1.
Neo-futurism
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Neo-futurism is a late 20th–early 21st century movement in the arts, design, and architecture. It could be seen as a departure from the attitude of post-modernism and represents a belief in a better future. This avant-garde movement is a rethinking of the aesthetic and functionality of rapidly growing cities. In the Western countries, futurist architecture evolved into Art Deco, the Googie movement and high-tech architecture, pioneered in the late 1960s and early 70s by American architects Buckminster Fuller and John C. Portman, Jr. Jean-Louis Cohen has defined neo-futurism as a corollary to technology, being the structures built today byproducts of new materials to create previously impossible forms
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Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Santiago Calatrava
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His best-known works include the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Turning Torso tower in Malmö, Sweden, the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in Dallas, Texas, and the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His architectural firm has offices in New York City, Doha, Calatrava was born on July 28,1951, in Benimàmet, an old municipality now part of Valencia, Spain. His mothers family were of Jewish heritage, but had converted during the Spanish Inquisition of the fifteenth century. His Calatrava surname was an old one from medieval times. He had his primary and secondary schooling in Valencia, and, beginning in 1957, in 1964, as the regime of General Francisco Franco ended and Spain became more open to rest of Europe, he went to France as an exchange student. In 1968, after completing school, he went to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, but he arrived in the midst of student uprisings and turmoil in Paris. He received his diploma as an architect and then did higher studies in urbanism, at the University he completed independent projects with fellow students, publishing two books on the vernacular architecture of Valencia and Ibiza. In 1975 he enrolled in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, in 1981 he was awarded a doctorate in the department of architecture, after completing his thesis on The Pliability of three-dimensional structures. Speaking of this period, Calatrava told biographer Philip Jodidio, The desire to start all over at zero was very strong in me. I was determined to put to one side all that I had learned in architecture school, I was fascinated by the concept of gravity and convinced that it was necessary to begin work with simple forms. As soon as Calatrava completed his doctorate in 1981, he opened his own office in Zurich, the train station has several of the features that became signatures of his work, straight lines and right angles are rare. In 1984–87, he built his first bridge, the Bac de Roda Bridge in Barcelona, Spain, the bridge, designed for cyclists and pedestrians, connects two parts of the city by crossing a wasteland of railway tracks. It is 128 meters long, with arches which lean at an angle of thirty degrees. The upper portion of the bridge, composed of arches and cables, is light and airy, like a network of lace, anchored to the massive concrete supports. His next bridge, the Puente del Alamillo, in Seville, Spain, was more spectacular. Built as part of the 1992 Expo 92, it is 200 meters long, crossing the Meandro San Jeronimo River and its main feature is a single pylon 142 meters high, leaning to 58 degrees, the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The weight of the concrete of the pylon is sufficient to hold up the bridge with just thirteen pairs of cables, and his first building in the United States, the new structure of the Milwaukee Art Museum. The concrete pylon leans backwards, and seems to grasp the vertical broadcast antennas and its form suggests an athlete about to throw a javelin
5.
