New Building in Detroit Making History Looking Like Titan Tower
There is a building in Detroit being constructed from the top down. The first of its kind in North America.
The process used to erect this Exchange Tower in Detroit seems backward to all of us non-engineers. The builders constructed the elevator shafts first, then they built the top floor. This 16-floor building will be constructed one floor at a time, then that floor will slowly be elevated to its position at the top of the building.
It's far easier to understand if you're watching it in action. The video below from ABC 7 Detroit shows one of the newly constructed floors in the process of being elevated.
To a normal person like me, it's hard to understand the benefit of building a tower from the top down. It must be a safety thing, right? Joe Benvenuto of LIFTbuild spoke with ABC 7 about how they're putting safety first with this new way of doing things,
We’re not putting people on beams 100 feet in the air that needs to be tied off. We’re trying to eliminate all the fall hazards. That is our number one objective, get rid of the hazards, get rid of the inefficiencies on the site.
Many people in the comments of TikTok below are comparing the unfinished Exchange Tower to DC Comic's Titans Tower.
People are saying that this puts Detroit back on the map as far as architecture is concerned. It's worth pointing out that Michigan tends to be the first in North America if not the first in the world with a lot of amazing infrastructure projects. Click here for more "firsts" in Michigan.