New tower to ‘pierce china's clouds'

If you like the high life, you may be interested to hear that construction has started on what will be China's tallest building and one of the ten tallest buildings in the world...

Designed by Texan Architect Marshall Strabala, of Gensler Architects, the 120 storey Shanghai Tower (pictured) will spiral upwards to a height of more than 2070 feet.

The new £1.5 billion tower will be in the shape of a soft triangle with two walls made from glass and steel that rotate as they head skywards and finish in an open top design. As the shape rises, an open notch curves up and around the building which is an engineering feature to control the wind up and away from the building.

South of Jin Mao Tower in the Lujiazui Finance & Trade Zone in Pudong New Area, Shanghai Tower will have a total construction area of 576,000 square meters, including 380,000 square meters on the ground.

Gensler sold its design on several ‘green' features; the tower's twisting glass facade and double-skin exterior is expected to save on both building materials and energy usage once completed. It will generate some of its energy from wind turbines.

Mr Strabala said, "With the double skin, the building will function much like a thermos bottle.

"This allows us to harvest and use daylight, reduce artificial lighting to a minimum, increase the insulation of the building's interior and, long-term, dramatically reduce energy consumption and energy costs," he added.

On another green note, the building will be situated within a 10,000-square metre open green space that will become both a public park and the front entry to the tower.

Mr Strabala, who says this tower has been his most ‘exciting and demanding project yet,' has lived in Shanghai for the past year overseeing the building as Director of Design.

He is no stranger to the high life, having already worked on three of the world's tallest buildings, including the 160 storey Burj Dubai in Dubai and the 420-meter Nanjing Greenland Financial Center in China, which will be completed in 2009.

The new Shanghai Tower will feature office space, luxury residences, a high-end hotel, retail space, restaurants and a public observatory.

The development will be separated into nine distinct bioclimatic zones, with each having its own atrium, lush gardens, indoor air controls and panoramic 360° views of China's largest and most populous metropolis.

Gu Jianping, Manager of city-owned Shanghai Tower Construction & Development Co., "Launching construction at this time will help boost Shanghai's confidence in fighting the financial crisis."

The Tower is scheduled to open partially in 2012 when the top floor is finished. The skyscraper will open fully in 2014, according to Gu Jianping.

"Shanghai Tower will represent China's dynamic future," said Strabala. "It will be an impressive building where China looks ahead to both the future of this bustling and ever-changing metropolis, but also to the future of the dynamic Chinese spirit.

"There will be no other such unique and well-conceived tower like it anywhere in the world," he added.

Shanghai Tower's upward spiraling form will become a 'vertical city,' a structure comprised of eight separate neighborhoods that become ‘plazas in the sky.' It is tipped to become one of the world's architectural treasures.

Picture by Dexigner