Skyscrapers: The Latest Architecture and News

Work has begun on Foster + Partners' 200-meter-high Suhewan Skyscraper in Shanghai. Designed as part of a larger regeneration plan, the 42 story tower will be built for property development company China Resources Land. The first office tower in the residential district, the project is part of a larger move to make Shanghai a top financial and technology center by 2020. Designed as a landmark development in the Suhewan East Urban Complex, the skyscraper will open up to views of Pudong, Bund and the Huangpu River.

The international design competition to create a new high-rise tower in central Auckland has announced five finalists. The five teams include Warren and Mahoney, Cox Architecture, Zaha Hadid Architects, Elenberg Fraser and Woods Bagot. The landmark tower competition is run by Melbourne-based property development company ICD Property. Each of the teams were asked to complete two versions of their design, one following current city Unitary Plan rules and one version that could be built given more open planning parameters.

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Two years ago over 100 supertall buildings had been constructed worldwide. Last year, 15 more supertall skyscrapers were built, each towering over 300 meters tall. These narrow towers are prevalent in high-density areas with limited land availability and demand for luxury residences. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat is the authority on official heights of tall buildings and determines which building receives the title of the Tallest Building in the World. To celebrate International Skyscraper Day, we're exploring a round up of skyscrapers that aim to redefine supertall construction.

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Moscow officials have approved a new supertall building that will become the city's tallest skyscraper. Rising 404 meters (1,325 feet) in height as part of the Moscow City commercial district, the tower is designed by Sergey Skuratov Architects. The unnamed structure will be a multifunctional residential complex with 109 floors. The new skyscraper will break Moscow's current tall building record set by Federation Tower at 373-meter-tall (1,226 feet) tall. Construction is scheduled to begin next year.

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The Four Seasons Hotel & Private Residences One Dalton Street, Boston’s tallest residential building, has reached its full height of 742 feet, forming a significant presence on the Boston skyline. Designed by Henry N. Cobb of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, in collaboration with Cambridge Seven Architects, the 61-story scheme features 160 residences, a five-star hotel, and an adjacent park.

Cobb’s design for One Dalton comes 40 years after he designed another noted Boston landmark, the John Hancock Tower.

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The Hungarian government is introducing a new skyscraper ban in the hopes of preserving the Budapest skyline. Gergely Gulyás, minister of the prime minister's office, recently stated that the ban will affect all new buildings in Budapest over 90 meters tall. The ban will not limit projects already approved with planning permission, including Foster + Partners' MOL Campus Tower, a high-rise being built as part of the new headquarters for the MOL Group. The 120 meter tower will be exempt because it has already won planning permission.

UNStudio and Cox Architecture have officially been announced as the winners of Melbourne’s landmark Southbank Precinct overhaul. Selected from a range of high-profile offices, including BIG, OMA, and MAD, UNStudio's vision for the $2 billion project includes a pair of twisted towers called Green Spine. As the largest single-phase project in the history of Victoria, Australia, the Green Spine is designed as a state-of-the-art, mixed-use environment centered around innovation in architecture and design.

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Dubai Municipality has announced that the city is planning to preserve its landmark buildings from the 1960s and 70s as part of a new initiative called Modern Heritage. Jointly launched by the Planning Department and the Architectural Heritage Department, the initiative aims to save the first footprints of Dubai. The initiative would protect some of the most significant buildings constructed when the city was first beginning its rapid development. The plan includes the preservation of the Dubai Trade Centre, a 149-metre-high tower regarded as the city's first skyscraper.

A beautifully delicate design by ingenhoven architects, in cooperation with architectus, has bested series of internationally acclaimed architects to design Sydney’s tallest residential tower at 505-523 George Street. The 79-storey skyscraper will reach 270m, and include several uses, ranging from high-quality living and retail to hotel and leisure. The designers hope the tower will be “a profoundly visible landmark standing for an economical, environmental and socially sustainable, future-oriented development”.

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This article was originally published by Metropolis Magazine as "The Skyscraper's Innovative Structure is Changing the Game for Earthquake Design".

The most remarkable thing about 181 Fremont—San Francisco’s third-tallest tower, designed by Heller Manus Architects—is not the penthouse’s asking price ($42 million). Rather, it’s an innovative yet unglamorous structural detail: a viscous damper system that far exceeds California Code earthquake-performance objectives for buildings of 181 Fremont’s class, allowing immediate reoccupation after a seismic event.

Thyssenkrupp Elevator, one of the world’s largest elevator companies, has revealed images of their proposed headquarters near The Battery Atlanta in Cobb County, Georgia. The headquarters will take the form of a “state-of-the-art 420-foot (128-meter)-tall elevator qualification and test tower, the tallest of its kind in the U.S. and one of the tallest in the world."

Featuring 18 shafts, the tower will be a testing ground for new concepts and product pilots, including high-speed elevators, two-cabins-per-shaft systems, and the world’s first cable-free and sideways-moving elevator systems.

A prominent shortlist including BIG, OMA, and UNStudio have revealed their visions for Melbourne’s landmark Southbank Precinct overhaul. The $2 billion project will be the largest single-phase project in the history of Victoria, Australia, intended as “a state-of-the-art, mixed-use environment” to be “centered around innovation in architecture and design.”

The six shortlisted schemes include twisting towers, interlocking blocks, and stacked neighborhoods, all focusing on the 6,000-square-meter BMW Southbank site. The designs were revealed at a public symposium on July 27th featuring speakers from the shortlisted firms.

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LWK & Partners (HK) has recently released their design for “Olympic Vanke Centre” in Hangzhou, China. Occupying 13,969 sqm at the city’s CBD and next to its 2022 Asian Games Village, the Centre, to be completed in 2021, includes two office towers sharing one podium for amenities and underground service area. The design features the rotating, lifted podium that opens up cascading outdoor terraces that extends further into the towers.

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The Lakhta Center, a 400,000-square-meter complex which includes Europe's tallest skyscraper, is approaching completion in St Petersburg. Designed by RMJM (authoring team led by Tony Kettle), the complex provides a new landmark in the northwest of the city—an area on the coastline of the Gulf of Finland which has seen significant development in recent years with the completion of the St Petersburg Stadium, a passenger seaport, and a number of park spaces including the Park of the 300th Anniversary of Saint Petersburg.

The centerpiece of the development, the 462-meter-tall Lakhta Center Tower, is not only the tallest building in Europe, but also the first supertall skyscraper in St Petersburg, the world's second-tallest twisting skyscraper after the Shanghai Tower, and the world's northernmost skyscraper.

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The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has named the initial list of speakers for the 2018 Middle East Conference, Polycentric Cities: The Future of Vertical Urbanism. The list features men and women from some of the most influential businesses in the industry, such as HOK, Safdie Architects, Kohn Pederson Fox, Gensler, Perkins+Will, SOM and many more.

The conference will highlight a wide array of subjects and disciplines related to the conference theme, as well as other hot topics in the industry, including smart technologies, modular construction, 3D-printing buildings, net-zero skyscrapers and much more.

Read on for more about Polycentric Cities and the initial list of speakers.