NCC (company)
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NCC AB is a Swedish construction company, the second largest in the Nordic region with annual revenues of 58 billion Swedish krona and about 18,500 employees. NCC develops and builds residential and commercial properties, industrial facilities and public buildings, roads, civil engineering structures, NCC also offers input materials used in construction, such as aggregates and asphalt, and conducts paving and road services. NCC primarily conducts operations in the Nordic region, in the Baltic region, NCC mainly builds housing on a proprietary basis and in Germany single-family housing. The origins of NCC Construction go back to 1890 when Axel Johnson, later, this company became one of the leading Nordic shipping companies. In late 1987, Nordstjernan AB began acquiring shares in the construction company Armerad Betong Vägförbättringar. At the time, Nordstjernan had its own company called Johnson Construction Company. In spring 1988, Nordstjernan increased its shareholding in the company and, by May 21,1988, at the company’s Annual General Meeting on June 8, then President of JCC, Torsten Eriksson, was also appointed President of ABV. On June 9,1988, the President sent a letter containing information about the merger and upcoming integration to the company’s 20,000 employees, work on the new organization was largely completed by September 8, when 475 managers were appointed and a Group structure was established. Four days later, Nordstjernan was listed on the stock exchange, on September 20,1988, Nordstjernan acquired all of the shares in NCC from JCC, upon which the construction operations of JCC and ABV were transferred to NCC. Following the acquisition, JCC became a subsidiary of NCC and changed its name to NCC Bygg AB. Although the NCC Group was legally formed on January 1,1989, JCC and ABV have been assembled under a roof and a shared logo since October 15,1988. NCC’s Construction units construct residential and office properties, other buildings, industrial facilities, roads, civil-engineering structures, the core business is conducted in the Nordic region, the Baltic countries and Germany. NCC Housing develops and sells housing in selected markets in the Nordic region, the business area became operational on January 1,2009. Up to the end of 2008, these operations were included in NCC’s Construction units, NCC Roads supplies products and services used in and around roads. The business area’s range of operations extends across the value chain, from the production of aggregates and asphalt products to paving work. The products and methods used by NCC Roads are developed with the aim of reducing the environmental impact from operations. New energy-saving paving technologies, recycling of asphalt and alternative fuels are a few examples of these efforts, through various initiatives, NCC Roads aims to contribute to more sustainable urban development. NCC Roads produces six million tons of asphalt and 25 million tons of stone materials and this makes us the Nordic region’s largest player in the asphalt and aggregates industry
6.
Skyscraper
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A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building having multiple floors. When the term was used in the 1880s it described a building of 10 to 20 floors. Mostly designed for office, commercial and residential uses, a skyscraper can also be called a high-rise, for buildings above a height of 300 m, the term supertall can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m are classified as megatall. One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls and these curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete. Modern skyscrapers walls are not load-bearing, and most skyscrapers are characterized by surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with a surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a structure, and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure, and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks, a relatively big building may be considered a skyscraper if it protrudes well above its built environment and changes the overall skyline. The maximum height of structures has progressed historically with building methods and technologies, the Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest building in the world. High-rise buildings are considered shorter than skyscrapers, the first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois in 1885. Even the scholars making the argument find it to be purely academic and this definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicagos Monadnock Building. What is the characteristic of the tall office building. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and it must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line. Some structural engineers define a highrise as any vertical construction for which wind is a significant load factor than earthquake or weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high-rises but some other tall structures, the word skyscraper often carries a connotation of pride and achievement. A loose convention of some in the United States and Europe draws the limit of a skyscraper at 150 m or 490 ft. The tallest building in ancient times was the 146 m Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt and it was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 14th century AD Lincoln Cathedral being conjectured by many to have exceeded it
7.
Scandinavia
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Scandinavia /ˌskændᵻˈneɪviə/ is a historical and cultural region in Northern Europe characterized by a common ethnocultural North Germanic heritage and mutually intelligible North Germanic languages. The term Scandinavia always includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are usually not seen as a part of Scandinavia, nor is Greenland, an overseas territory of Denmark. This looser definition almost equates to that of the Nordic countries, in Nordic languages, only Denmark, Norway and Sweden are commonly included in the definition of Scandinavia. In English usage, Scandinavia sometimes refers to the geographical area, the name Scandinavia originally referred vaguely to the formerly Danish, now Swedish, region Scania. Icelanders and the Faroese are to a significant extent descended from the Norse, Finland is mainly populated by Finns, with a minority of approximately 5% of Swedish speakers. A small minority of Sami people live in the north of Scandinavia. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages form a continuum and are known as the Scandinavian languages—all of which are considered mutually intelligible with one another. Faroese and Icelandic, sometimes referred to as insular Scandinavian languages, are intelligible in continental Scandinavian languages only to a limited extent, Finnish and Meänkieli are closely related to each other and more distantly to the Sami languages, but are entirely unrelated to the Scandinavian languages. Apart from these, German, Yiddish and Romani are recognized minority languages in Scandinavia, the southern and by far most populous regions of Scandinavia have a temperate climate. Scandinavia extends north of the Arctic Circle, but has mild weather for its latitude due to the Gulf Stream. Much of the Scandinavian mountains have a tundra climate. There are many lakes and moraines, legacies of the last glacial period, Scandinavia usually refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Some sources argue for the inclusion of the Faroe Islands, Finland and Iceland, though that broader region is known by the countries concerned as Norden. Before this time, the term Scandinavia was familiar mainly to classical scholars through Pliny the Elders writings, and was used vaguely for Scania, as a political term, Scandinavia was first used by students agitating for Pan-Scandinavianism in the 1830s. After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism, the term is often defined according to the conventions of the cultures that lay claim to the term in their own use. More precisely, and subject to no dispute, is that Finland is included in the broader term Nordic countries, various promotional agencies of the Nordic countries in the United States serve to promote market and tourism interests in the region. The official tourist boards of Scandinavia sometimes cooperate under one umbrella, Norways government entered one year later. All five Nordic governments participate in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Board of North America, Scandinavia can thus be considered a subset of the Nordic countries
8.
Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
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The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design. Its stated mission is to study and report on all aspects of the planning, design, the Council was founded at Lehigh University in 1969 by Lynn S. Beedle, where its office remained until October 2003 when it moved to the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. The CTBUH ranks the height of buildings using three different methods, Height to architectural top, This is the criterion under which the CTBUH ranks the height of buildings. Heights are measured from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance to the top of the building, inclusive of spires but excluding items such as flagpoles and antennae. Highest occupied floor, Height to the level of the highest floor that is occupied by residents. Height to tip, Height to the highest point of the building, including antennae, flagpoles, a category measuring to the top of the roof was removed from the ranking criteria in November 2009. This became the CTBUH official definition of a building’s completion, the CTBUH maintains an extensive database of the tallest buildings in the world, organized by various categories. Buildings under construction are included, although not ranked until completion. The CTBUH also produces an annual list of the ten tallest buildings completed in that particular year. Second on the 2008 list was the 363-metre Almas Tower in Dubai, third was the Minsheng Bank Building in Wuhan which stands at 331 metres, whilst fourth was The Address Downtown Burj Dubai. All in all, six of the ten tallest buildings completed in 2008 are located in Asia, the CTBUH also hosts annual conferences and a World Congress every three to five years. The most recent World Congress was held in Shanghai between 19 and 21 September 2012, the next World Congress will be held in Shanghai between 16 and 19 September 2014. The CTBUH also bestows Tall Building Awards each year, with four awards to the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Among these four regional awards, one is given the Best Tall Building Award Overall, there are also two lifetime achievement awards. Starting in 2010, these awards are presented at a symposium, in 2012 the CTBUH added two new awards for Innovation and Performance. In addition to the newsletter and daily updated global news archive. The Journal includes peer-reviewed technical papers, in-depth project case studies, book reviews, interviews with prominent persons in the building industry. The CTBUH also publishes guidebooks, reference manuals, and monographs related to the building industry
9.
Emporis Skyscraper Award
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The Emporis Skyscraper Award is an award for architectural excellence regarding the design of buildings and their functionality. The award is presented annually by Emporis to the representing the Best new skyscraper for design. To qualify, nominated buildings must have completed during the year of the award. The award for each year is announced the following January and is presented at the following spring or summer. For 2000 and before, the award was known as the Skyscrapers. com Award, Emporis List of architecture prizes Emporis Awards Official Site
10.
