THE OBSERVATION DECK, the radio journal of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, features news, interviews and discussion from the world of tall buildings, skyscrapers and urban habitat.

The program is produced and hosted by Jeff Herzer, Special Media Correspondent to CTBUH, whose professional credits include work as a television journalist and as a multimedia writer-producer in the architecture/engineering industry. Jeff is known to tall building enthusiasts as the creator of WTB / World's Tallest Buildings, one of the Internet's first comprehensive web sites on the subject, which appeared on the Internet from 1997 to 2001.

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  PROGRAM 903: CTBUH 2008 Tall Building Awards - Part 3 of 3 (28:30)
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Architect Shaun Killa of Atkins and Partners talks about the Bahrain World Trade Center, the world's first building with full-sized wind turbines integrated into the design. 

Architect Ian Whitby of Norman Foster and Partners discusses 51 Lime Street, aka The Willis Building, in London's financial district.

The buildings were winners of the Middle East and Europe regional awards, respectively.

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  PROGRAM 902: CTBUH 2008 Tall Building Awards - Part 2 of 3 (28:30)
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Structural Engineer Bill Baker of Skidmore Owings and Merrill (SOM), winner of the 2008 Fazlur Khan Lifetime Achievement Award, talks about the Burj Dubai, its structural system and the series of events that led to its record-shattering height; the Chicago World Trade Center, proposed in the early 1980s, that would have surpassed the Sears Tower as Burj Dubai surpassed Taipei 101 (by a ratio of 1.6:1) , and ; the meeting with Donald Trump's organization on the morning of 9/11.  

Eugene Kohn and Bill Pedersen of Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) talk about the 107-story International Commerce Center, under construction in Hong Kong's Kowloon district.

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  PROGRAM 901: CTBUH 2008 Tall Building Awards - Part 1 of 3 (28:30)
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A summary of the 2008 award winners.  Architects Eugene Kohn and Bill Pedersen of Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) talk about the Shanghai World Financial Center, the CTBUH 2008 Building of the Year.  Also Tim Johnson of NBBJ, the 2008 CTBUH Awards Committee chairman.

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Program Notes

More details on the 7th Annual CTBUH Tall Building Awards (2008):

• Event Summary with photos of the winning entries, video highlights and links to the winning firms, plus a summary of previous years.
  
  
• An Overview of the winners. (115k .pdf)

 

Jeff's Blog

March 2009 - Over my years as a journalist, I've had the opportunity to meet, talk to and be around a great variety of people who are the best at what they do: big-time musicians, entertainers and broadcasters, future U.S. presidents, major league baseball players, world-class bridge engineers or just plain folks whose talents and commitment to do good work are inspiring.  I have particularly enjoyed learning something about how all of these various people think, and the mindsets and thought processes that make them who and what they are.

Covering the 2008 Tall Building Awards, I met a memorable array of new personalities literally at the pinnacle of the world of architecture, plus a wonderful group of brilliant international students from IIT's school of architecture.  You can see photos of the whole adventure in my notebook below.

Not coincidentally perhaps, my interest in architecture and urban spaces (and rural ones too) has always been about the personalities of various creations and the feelings they evoke. Buildings do have their own personalities -- supertall buildings doubly so. Some I regard as old friends, some as faceless entities in a crowd. Some have given me comfort and support in their confines, others have left me supremely annoyed and only too glad to leave.

This is the way I have always approached my storytelling when talking about the world's tallest or most remarkable buildings.  I like to concentrate on the "user experience", what it feels like to be in or around these creations, how they contribute to their surroundings, the characteristics that make them unique.  In producing ObDeck, I get to add another dimension to the image by talking to the creators themselves, the masters behind what I call "the ultimate urban artform".

My work has brought me to many interesting places.  I hope ObDeck is another such project, and that you'll continue to ride along with me on the trip.

- j