It’s not often easy to be first. But that hasn’t stopped an intrepid adventurer from going against the prevailing winds of structural practice to debut a dynamic shift in skyscraper engineering that at minimum promises improved tall-building resilience and sustainability—at a reduced cost.

In a long-awaited historic step toward “real" not cookbook wind engineering, the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers has issued a recommended alternative to the building code’s prescriptive procedures for the wind design of buildings.

Help is on the way for structural engineers driving toward improving the efficiency, reliability and resilience of buildings through performance-based wind design.

When the framers of the Jeddah Tower—designed to rise higher than 1 kilometer—needed advice on the wind climate about 500 m above the earth’s atmospheric boundary layer, they turned to RWDI Consulting Engineers and Scientists.