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Super Safe Skyscrapers
A
big fire or something like the Twin Towers attack are VERY
RARE occurencies, but,
when that happens on a skyscraper, the number of dead peoples always
is very high (since it's proportional to the number of peoples that
live and work inside them) also, the great increase of new skyscrapers
built or planned (just look at China and Dubai) may increase the
probability of severe accidents, so, why don't design from scratch
a new generation of "Super
Safe Skyscrapers"?
All skyscrapers already have a fire escape stair INSIDE them (that is sufficient for small emergency) but, that stair has just a SINGLE leak in a SINGLE floor of the building, it becomes a DEATH TRAP for the peoples that go down through them.
Five months ago, after seeing on the MIT Technology Review website a new product (a fast "rope-climbing device") I've suggested (in this article) to ADD to all big and small buildings the "multi-ropes skyscrapers' emergency external elevators" to help the firemen to go up and the rescued peoples to go down (keeping both away from flames!) but (clearly) this is not an easy way to rescue too young, too old and "untrained" peoples (then, 99% of them...).
So, the BEST WAY to have very safe escape stairs usable by (untrained) common peoples of every age (then, to build very safe skyscrapers) is to put them OUTSIDE the building with (separate and distant) "Escape Towers" like those showed in the example building published here.
The external "Escape
Tower(s)" can be used
also with single-tower buildings, however, it's best (and safest)
use is with multiple-towers skyscrapers (two towers, like the example
in this page, or GROUPS
of three, four, six towers and more) so, in case of problems, EACH
tower could become the (undamaged) "escape
tower" of the tower
on fire.
Of course, a skyscraper with external escape towers costs more than one without them, but, if something goes wrong (and we can't know where and when that will happen) HUNDREDS (or THOUSANDS) peoples may SAVE THEIR LIVES! Just imagine if an external escape tower like this had been part of the Twin Towers buildings! Unfortunately, NO ONE of the existing and planned (big, small, single and multiple towers) skyscrapers I've seen (so far) has something like the external escape towers suggested here.
July 22 - 2007
>>>>>> If you talk/discuss about this argument on space forums/blogs/websites/magazines/articles please refer to the source of the idea and/or put a link to this article. Thank You. <<<<<<<<<<
Copyright © 2007 Gaetano Marano - All rights reserved
