The Tallest Buildings in the World

BusinessWeek and Architectural Record announced the 2007 Architectural Awards.

The submissions are:

1. Award of Excellence - InterActiveCorp Headquarters - New York

Architect: Gehry Partners/Studios Architecture

2. Award of Excellence - Young Center For The Performing Arts - Toronto

Architect: Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects
3. Award of Excellence - U.S. Census Bureau Headquarters - Suitland Md.

Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

4. Award of Excellence - Navy Federal Credit Union Heritage Oaks Center, Building One - Pensacola, Fla.

Architect: ASD

5. Citation for Excellence - Four Seasons Center For The Performing Arts - TorontoArchitect: Diamond & Schmitt Architects

6. Citation for Excellence - Hearst Tower - New York

Architect: Foster + Partners/Gensler

7. Citation for Excellence - Hubbell Lighting Headquarters - Greenville, S.C.

Architect: McMillan Smith & Partners Architects

8. Citation for Excellence - SJ Berwin - London

Architect: HOK
9. Citation for Excellence - San Diego Padres Ballpark/ Petco Park - San Diego

Architect: Antoine Predock Architect/HOK Sports

10. Citation for Excellence -Gardiner Museum - Toronto
Architect: Kuwabara Payne Mckenna Blumberg Architects

The Qatari government is close to buying most of London’s £400m Shard of Glass development, skyscraper that has not yet been built, Doha Time reported.

The 66-storey London Bridge Tower, otherwise known as the Shard of Glass, is built in south London this will become one of the tallest buildings in Europe.

The Ras al Khaimah Convention and Exhibtion Centre looks a lot like something out of Star Wars. Unlike the traditional high-rise building, the design for the Ras al Khaimah Convention and Exhibition Centre accommodates all primary functions, such as the convention centre, hotel rooms, apartments, offices and retail space in a giant sphere.

Don’t like the view? Wait a few minutes and it will change.

In skyscraper-crazy Dubai, tall isn’t enough. In a design to be unveiled today in the oil-rich emirate, David Fisher, an Italian-Israeli architect, has dreamed up a 68-story combination hotel, apartment and office tower where the floors would rotate 360 degrees. Each floor would rotate independently, creating a constantly changing architectural form.

Each story of the tower would be shaped like a doughnut and be attached to a center core housing elevators, emergency stairs and other utilities. Wind turbines placed in gaps between the doughnuts would generate electricity.

The doughnuts won’t rotate fast enough to give guests upset stomachs. A single rotation would take around 90 minutes. “It’s quite slow,” says Mr. Fisher.

The City of Guangzhou - host city to the 2010 Asian Games is also set to house one of the world’s tallest buildings. The new TV Tower will be one of the tallest buildings in the world - reaching 610m in height and is hoped will attract 10,000 visitors daily. The 610-metre-tall twisted, tapering tube is formed by the rotation between two ellipses which form a ‘waist’ in the centre of the building. All the giant building’s functional workings are hidden at the base and all infrastructural connections are met underground. This level supports other facilities as well, including a museum, dining facilities, commercial space and car parks. Slow-speed panoramic and enclosed high-speed double-decker lifts serve both entrance levels. Between 80-170m will consist of facilities like a 4D cinema, restaurants, coffee shops and outdoor gardens. At 170+ there will be an open-air staircase which spirals almost 200 metres higher. The building is set to be finished late 2009, in time for the games.

Dutch Information Based Architecture (IBA) is the prime contractor on this project.

Approximately 805 tons of steel are being produced in Luxembourg to create the first 27 "extra-large" steel columns of the Freedom Tower, World Trade Center developer Larry A. Silverstein, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive director Kenneth J. Ringler Jr. and Tishman Construction Corporation chairman Daniel R. Tishman announced July 27. The steel will serve as part of the below-grade structure for the historic Freedom Tower and will be delivered to the World Trade Center site by the end of the year.

Production of the first steel for the Freedom Tower began this week at a plant in Differdange, Luxembourg that specializes in producing the heaviest I-beams available in the world, called "Jumbo Sections." Arcelor, one of the world’s largest steel companies, is making the high-strength, "grade 65" steel columns that are being supplied for this project. Despite being one of the smallest countries in the world, Luxembourg is a heavyweight in terms of steel production. Historically, the presence of rich iron ore reserves in the south and the use of modern techniques makes steel producing and processing a booming sector for the country.

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Skidmore, Owings & Merrill has started construction on a 75-story helix-shaped tower in the Dubai Marina, one of the wealthy Emirate’s prime residential neighborhoods.

The “dancing” skyscraper, to be named Infinity Tower, will rotate 90 degrees as it rises while maintaining a constant floor-plate throughout its height. SOM Managing Partner George Efstathiou, AIA, predicts that the tower’s winding shape will make it the marina’s principal landmark, and perhaps a symbol of Dubai itself. According to Efstathiou, the building will offer its residents views of the waterfront without disrupting the vistas of neighboring buildings.

The 995-foot-high tower will comprise 456 residential units, ranging from studios to full-floor penthouses. It will include a street-level shopping arcade, conference centers, lounges, a child-care center, a health spa, exercise facilities, and an outdoor pool.

Bahrain could become home of the world’s tallest skyscraper if a project by Danish company Henning Larsens Tegnestue A/S gets the go-ahead. Company project director Louis Becker, who was in Riyadh yesterday, is planning to have a meeting about the proposed project with a building contractor in Bahrain later this week. The company’s design for a skyscraper measures 1,022 metres - double the Taiwan Taipei 101, which is currently the world’s tallest building at 506 metres.

It was chosen by the Bahrain contractor because of the company’s previous experiences of building in Saudi Arabia, according to a report in the Copenhagen Post.

The company designed both the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 1984 and the Royal Danish Embassy in 1987, in Riyadh.

The project is awaiting approval from His Majesty King Hamad and is expected to be formally announced on May 7, said the report. Mr Becker has reportedly been working on plans for the project for a year.

The project, which would take about seven-and-a-half years to build, would comprise five towers - modelled after the five pillars of Islam. The tallest would reach 1,022m, have 200 storeys and house 30,000 people.

The second tallest would measure 600m.

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Donald Trump plans a $300 million skyscraper in downtown Philadelphia on the banks of the Delaware River.

The 45-story Trump Tower Philadelphia would have 263 high-end condos that would range in price from $700,000 to $3.5 million, the Philadelphia Business Journal said Friday.

The tower will have, among its amenities, child-care services, a wine cellar, a cigar lounge, a billiard room, and a five-star restaurant with fine dining and views of the Delaware River.