Andrew Carnegie once said, "Aim for the highest." He followed his own advice. The powerful 19th century steel magnate had the foresight to build a bridge spanning the Mississippi river, a total of 6442 feet. 
In 1874, the primary structural material was iron — steel was the new kid on the block. People were wary of steel, scared of it, even. It was an unproven alloy.
Nevertheless, after the completion of Eads Bridge in St. Louis, Andrew Carnegie generated a publicity stunt to prove steel was in fact a viable building material. A popular superstition of the day stated that an elephant would not cross an unstable bridge. On opening day, a confident Carnegie, the people of St. Louis and a four-ton elephant proceeded to cross the bridge.
The elephant was met on the other side with pompous fanfare. What ensued was the greatest vertical building boom in American history, with Chicago and New York pioneering the cause. That's right people; you can thank an adrenaline-junkie elephant for changing American opinion on the safety of steel construction.
So if steel replaced iron — as iron replaced bronze and bronze, copper — what will replace steel? Carbon Fiber.
You’ve probably heard of it. Carbon Fiber is that super high-tech woven nano-fiberused in professional bicycles and racecar bodies. It’s the ultimate material — five times stronger than steel, twice as stiff, weighingsignificantly less — this is the featherweight champion of materials.
Unfortunately, carbon fiber is still seen as novelty, and while it has been applied in small-scale building projects such as pavilions, the carbon fiber skyscraper idea hasn't yet hatched. Why not? People — including designers — are wary of carbon fiber, scared of it even. Engineers in the automotive and aerospace industries may utilize and push the material to extreme limits, but R&D in architecture is moving at a snail’s pace.
But why? Architects should be drooling over this stuff. The material properties of carbon fiber allow for architectural innovation never previously imaginable. When CADD software was originally released, it allowed architects to push steel to its threshold. This is the reverse. Carbon fiber drives the computer to its threshold.
Imagine SHoP Architects' recently completed Barclay's Center without the tons of resource and labor intensive rebar.
And with the first carbon fiber 3d printer hitting the market this summer, it is not impossible to imagine a world where we print buildings stronger than steel.
Of course there are drawbacks to carbon fiber. In turn, the naysayers emerge. Yes, it is a brittle material, less likely to bend than its steel counterpart. Perhaps more significant, it's a material in infancy. The youth of carbon fiber makes it expensive. Whereas steel is less than a buck a pound, carbon fiber is ten dollars a pound to produce. This youth also means carbon fiber production is annoyingly slow.
However, carbon fiber's journey is mirroring the growing pains of steel. In fact, the lethargic, cost-intensive process of producing steel led Eads Bridge construction to come to a screeching halt. Causing one of the richest men in history to nearly go bankrupt.
But Carnegie didn't go bankrupt. He adapted a process designed by inventor/engineer Henry Bessemer to mass-produce steel. Bessemer's processes meant a steel beam that once took five hours, now took ten minutes — hello industrial revolution. With a revolutionary material and all of his eggs in one giant basket, Carnegie became, for a time, the richest man in the world.
At this very moment, carbon fiber needs the investors like Andrew Carnegie that steel had. Carbon fiber needs the inventors like Henry Bessemer that steel had. Sure, there are still a few kinks to work out, but when those discoveries are made, an architectural and industrial revolution will occur.
Carbon fiber has the ability to be mass-produced in a cheap and sustainable way; we just need to figure it out. Once we do, we can work on getting that elephant across the bridge.
SEE ALSO: Beautiful California House Rethinks Indoor To Outdoor Space
Find Us On Facebook: Business Insider Partners
Natural lighting, intelligent building, and an innovative air purification system is expected to help MAD achieve LEED Gold certification upon completion in 2016.
“Flowing down the facade, the lines emphasize the smoothness of the towers and its verticality. The internal ventilation and filtration system of the ridges draw a natural breeze indoors, which not only improves the interior space but also creates an energy efficient system.”
Yansong attempt’s to integrate nature thoughout the design; Interiors are “injected” with landscape elements, such as towering courtyards and multi-level garden terraces, while “mid-air courtyards” connect the site’s two residential buildings and provide residents the “freedom to wander” through an elevated “mountain forest.” Even the shape of the complex’s four office towers were designed to resemble eroded “river stones.”
“This project transforms the traditional model of buildings in a modern city’s central business district,” explains MAD. “By exploring the symbiotic relationship between modern urban architecture and natural environment, it revives the harmonious co-existence between urban life and nature. It creates a Shanshui city where people can share their individual emotions and a sense of belonging.”
When you're surrounded by buildings on all sides, what do you see? In his 
After 
Qatar
The design – billed as “an entirely Qatari concept, reflecting 
The stadium was designed by an unnamed group of Qatari architects, although Dar Al Handasa are credited as design consultants. As one of the World Cup’s semi-final venues, the stadium will hold 60,000 seats, but after the tournament the design allows the upper tier of seating to be removed, reducing the stadium to 32,000 seats. The removed seats are planned to be donated to other countries “to leave a legacy for international football development.”
The Al Bayt Stadium & Precinct will also incorporate best practice in energy-efficiency measures in an attempt to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (
The Al Bayt Stadium is the second design unveiled for the 2022 World Cup, joining 
Built at an unprecedented scale for Caracas at the time, the reinforced concrete complex was destined for success: it was exhibited as a triumph of modernist design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Salvador Dalí offered to decorate the inside, and Nobel-Prize winning Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda even declared it “one of the most exquisite creations to emerge from the mind of an architect.”
Nevertheless, financial difficulties prevented the project’s completion. For decades it was inhabited by squatters; today, it serves as the headquarters of Venezuela’s National Intelligence Agency (
A few weeks ago, they launched a 
The very shape of the building complex represents Guangzhou’s significance. The three towers, situated along the Zhujiang River, appear to read as “001,” indicating the city’s trade history. The CCCC’s project manager, Shu Gang, stated “Atkins’ design concept demonstrates the importance of Guangzhou as a gateway to 
The window shapes of the project are also functional, in that they do not block views of the river for buildings situated behind them. All three of the structures are designed to maximize ventilation and shading to offset the humidity of southern China.
The Window of Guangzhou is expected to be completed in 2018.
