2021 Swedish Concrete Award

Honorary Professor William F. Baker, MSE, engineer Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) USA

Swedish Concrete Award 2021

Honorary Professor William F. Baker, MSE, engineer, world famous for his work with supertall buildings, i.e. buildings over 300 m, has been named the 2021 winner of the Swedish Concrete Association’s prestigious Swedish Concrete Award. William F. Baker and SOM are also responsible for the design of Karlatornet in Gothenburg, which will be the highest residential building in northern Europe.

The motivation is as follows: William F. Baker has through his lifelong work had an ability to think big, but still focus on simplicity, structural clarity and sustainability. He is, among other things, the person behind the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, where he applied topological optimization. He was early in this area, which today is a very hot topic and being implemented in current structural design practice. With an optimization of structures, we can reduce the resources we consume and at the same time reduce the construction industry’s CO₂ impact.

Motivation

Honary Professor William F. Baker, MSE, engineer, and world famous for his work with supertall buildings, i.e. buildings over 300 m, has been named the 2021 winner of the Swedish Concrete Association’s prestigious Swedish Concrete Award.

The motivation is as follows: Honary Professor William F. Baker has through his lifelong work had an ability to think big, but still focus on simplicity, structural clarity and sustainability.

He is, among other things, the person behind the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, where he applied topological optimization. He was early in this area, which today is beginning to be implemented in construction.

With an optimization of our constructions, we can reduce the resources we consume and at the same time reduce the construction industry’s CO₂ impact.

Title of the lecture

Concrete and the evolution of the tall building