Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the Chicago-based firm that has designed a long list of skyscrapers, including the new One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, has developed a structural system that uses so-called mass timber — columns and thick slabs that are laminated from smaller pieces of wood.
While acknowledging that the Gehry software is impressive, Carl Galioto of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, a firm that has designed many skyscrapers, says that it is hard to learn and three or four times as expensive as a conventional modeling program.
The building would be an achievement for any architect, but Gang, who has run her own firm since 1997, had never designed a skyscraper before and happened into this one almost by accident.
"It is a very cleverly sited building," says architect Steve Johnson, who has designed skyscrapers in the US Midwest.
Jean Nouvel has designed three more skyscrapers for the city which, to sceptics, are excellent ways of making Marseille lose its identity.
Fisher conceded that he had never designed a skyscraper before.
When the architects responsible for the world's tallest building touted a similar "plyscraper" in May, the idea became harder to dismiss.Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has designed dozens of iconic skyscrapers, including the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower in Chicago, the new World Trade Centre in New York and the current record holder, the 830-metre Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
Zaha Hadid, a British architect, has designed the city's first skyscraper.
In any case, Libeskind, who has never before designed a skyscraper, is, for the time being, in a position to have a great deal of influence over what will be the tallest building in the world.
Saarinen was a veteran architect but had never before designed a skyscraper.
