Yahoo – AFP,
Bill Savadove, 21 June 2015
 |
The
under-construction Shanghai Tower (bottom C), the Shanghai World
Financial
Center (L) and the Jin Mao Tower (AFP Photo/Johannes Eisele)
|
Shanghai
(AFP) - The world's second tallest building, Shanghai Tower, will soon open in
the Chinese financial capital with a twist -- a 120-degree twist, to be exact.
A softened
triangular "outer skin" is literally twisted around a circular core,
sending the glass and steel tower spiralling 632 metres (2,086 feet) into the
grey sky above the city.
State-backed
developer Shanghai Tower Construction and Development Co. views the modern
design as a symbol of China's future, a super-tall building in the city's
gleaming Pudong financial district, which did not even exist 25 years ago.
 |
The
under-construction Shanghai
Tower, will soon open in the Chinese
financial
capital with a twist (AFP
Photo/Johannes Eisele)
|
"This
twist is an iconic symbol of looking forward for the Chinese people," said
Grant Uhlir, practice area leader and principal for Gensler, the US
architecture firm whose design was chosen for the building which broke ground
in 2008.
"It's
been referred to as a strand of DNA. It's also been referred to a place where
the ground connects with the sky," he said.
Although
still dwarfed by the reigning champion Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which stands at
828 metres (2,732 feet), and with new challengers under construction, the $2.4 billion
Shanghai Tower can still lay claim to a host of superlatives.
Besides
being the tallest double-facade building, the world's fastest elevators
travelling 18 metres per second will whisk people up and down while the globe's
second highest hotel will be located on the 84th to 110th floors.
An
estimated 16,000 to 18,000 people will pass through the Shanghai Tower every
day. The building will sway up to a metre (three feet) in high winds, with a
1,000-tonne "damper" weight near the top reducing the effect.
'It has
to be unique'
"When
you do these iconic, super-tall buildings, it can't be a copy of something
else. It has to be unique," said American chief architect Marshall
Strabala, who participated in the project while at Gensler.
Now the
head of his own firm, he spent part of his three-decade career working on some
of the world's tallest buildings including the Burj Khalifa.
He said the
double skin plays other roles besides pure design, providing insulation to keep
the building cool in summer and warm in winter and reducing wind stress.
"This
building is a giant Thermos bottle, that's all it is," he said.
But the
vacuum flask metaphor masks the mind-numbing complexity involved in balancing
the design, safety requirements, building codes and client demands that shaped
the tower.
 |
Marshall
Strabala, the chief architect of the Shanghai Tower, poses next
to a
three-metre model of the tower (AFP Photo/Johannes Eisele)
|
Despite the
futuristic look, concepts owing to Chinese culture are present.
A golden
canopy at the base of the building was originally meant to be green, the colour
of weathered copper, but the developer rejected the idea because in Chinese,
the expression "wearing a green hat" means being a cuckold.
"It's
not a good thing. Gold is a colour of prosperity," Strabala said.
A white
stone structure dubbed the "River Wall" on the lower floors
conceptually cuts the building into west and east, like Shanghai itself is
divided into Puxi and Pudong on either side of the Huangpu River.
"Pudong
side is business, Puxi side is fun. The retail, restaurants (in the building)
are on the fun Puxi side," Strabala said.
The
developer is expected to shun using floor numbers with the number four, which
sounds like the Chinese word for death.
Gensler
says the building has 121 "occupied" floors, while the total number
has been given as 127 or 128 storeys depending on how they are counted.
'Curse'
of tall buildings
Office
space will take up much of the 573,000-square-metre (6.2-million-square-foot)
building, while the retail space is small compared to a shopping mall -- just
four floors.
The
building's arrival on the Shanghai office market could potentially pull down
rents and drive up the vacancy rate, analysts said.
 |
An empty
office space in the Shanghai
Tower, which is still under construction
(AFP
Photo/Johannes Eisele)
|
Property
agents are quoting rental rates in a range of 9 to 16 yuan ($1.45 to $2.56) per
square metre a day depending on location, but they say the developer is
offering rent-free periods.
Strabala
believes the prestige of the address will draw tenants though he jokes about
the "curse" of tall buildings, which seems to follow economic strife.
Workers
broke ground on Shanghai Tower in November 2008, just weeks after the collapse
of Lehman Brothers, which helped spark the global financial crisis, and it will
open at a time when China's economy is slowing.
Strabala,
however, is not worried, stressing that recognition of the building as the
world's second tallest will attract tenants.
"This
building will fill up because people will want to be here," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment