Britain's tall building boom: now bust?

From early 2005 up to the freeze induced by the world's faltering financial markets during the first quarter of 2008, Britain experienced a demand for tall buildings of an unprecedented high level: in London alone, ten tall buildings have started, or were due to start on site, between the first quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2008. This is directly comparable in size with America's Manhattan Island skyscraper boom of the 1920s. The objectives of this paper are: first, to investigate the evolution of the UK tall building and determine the reasons behind this building form's growth at unprecedented rates; second, to define the UK tall building and compare it with the international tall building stage; third, to analyse the differing types of demand and categorise these subsectors of the UK tall building market; fourth, to calculate the size and value of this specialist construction market in the UK and forecast its growth potential; and finally, to analyse the latest negative market developments during 2008 and warn of the current match of the UK tall building market to the Skyscraper Index model and the resulting risk of full-blown economic recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]