Engineering & Construction
Shanghai Tower – The Spiralling Structural Legend
“The ever changing skyline of Shanghai, changes yet again to make way for the mammoth SHANGHAI TOWER.”
As the newest icon on the Shanghai skyline, the 128-storied, 632m tall Shanghai Tower is sited in the heart of Shanghai’s Luijiazui Finance and Trade Zone, adjacent to the Jin Mao Tower and Shanghai World Financial Center, covering a mammoth area of 30,370sqm. Created by Gensler, the core design team of Shanghai tower includes more than 80 design professionals from Shanghai and abroad. To design an innovative tower that met their client’s sustainability and performance goals, Gensler called on talent from its global network, including the firm’s offices in Shanghai, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, New York, Washington D.C. and San Francisco.
The tower’s distinctive transparent spiral form showcases cutting-edge sustainable strategies and public spaces that wrap its perimeter from crown to base. Shanghai Tower completes a trio of buildings that form China’s first super-tall district. While the Jin Mao Tower pays homage to China’s past and the Shanghai World Financial Center signifies China’s recent economic success, the Shanghai Tower signifies the boundless possibilities of China's future. The tower is situated in a public park with an open civic plaza. As a new Shanghai skyline icon, Shanghai Tower presents a constantly changing façade from all direction. The building’s form is a metaphor for the spirit and philosophy of China. Referencing the spiral as a symbol of the cosmos in Chinese culture, the tower’s form symbolises China’s connection with the world, space and time. Additionally, the tower’s triangular plan relates to the site’s harmonious trio of buildings.
Internally, Shanghai Tower is organised as a series of nine cylindrical buildings stacked one atop the other, with nine atria encircling them. The inner layer of the tower’s double-skin façade encloses the vertically arranged interior buildings, while a triangular exterior layer creates the second skin or building envelope. The spaces between the building’s external facade and its internal facade create the atria. With sky gardens lining the building’s perimeter, Shanghai Tower is literally wrapped in public spaces. Both interior and exterior skins are transparent, establishing a visual connection between the tower’s interior spaces and Shanghai’s urban fabric. At night the building’s glowing translucent form further fuses the city and the tower. As plazas and civic squares create gathering spaces in traditional cities, the nine atria offer gathering spaces within Shanghai Tower. On the ground level, retail and event spaces in tandem with abundant entrances on the site further the physical and visual connections between the tower and city.
The twisting, asymmetrical shape of the tower reduces wind loads on the building by 24 per cent, reducing the structural load on the building. Innovative skin technology is one of many sustainable design and renewable energy systems in the tower. The circular inner glass skin uses 14 per cent less glass than a square building of the same area and minimises energy consumption. The double–skin façade’s vertical atria create thermal buffer zones. It also improves indoor air quality while creating desirable places for people to linger. These public amenity floors also reduce the number of vertical trips each building occupant must make. The building’s spiraling parapet collects rainwater, which is used for the tower’s heating and air conditioning systems. The spiral shape facilitates vortex shedding and creates an asymmetrical surface to reduce wind loads on the building. Wind turbines located directly beneath the parapet generate on-site power. The retail podium is a multi-story, luxury retail experience that incorporates an ambitious mix of premium luxury brand flagships, one-of-a-kind specialty retailers and high-concept dining. The dynamic metropolitan feel of the retail podium is designed to enhance the experiential quality for a mix of visitors, tourists and tower inhabitants. Upscale retail facilities, restaurants, cafés and bars combine to provide the ultimate urban leisure destination in Shanghai. Acting as a weather barrier, the curved podium façade is glazed to merge inside with outside, allowing daylight to penetrate the space and to form a connection between the approaching visitor to the Shanghai Tower and the stores and restaurants within it. A series of multi-level branded retail stores located on the ground level offer uninterrupted visibility from the exterior to their storefronts. Lower-level retail provides direct access from the street level and the mass transit promenade. The tower’s pinnacle features the world’s highest non-enclosed observation deck. This mammoth project is scheduled for completion in 2014, to adorn the great Shanghai skyline.
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