Pentagon
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In geometry, a pentagon is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simple or self-intersecting, a self-intersecting regular pentagon is called a pentagram. A regular pentagon has Schläfli symbol and interior angles are 108°, a regular pentagon has five lines of reflectional symmetry, and rotational symmetry of order 5. The diagonals of a regular pentagon are in the golden ratio to its sides. The area of a regular convex pentagon with side length t is given by A = t 225 +1054 =5 t 2 tan 4 ≈1.720 t 2. A pentagram or pentangle is a regular star pentagon and its sides form the diagonals of a regular convex pentagon – in this arrangement the sides of the two pentagons are in the golden ratio. The area of any polygon is, A =12 P r where P is the perimeter of the polygon. Substituting the regular pentagons values for P and r gives the formula A =12 ×5 t × t tan 2 =5 t 2 tan 4 with side length t, like every regular convex polygon, the regular convex pentagon has an inscribed circle. The apothem, which is the r of the inscribed circle. Like every regular polygon, the regular convex pentagon has a circumscribed circle. For a regular pentagon with successive vertices A, B, C, D, E, the regular pentagon is constructible with compass and straightedge, as 5 is a Fermat prime. A variety of methods are known for constructing a regular pentagon, one method to construct a regular pentagon in a given circle is described by Richmond and further discussed in Cromwells Polyhedra. The top panel shows the construction used in Richmonds method to create the side of the inscribed pentagon, the circle defining the pentagon has unit radius. Its center is located at point C and a midpoint M is marked halfway along its radius and this point is joined to the periphery vertically above the center at point D. Angle CMD is bisected, and the bisector intersects the axis at point Q. A horizontal line through Q intersects the circle at point P, to determine the length of this side, the two right triangles DCM and QCM are depicted below the circle. Using Pythagoras theorem and two sides, the hypotenuse of the triangle is found as 5 /2
11.
Kockums Crane
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The Kockums Crane is a 138-metre high gantry crane in the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea. It was originally used at the Kockums shipyard in Malmö, Sweden and it was built in 1973–74 and could lift 1,500 tonnes. The gauge of cranes rails was 175 metres and the rail length 710 metres, the crane was used to build about 75 ships. Its last use in Malmö was in mid 1997, when it lifted the foundations of the pillars of the Øresund Bridge. The crane was first sold in the early 1990s to the Danish company Burmeister & Wain, the Koreans have dubbed the crane Tears of Malmoe, due to the notion that the residents of Malmö wept when they saw their crane being towed away. Pictures of the crane during the years Video of the dismantling
12.
Shipbuilding
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Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history, Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both commercial and military, are referred to as naval engineering. The construction of boats is an activity called boat building. The dismantling of ships is called ship breaking, the ancestors of Australian Aborigines and New Guineans also went across the Lombok Strait to Sahul by boat over 50,000 years ago. Evidence from Ancient Egypt shows that the early Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull as early as 3000 BC, the Archaeological Institute of America reports that some of the oldest ships yet unearthed are known as the Abydos boats. These are a group of 14 ships discovered in Abydos that were constructed of wooden planks which were sewn together, the ship dating to 3000 BC was about 25 m,75 feet long and is now thought to perhaps have belonged to an earlier pharaoh. According to professor OConnor, the 5, 000-year-old ship may have belonged to Pharaoh Aha. Early Egyptians also knew how to assemble planks of wood with treenails to fasten them together, early Egyptians also knew how to fasten the planks of this ship together with mortise and tenon joints. The oldest known tidal dock in the world was built around 2500 BC during the Harappan civilisation at Lothal near the present day Mangrol harbour on the Gujarat coast in India, other ports were probably at Balakot and Dwarka. However, it is probable that many small-scale ports, and not massive ports, were used for the Harappan maritime trade, ships from the harbour at these ancient port cities established trade with Mesopotamia. Shipbuilding and boatmaking may have been prosperous industries in ancient India, native labourers may have manufactured the flotilla of boats used by Alexander the Great to navigate across the Hydaspes and even the Indus, under Nearchos. The Indians also exported teak for shipbuilding to ancient Persia, other references to Indian timber used for shipbuilding is noted in the works of Ibn Jubayr. The ships of Ancient Egypts Eighteenth Dynasty were typically about 25 meters in length and they mounted a single square sail on a yard, with an additional spar along the bottom of the sail. These ships could also be oar propelled, the ocean and sea going ships of Ancient Egypt were constructed with cedar wood, most likely hailing from Lebanon. The ships of Phoenicia seem to have been of a similar design, the naval history of China stems back to the Spring and Autumn period of the ancient Chinese Zhou Dynasty. The Chinese built large rectangular barges known as ships, which were essentially floating fortresses complete with multiple decks with guarded ramparts. There is considerable knowledge regarding shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient Mediterranean and this was dually met with the introduction of the Han Dynasty junk ship design in the same century
13.
