Work on the Shard Skyscraper London started this month which will become one of the tallest buildings in eastern Europe. The building located at 32 London Bridge Street London will break the 1000 ft mark with the roof reaching 1,004 ft and the antenna 1,017 ft. The building will have 87 floors.

The building is due to be finishing in 2012 after architects Renzo Piano had to go through a gruelling planning application. The building will contain a hotel and offices to be let, London transport have agreed to be one of the many occupants. 5 cranes will be used to make the huge tower over it’s 2 and half year building process.

When constructing large towers there are millions of points to take into consideration one of them is how to deal with lighting strikes. When lighting strikes a building the bold of electricity needs to get to the ground, using a lighting conductor (in the US the call it a lighting rod) you can get the electric down to the ground.

The lighting conductor is generally made out of copper or aluminium and will be the highest point on a building. From there the conductor will be connecting to many wires taking the electricity down to the ground. Those wires need to be not connected to other electrical wires otherwise a strike could break the electrics.

The Beetham Tower the largest building in Manchester, England was recently hit by a lighting strike 9:20am 30th July 2009. The event was captured by the local University.