High-rise buildings and environmental factors

Today, energy has a key role in socio-economical development of a country. By exhausting fossil fuels as one of the largest energy consumption sources throughout the world, it seems to be vital to find renewable alternative energy sources or ways of reducing energy demands, especially in tall buildings with their great potential to use sustainable sources because of their height. In this study, the main problem is that the construction builders and users do not know the excessive energy saving potential of high-rise buildings. So, as a priority, this matter should be more concentrated on while designing by architects. These days, in my own country Iran, due to population growth and industrial development, the amount of energy consumption is increasing. This can show the importance of the problem. So, the Tehran International Tower, which is the highest residential tower in Iran, was chosen as a case study. Thus, the overall objective of this study is making tall building architects more aware of the neglected sustainable potential ways to diminish energy consumption. Meanwhile, this study tries to illustrate the effects of some environmental factors, such as air pressure and density, wind speed and other similar factors in high-rise buildings, from architects and ordinary people׳s points of view and comparing these attitudes with each other in the case study. Finally, as buildings use a huge amount of generated energy in the world, and high-rise buildings are an inevitable part of the community, they can meaningfully contribute in reducing energy consumption by using renewable energies and new ideas in designing. Moreover, the result of this research shows that sustainable skyscrapers can be energy efficient and are closely related to their site and environment.