticism

I'll never understand how they let such people ruin the skyline by building such ugly skyscrapers. No respect whatsoever for the surrounding style, regardless of taste.

The NYC skyline was ruined by a couple more very tall buildings?

How exactly would you describe this “surrounding style”:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:West_side_of_Manhatt...

I bet the "surrouding style" was itself criticized at the time those older buildings were build because it didn't respect the previous "surrounding style". This argument for tradition doesn't really work if you know history

To have a heart attack, or any other emergency health condition in a high floor is surely a death sentence. By the time help arrives and people manage to hush you through the elevators/stairs, you're gone.

I mean, less so than living outside a city, surely? Most of the time is going to be for the paramedics to get to the building in any case.

Well, 7 minute absolute best case ambulance response time to the scene, another 7-10 minutes to do the elevator ride, potentially twice if the patient is immobile, then another 10-30 minutes to get to the hospital.

Vs in a small town ambulance response time is about the same, and travel to the local hospital is also about the same. But there are no elevator rides.

Vs living in the actual boonies (connecticut is a tiny state that is primarily suburbia), where you just assume ambulances dont exist, you keep and know how to use a proper medkit, and you know where the nearest and farthest ERs are, and most importantly - you do not live alone.

> another 7-10 minutes to do the elevator ride

Really?! This sounds _very_ high.

> then another 10-30 minutes to get to the hospital.

This also sounds pretty high. Looks like there's a general hospital literally 500m away in this case.

> in a small town ambulance response time is about the same, and travel to the local hospital is also about the same

It's going to depend on the small town, but I would assume that most small towns are _not_ within 30 mins of a general hospital. Of course, depending on what's wrong with you, something less than a general hospital might work, but then again it might not.

Now try driving the 500m to your local hospital.

What a strange comment. Somehow being about half a mile from the most sophisticated collection of medical facilities on the planet, plus an unusually long elevator ride, is more of a death sentence then like being on a farm in Connecticut or something?

Travel times are what they are, and instant teleportation has not been invented yet

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1090312059089167...

This is comparing different floors in the same building, not highrise vs small town. And it's showing a difference of less than 2 minutes.

I was once a building engineer in a building of only 42 floors. When there was a wind storm the building swayed quite a bit. It groaned and chandeliers tinkled. On first opening there were the usual plumbing and cosmetic problems, which were repaired in a reasonable time frame.

If these new owners say they didn't know there would be these "problems", they are either misinformed or trying to get their money back. ALL tall, thin building have to sway to survive.

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