The world’s second tallest building, Gensler’s Shanghai Tower has been declared the world’s best skyscraper by information specialist Emporis in its annual skyscraper awards.
The mega tall skyscraper soars at an astounding height of 632 m (2,073 ft) and entails twists of a full 120 degrees which besides adding to its brilliant facade, also mitigates the effect of strong wind gusts that are a feature of the region.
The building stood above its competitors courtesy its gorgeous design and energy-efficiency, and took US$2.4 billion to be built into this architectural masterclass.
The construction of this astounding structure was no simple task, as its foundations alone took a whole fleet of trucks pouring concrete for 63 hours non-stop.
The building is embellished with a total of 106 Mitsubishi-designed elevators which can take you up and down the building at an amazing speed of 20 m (65 ft) per second.
The strong winds are utilised to power the external lighting using wind turbines. A double-layered glass skin helps in insulating the building, while rainwater is collected and used for air-conditioning and heating systems.
Building Information Modeling (BIM) software from Autodesk was utilised by the design team to cater for problems such as wind resistance and seismic loads of progressive iterations. In the end, the designers were able to use 32 percent fewer materials than a conventional tower of the same size.
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