How to disassemble a skyscraper (if you have the money)

The engineers who designed and built the very tallest, most skyscraping skyscrapers said very little about whether – let alone how – someone could safely disassemble such a colossus, should the need arise. About the only person who thought about it long and hard was the writer and illustrator David Macauley. Decades ago, Macauley published […]

How to disassemble a skyscraper but not its neighborhood?

In the race to top the top, to build a tall building that’s at least momentarily taller than all the other tallest buildings, a two-part question lingers. These towers are so costly, and the real estate market so unpredictable, that one or more of these buildings could turn out to be financial failures. Then might arise […]