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'Buildering' (also known as 'urban climbing', 'structuring', or 'stegophily') is the act of climbing on (usually) the outside of buildings and other artificial structures. The word "buildering" is a portmanteau combining the word "building" with the climbing term "bouldering".
If done without ropes or protection far off the ground, buildering may be dangerous and is often practiced outside legal bounds, and is thus mostly undertaken at night-time. Adepts of buildering who are seen climbing on buildings without authorization are regularly met by police forces upon completing their exploit. Spectacular acts of ''buildering'', such as free soloing skyscrapers, are usually accomplished by lone, experienced climbers, sometimes attracting large crowds of passers-by and media attention. These remain relatively rare.
Buildering can also take a form more akin to bouldering, which tends towards ascending and/or traversing shorter sections of buildings and structures. While still generally frowned upon by property owners, some, such as the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Tufts University turn a blind eye towards the practice in many locations.
Although often done as a solo sport, buildering has also become a popular group activity. As in more traditional rock climbing, routes are established and graded for difficulty.

Contents

History

Famous urban climbers

See also

References

External links

Locations

History

Although students had been scrambling up the architecture of Cambridge University for years ''Geoffrey Winthrop Young: Poet, educator, mountaineer'' by Alan Hankinson, (1995), Hodder & Stoughton, London, the great alpinist, Geoffrey Winthrop Young, while a student there in the 1890s, engaged in "roof climbing" and wrote and published a buildering guide to the campus ''The Roof Climber's Guide to Trinity''(1900), which may be the first documentation of the activity restricted to a particular environment . Later, Young produced another small volume on buildering, spoofing mountaineering ''Wall and Roof Climbing'' (1905). In the 1930s a somewhat more serious, though still light-hearted, account of Cambridge undergraduate buildering appeared in popular print''The Night Climbers of Cambridge'' by Whipplesnaith (1937), Chatto & Windus Ltd, London. As to identifying the first recreational or professional builderer - that remains an open question, for even at Cambridge, ". . .the lack of written records makes a history of past roof-climbing impossible"''The Night Climbers of Cambridge'' by Whipplesnaith (1937), Chatto & Windus Ltd, London.

Famous urban climbers

★ Alain Robert, popularly known as "the real-life Spider-Man", has climbed the Empire State Building in New York, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Petronas Towers two times in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, among others, without using any aids or protection.

★ Dan Goodwin, aka Spider Dan, climbed the Sears Tower in Chicago in 1981.

★ George Willig climbed the World Trade Center.

★ Harry and Simon Westaway climbed the Palace of Westminster's clock tower, Big Ben in London as an anti-war protest for Greenpeace.[1]

★ Harry Gardiner, known as the Human Fly, began urban climbing in 1905.

★ George Polley, also known as the Human Fly, who took up buildering ca 1910.

See also

★ Parkour

★ Bridge jumping

★ ''Doorways in the Sand''

★ Safety Last

References

External links

★ Buildering.net

★ FreakClimbing Buildering Gallery

★ FreakClimbing announces First Buildering World Championship

★ Alain Robert Official website

★ BBC announces Ascent of the Arche de la Defence

★ Buildering.com Videos of Buildering

Locations

★ Denmark

★ UK Urban Street Climbing Site

★ Rotterdam, France videos

★ Germany

★ Milan, Italy Street Boulder Contest

★ Sbloc Video-Megazine on Urban & Bouldering

★ Quebec urban climbing

★ University of California, Berkeley