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April 24, 2006 Vol. 77, no.
14S
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| UPWARD
MOBILITY:
Leslie Robertson will deliver a lecture entitled, “Moving on
Up: How high can we go?” on Monday, May 1. The event will take
place at 3:30 p.m. in 502 Davis Hall. Robertson will discuss the
systems of past, present and future high-rise buildings. (Photo provided
by Leslie Robertson)
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How high
can we go?
On May 1, CE alum and high-rise engineer to share his insights on the tallest buildings
When Leslie Robertson (B.S.’52 CE) was awarded the contract
to structurally design and build the 110-floor World Trade Center towers,
he was 32 years old. His tallest building up that point was 22 floors.
To fill the gap in his experience, Robertson did what any good student
does: He studied.
“I looked at the work of older engineers who had built all these
60-floor buildings around New York,” he says. “I read what
they wrote. I went through their buildings. I got on top of elevator
cars
and rode up and down to see how the guts worked. I sorted out what
was good and what was bad.” When the towers were dedicated in
April 1973, they were the tallest buildings in the world. Just before
they collapsed on September 11, 2001, they had absorbed the impact
of Boeing 767s traveling at an estimated 400 m.p.h. and subsequent
fires as hot as 2,000-degrees Fahrenheit. The towers lasted long enough
to allow about 90 percent of their occupants to escape.
Robertson came to Berkeley on the G.I. Bill, after serving in the
Navy during WWII. In the military, he became a pacifist and felt welcome
among the University’s progressive traditions. One of his favorite
campus memories was taking a world literature class. “I never
knew how to truly read before that,” he says.
After college, he worked as a mathematician calculating the optimal
distribution of electricity across power networks. It was there that
he became curious about the power lines themselves, he says, and worked
on a wire design tool. That sparked an interest in line towers. He
created his own tower designs, and eventually parlayed his interests
into a structural engineering job. In 1958, he opened his own firm,
Leslie E. Robertson Associates.
Robertson’s ambitions rose from there — literally. He and
his firm are responsible for the structural design and construction
of three of the world’s six tallest buildings. “I’m
a believer in tall buildings,” he explains. “I live in
one and work in one. The ability for people get in an elevator in order
to sit and talk together without traveling long distances is important.
High-rise buildings facilitate human communication in a way that isn’t
possible in a horizontal world. The high rise world is good for people.
It’s been good for me.”
Come hear from the master craftsman when he delivers a lecture
entitled, “Moving
on Up: How high can we go?” on Monday, May 1. The event will
take place at 3:30 p.m. in 502 Davis Hall. Robertson will discuss the
structural systems of past, present and future high-rise buildings.
A reception will follow in the seventh floor lobby of Davis. To learn
more about Robertson’s work, go to www.lera.com.
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