What damage can skyscraper air turbulence do?

The answer may be written in the wind, but here in Vauxhall wouldn’t you rather read it on paper?

Are the Mayor and Lambeth/Wandsworth council planners too happy to take developers’ word for it that clustering tall buildings at Vauxhall Cross/Nine Elms poses no wind turbulence risk? The district’s unusual, Thames-induced wind conditions are ripe for international academic study, not least because tall buildings may pose a security risk to the new US Embassy at Nine Elms, suggests a Vauxhall Society study.

Collapse of cooling tower at Ferrybridge

West Yorkshire, 1965, three of Ferrybridge C power station’s eight cooling towers vibrate then collapse and the other five are wrecked in 85mph gusts. The towers had been designed to withstand higher wind speeds, but were tested for average wind speeds over one minute, neglecting shorter gusts. The grouping of the cooling towers funnelled westerly winds into the towers themselves to create a vortex. Nobody hurt.

Read The Vauxhall Society’s paper here.