Richard Tomasetti and Dennis Poon featured at Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat Conference in Chicago

NEW YORK — Richard Tomasetti, founding principal of Thornton Tomasetti, the international engineering firm with practices in building structure, building skin and building performance, will be a featured speaker at this year’s Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s “Evolution of the Skyscraper” Conference in Chicago. Tomasetti will speak about the Chicago Spire project, with a special presentation entitled: “Chicago Spire: Technical Twisting and Turning.” In addition, Dennis Poon, managing principal of Thornton Tomasetti’s New York office, will chair a panel of distinguished speakers on the topic “Tall Buildings: Adopting an Icon.” Poon is currently overseeing the engineering of the tallest building in China, Shanghai Tower, and in South Korea,151 Incheon.

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat brings together a conference to debate if skyscrapers remain relevant to now, tomorrow and the future. The conference will highlight case studies of completed projects and look to the future to discuss how future sustainable design policies will affect the property market and what strategies different countries, cities and developers are taking to mitigate the effects of the recession. Speakers include leading financiers and developers, as well as sustainable policy makers, architects, and engineers.

When: Thursday, October 22 – Friday, October 23, 2009
“Tall Buildings: Adopting an Icon” – October 22 at 12:45 PM – 1:45 PM
“Chicago Spire: Technical Twisting and Turning” – October 23 at 11:15 AM – 12:45 PM
Where: Illinois Institute of Technology, 3300 South Federal Street, Chicago, Ill.

For the best part of a decade the U.S. sat slightly aloof to the ongoing quest to build the world’s tallest buildings, relinquishing that competition to Asia in the 90s. In the mid-2000s however, a number of U.S. cities announced proposals to once again build supertall buildings, in a bid to rebrand U.S. skylines and encourage urban revitalization. The Chicago Spire has led these efforts on the world stage for Chicago. Richard Tomasetti will discuss the project’s technical challenges and solutions, which may apply to similar projects in congested urban settings.

To learn more about the CTBUH 2009 Conference, visit www.ctbuh.org.