My palms are sweating as I write this post, because even the thought of someone free soloing a skyscraper makes me clammy. (Free solo means climbing with no ropes.) But that's what climber Alex Honnold is scheduled to do live, on Netflix, on January 23, 2026, at 8 PM ET.

He will be climbing Taipei 101, which is over 500 meters tall, one of the tallest buildings in the world, and formerly the world's tallest. Dubai's Burj Khalifa stole this superlative in 2009 when it was completed.

My palms continue to sweat, but Alex is of the opinion that, as far as enormous towers go, this one is relatively safe for free soloing:

Honnold said the shape of the building makes it safer to climb because there are balconies every eight floors. “You could actually fall in tons of places and not actually die, which makes it safer than a lot of rock climbing objectives,” he said.

I can see the logic.

The architecture of Taipei 101 consists of inverted trapezoids that are stacked on top of each other. Each is 8 storeys tall and they angle outward as you move up, creating a roof condition or terrace on top of each module.

Eight is an important number in Chinese culture because of a homophone in Mandarin; the number sounds like "to prosper" or "to make a fortune." So that's why the modules are the height that they are.

It is now also dawning on me that the nested modules of One Delisle are 8 storeys tall. That's good! This was never talked about during the design phase, but now that I'm aware of it, I'm going to pretend it was deliberate.

I guess this also means that One Delisle would be a relatively safe building to free solo climb. Please, nobody try this.

Good luck, Alex.

Cover photo by Timo Volz on Unsplash

My palms are sweating as I write this post, because even the thought of someone free soloing a skyscraper makes me clammy. (Free solo means climbing with no ropes.) But that's what climber Alex Honnold is scheduled to do live, on Netflix, on January 23, 2026, at 8 PM ET.

He will be climbing Taipei 101, which is over 500 meters tall, one of the tallest buildings in the world, and formerly the world's tallest. Dubai's Burj Khalifa stole this superlative in 2009 when it was completed.

My palms continue to sweat, but Alex is of the opinion that, as far as enormous towers go, this one is relatively safe for free soloing:

Honnold said the shape of the building makes it safer to climb because there are balconies every eight floors. “You could actually fall in tons of places and not actually die, which makes it safer than a lot of rock climbing objectives,” he said.

I can see the logic.

The architecture of Taipei 101 consists of inverted trapezoids that are stacked on top of each other. Each is 8 storeys tall and they angle outward as you move up, creating a roof condition or terrace on top of each module.

Eight is an important number in Chinese culture because of a homophone in Mandarin; the number sounds like "to prosper" or "to make a fortune." So that's why the modules are the height that they are.

It is now also dawning on me that the nested modules of One Delisle are 8 storeys tall. That's good! This was never talked about during the design phase, but now that I'm aware of it, I'm going to pretend it was deliberate.

I guess this also means that One Delisle would be a relatively safe building to free solo climb. Please, nobody try this.

Good luck, Alex.

Cover photo by Timo Volz on Unsplash