Oddly enough, nope.
For a simple example: normal wooden residential construction in the US calls for 2 X 4's every 16", or 2 X 6's every 24". That makes a bearing wall, which will not only support the entire roof load above, including additional weight such as snow collection, but also at least one additional floor. Another requirement is that these 'bearing members' are cross - braced, either with planking running horizontally or sheathing fastened to the 2 X structure to keep it from having the top kick- out sideways, or 'diamonding'. All modern residential structures are built this way.
So knocking one down, from the builder's point of view, would be to simply 'break' those 2 X's that support the structure and it will all fall down..... except that the sheathing is actually quite strong and very capable of holding the structure up. It is not calculated in the bearing loads of the building but try crushing even 7/16" thick sheathing, edge- down, and it is amazingly strong. So if I were to cut all the 2 X's and the structure stood, what next?
In steel skeleton structures, again it is assumed that the vertical steel members bear the entire load but that again is too simple; all the outside sheathing attached, often welded, to those vertical members yield a tremendous amount of strength but are not figured in in the building's ability to withstand vertical load, side loading (wind) or torque load (wind not hitting exactly 90 degrees on the building). So a building with insufficient, or possibly even NO vertical bearing members MAY still stand, although it will not be safe to withstand any additional loads (people in the grandstands, snow, etc.) or natural events such as earthquakes, even earth tremors, winds, etc. So now you have a building actually standing that almost certainly WILL fall down at some point in the future but has not fallen where and when the contractors intended. A very poor state of affairs. But I cut them a lot of slack because again, it is very tricky work and once the first attempt fails, the building is now actually dangerous so the second try is far trickier yet.
What is normally done with large structures, which are always made out of steel, is to cut the bearing members using a shaped explosive charge. What is a bit unusual in the video of this particular example is the long length of external detonation (det.) cord that can be seen igniting immediately before the shaped charges go off. Anyway, the shaped charges make a chisel shaped cut right through the vertical members, leaving the building above without any support, and it falls exactly one floor so that the second floor is then on the ground. But because the entire building has a good amount of vertical (downward) velocity, the second floor does what is called 'pancaking' and it too crushes because while it can, and did, bear up the entire rest of the building, the velocity acts as a hammer blow and crushes those members. The third floor follows and so forth. The clearest example of this, unfortunately, is watching the twin World Trade Centers collapse in 2001, one floor failed due to over- heated bearing members, and the floors above 'pancaked' each floor below until all floors other than the last couple on top were destroyed.
While this failure is unfortunate, hopefully there will be no loss- of- life as the situation progresses, and frankly it is these types of 'failures' that are fascinating to learn about. And I still have every reason to believe that the original contractors, perhaps with additional outside assistance now, will still successfully bring the building down safely and I personally would not be too quick to dump all over them because as I have said, it is tricky work dropping a building straight down into a nice, neat and confined "heap".
Brian
If you can build things up, and have them stay there, doesn't that mean you have a pretty good idea of some things that would take them down?