How Do We Go Ultratall?

Tue, Mar 30, 2021
Jeddah Tower structural diagrams. Courtesy of Thornton Tomasetti.

Robert Sinn,

PE, SE, FACI, FASCE, FIABSE

Principal, Thornton Tomasetti

Structural engineer Robert Sinn is a Principal in the Chicago office of Thornton Tomasetti. Before joining TT in 2007, Bob spent more than two decades at SOM, where he was responsible for such award-winning projects as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, and Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, which when completed was the tallest all-concrete building in North America. Recent project credits include the 245-meter Federation of Korean Industries headquarters (2014) in Seoul, South Korea, the Al Wasl Plaza for Expo 2020 in Dubai, UAE, topped by a translucent dome that spans 130 meters.

Sinn led the structural design team for Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower, which if completed as planned will be the first man-made structure to reach a height of one kilometer. As he has explained in lectures on the megatower, the three-legged buttressed core is developed as a pure bearing wall system where all gravity loads are carried entirely by reinforced concrete walls. According to Bob, the structure of the first structure designed to exceed 3,200 feet is “simplicity itself.”

Educated in Civil Engineering at Northwestern University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bob is a fellow of the American Concrete Institute, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the International Association of Bridge and Structural Engineering.

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The video begins with Robert Sinn's lecture, followed by Q&A with Museum Director Carol Willis, whose introduction to the webinar is included after the discussion.

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