Quarterly Review 4 (2018) Tall Buildings

From the time of the earliest civilizations, there has been the desire to build the biggest, the tallest of structures. Visions of grandeur, be they in the eyes of kings or corporate giants, have inspired not only architects but also the engineers charged with realizing those visions.

“When Robert Bird first started in Brisbane in 1982, a tall building would be 30 storeys,” recalls Robert Bird Group deputy chairman Grant Weir. “Today, it’s more like 50 storeys and up.” That shift in scale has elevated RBG into an exclusive league of structural engineers with the experience, technology and expertise to engineer some