Spanish speaking student needs help

[emcreyno]

I work with English as a Second Language (ESL) students in a high school in rural Tennessee. In order to graduate they must complete a senior project. One of them chose the subject of skyscrapers, and one of the requirements is an interview with someone who knows about the subject. There are no skyscrapers or skyscraper experts in our area, so I was hoping that one of you could help us out and answer these questions. If you could, please include your name so that my student can properly cite the interview as a source for his project. Thanks for all your help!

1. Why are there not a lot of skyscrapers in Tennessee?

2. How are skyscraper structures different from wood-frame structures?

3. What kind of materials do you use to build the structure of a skyscraper?

4. What kind of training do you think is needed to be able to work on a skyscraper?

5. What are the differences between building a highrise and a supertall skyscraper?

6. How long does it take to build and design a skyscraper?

7. What is the future of skyscrapers?

8. What are some safety tips for people who work on skyscrapers?

9. What are some of the problems that architects had when designing a building?

10. How is the failing economy going to affect the building of skyscrapers?

[M.K.]

I know the questions are not very short to promptly answer, but I will start with some:

2. How are skyscraper structures different from wood-frame structures?
Normally the Skyscrapers are built with a steel frame or reinforced concrete frame for the structure but there are a lot mixed variants with steel frame and brick or concrete panels to fill the floors or walls. It had already buildings, mainly in Europe, like very old Churches or small lowrises buildings or towers with all wood structure materials, but after some height wood is not more convenient, because of natural decomposition and not allow too much high structure supporting and keeping the heavy materials like brick or stones. In Asia they use a Bambu net outside the building together steel tubes to a frame for finishing bldg facade and they reach very high levels, but too much flexibel. Steel structures are more flexible than concrete, but concrete allow supporting more weight. Because reaching too high levels, they use steel frames more than concrete, while the building has some flexibility moving together the wind to avoid rupture from wind impact.

3. What kind of materials do you use to build the structure of a skyscraper?
As said above, they use steel, iron-casting in old times, brick, stones, wood or commonly reinforced concrete.

5. What are the differences between building a highrise and a supertall skyscraper?
A highrise is a building to up 250m high. A supertall is more than 300m. The first Supertall in world was the Tour Eiffel in Paris, even not a Skyscraper but a Truss-tower.

6. How long does it take to build and design a skyscraper?
Normally, depending on the complexity the bldg, it requires 1 year to design the exterior and interior and 3 years in average to build a medium high complete 100m-building for example, if everything works and flow well.

I hope this help a bit.

[emcreyno]

This is a great start! Thank you so much for helping!