International tall buildings council launches in Canada

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) launched its first Canadian chapter in Toronto on May 2. A breakfast meeting was held at the University of Toronto Faculty Club, with a presentation by Antony Wood, executive director of CTBUH International, who came in from Chicago.

Also speaking was Sam Crignano, the president of Cityzen Developments which sponsored the meeting and developed the curvaceous Absolute World Towers that now dominate the skyline in Mississauga, Ontario. The towers won the “2012 Best Tall Buildings Americas” award from CTBUH.

The CTBUH was founded in 1969 and is an international non-profit organization supported by design and construction professionals. It is devoted to gathering and disseminating information on tall buildings around the world. It holds conferences (upcoming, June 11-13 London, U.K.), publishes technical papers, gives awards and maintains a database and statistics about the tallest towers in the world. It is the arbiter of how a tall building height is measured and thus how “The World’s Tallest Building” is determined.

In promoting the event, CTBUH said: “For the past several years, Toronto has been one of the most active tall-building construction centres in North America. The quantity of infrastructure and real estate development in the Greater Toronto Area continues at unprecedented levels. Against this backdrop, the new Canada chapter of CTBUH has formed.”

Nearly 70 people attended the breakfast, including from consulting engineering companies Arup, Halsall, H.H. Angus, Entuitive, Genivar-WSP, MMM, Read Jones Christoffersen, RWDI, Smith + Andersen and Yolles.

Click here for more information about CBTUH.