Dear Colleagues:

On behalf of the Council, I would like to wish all of our members, supporters and contributors a Happy and Prosperous New Year. We have some great plans and ambitions for the year and we are looking for your support and assistance to help us achieve them.

We plan to start the year with an exciting new format for our News Bulletin. Our web site redevelopment is also well under way and we expect to go live this spring.  We are currently loading past papers, extracts from the Monographs and Journal articles etc.  We are looking for electronic content from our members; so if you have an extensive in-house intranet that you would be prepared to share, on any aspect of tall building design, then we would be very interested in discussing this with you in more detail.  Please contact Geri Kery at gkery@ctbuh.org in the first instance.

This year we are continuing our work to improve the layout of the CTBUH Review and are planning to produce three issues. We are also producing a special multidisciplinary issue of the peer reviewed journal 'The Structural Design of Tall and Special Buildings' that will be produced by John Wiley and Sons. These journals give an opportunity for our members to promote their ideas and encourage debate on all aspects of tall building and urban habitat.  If you are interested in contributing to these journals, please contact Geri Kery at gkery@ctbuh.org .

Our working groups continue to be the focus of our effort in dealing with current and controversial issues that affect tall building design, and we expect the first report and findings to come from our Seismic Working Group who plan to produce their first report in the first half of the year.

We are very pleased to announce that Mr. Sadhu Johnson will be co-chairing our Sustainable Working Group. Mr. Johnson is head of the City of Chicago’s Department of Environment, and is a commissioner for the city.  There is considerable logic and some opportunity for tall buildings to be at the forefront of the world-wide effort to achieve sustainable buildings and we expect that our working group will be at the center of this debate. 

Further plans include an upcoming Council meeting to discuss height criteria, which will include reviewing the definitions of height, completion and the effect of spires and towers. A separate email has gone out to our members on this subject.We also plan to formalize our contact with the Chinese Tall Building Society, in much the same way that we have a memorandum of understanding with the Korean Tall Building Institute.

We have many building professionals working for the Council to disseminate knowledge about tall building design and construction. I hope that you will look to see how you can participate in these efforts and initiatives, and perhaps bring other ideas and suggestions on how we can improve the Council and the way we work.

Sincerely,

David Scott
Chairman, CTBUH
Principal, Arup
dscott@ctbuh.org