The Twin Towers: 10 years – 10 Lessons on Sustainable Infrastructure

On Monday 14 March 2011, Prof Jose Torero (University of Edinburgh) delivered the public lecture:

The Twin Towers: 10 years – 10 Lessons on Sustainable Infrastructure

Joint event of The Royal Society of Edinburgh and The Royal Academy of Engineering.

The collapse of the World Trade Center towers represents one of the most dramatic failures of modern structural engineering. One of the most exhaustive and expensive failure analyses in history was conducted in the midst of speculation, controversy and conspiracy theories. In parallel, the world has seen an extraordinary evolution of the super-tall building. Seven of the ten tallest buildings in the world have been built after 9/11. These not only include the tallest four, but eight of these buildings are outside the USA. Furthermore, a strong drive towards sustainability has driven tall building design to levels of innovation never seen before. This presentation will extract, from a decade of questioning and innovation, ten lessons on what is sustainable infrastructure.

A summary of the lecture and the 10 lessons can be read here