Gensler Design 632m Shanghai Super Tower
Gensler Architects has won an international competition to build what will be one of the tallest buildings in the world on Shanghai's Pudong Peninsula, the main cluster of skyscrapers in the city and the second tallest in the world.
Called the Shanghai Center, the dimensions of the building according to the planning documents are massive. The steel structure will rise to 632m wrapped around a 565.6 metre tall central concrete core. In total it will have 127 stories, a gross internal area of 558,806 square metres with interior space will be given over to offices, a luxury hotel and retail.
The scheme sits on a mere 30,370 square metres, plot Z32 which has long been expected to feature the tallest building in the entire cluster of buildings in Lujiazui. Once finished, the Shanghai Centre will line up with the Jin Mao Building and Shanghai World Finance Centre to create a nascent row of supertall towers.
The design is tiered into 8 levels above ground with floor-plates, approximately the shape of triangles, creating the base of each tier that in front has an outer glass façade wrapped around it allowing large vertical spaces behind.
Recessed deeply from the external façade are the main floors, creating an area in between that containing huge atriums. These will have their space used to turn it into a bioclimatic tower, complete with trees as much as ten metres tall that can help naturally regulate the cooling of the building between its double skin.
The scheme is topped by a viewing platform and observation areas that will have a huge hollow space on the inside of it open to the elements paying homage to the void located near the top of the Shanghai World Finance Centre.
Work by the development consortium founded to build the scheme, the Shanghai Center Ltd , is to start to December 2008 with completion in 2014. Once finished it will be China's tallest building.