Blue-collar worker
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In English-speaking countries, a blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs non-agricultural manual labour. Often something is physically being built or maintained, in contrast, the white-collar worker typically performs work in an office environment and may involve sitting at a computer or desk. A third type of work is a worker whose labour is related to customer interaction, entertainment. Many occupations blend blue, white or pink industry categorizations, blue-collar work is often paid hourly wage-labor, although some professionals may be paid by the project or salaried. There is a range of payscales for such work depending upon field of specialty. Industrial and manual workers wear durable canvas or cotton clothing that may be soiled during the course of their work. Navy and light blue colors conceal potential dirt or grease on the clothing, helping him or her to appear cleaner. For the same reason, blue is a color for boilersuits which protect a workers clothing. Some blue collar workers have uniforms with the name of the business or the name embroidered or printed on it. Historically the popularity of the color blue among manual labourers contrasts with the popularity of white shirts worn by people in office environments. The blue collar/white collar color scheme has socio-economic class connotations, however, this distinction has become blurred with the increasing importance of skilled labour, and the relative increase in low-paying white-collar jobs. The term blue collar was first used in reference to trades jobs in 1924, Alden, a higher level academic education is often not required for many blue-collar jobs. However, certain fields may require specialized training, licensing or certification as well as a school diploma or GED. With the information revolution, Western nations have moved towards a service, many manufacturing jobs have been offshored to developing nations which pay their workers lower wages. This offshoring has pushed formerly agrarian nations to industrialized economies and concurrently decreased the number of jobs in developed countries. Due to this economic osmosis, the rust belt has experienced high unemployment, poverty, blue-collar can be used as an adjective to describe the environment of the blue-collar worker such as a blue-collar neighborhood, restaurant, or bar
14.
Extreme Engineering
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Extreme Engineering was a documentary television series that aired on the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel. The program featured futuristic and ongoing engineering projects, the series last season aired in July 2011. Danny Forster first hosted the series in season 4 and has been the host since season 6, Engineering the Impossible was a 2-hour special, created and written by Alan Lindgren and produced by Powderhouse Productions for the Discovery Channel. It focused on three incredible, yet possible, engineering projects, the nine-mile-long Gibraltar Bridge, the 170-story Millennium Tower. This program won the Beijing International Science Film Festival Silver Award, like Engineering the Impossible, the first season of Extreme Engineering focused on extreme projects of the future. Season 2 featured projects already in construction around the world, season 2 was the first season produced in HDTV for HD Theater. Powderhouse Productions produced six episodes for season 4 with host Danny Forster
15.
Kronprinsen
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Kronprinsen is a neighbourhood and complex of modernist buildings including a landmark high-rise tower located in Malmö, Sweden in the city district of Västra Innerstaden. The high-rise tower itself is referred to as Kronprinsen. The complex includes several large apartment blocks, a clinic, a hall, a large parking garage, the tower. The tower is 82 meters high, has 27 floors, the buildings architects were Thorsten Roos and Kurt Hultin. It is a building with a large shopping mall on the ground floor. The restaurant offers a view of Malmö and the Öresund strait. It is located at the crossing of two streets in Malmö, Mariedalsvägen and Regementsgatan. On the other side of Regementsgatan is the park, Slottsparken, the complex is called Kronprinsen because there were barracks of the royal regiment at its location. Kronprinsen was the first high-rise in Sweden upon completion in 1964 and it was also the tallest building in Malmö for just over four decades before the famous skyscraper Turning Torso was completed in August 2005
16.
Felix Baumgartner
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Felix Baumgartner is an Austrian skydiver, daredevil and BASE jumper. He is best known for jumping to Earth from a balloon in the stratosphere on 14 October 2012. Doing so, he set records for skydiving an estimated 39 km, reaching an estimated top speed of 1,357.64 km/h. He became the first person to break the barrier without vehicular power relative to the surface on his descent. He broke skydiving records for altitude, vertical freefall distance without drogue. Though he still holds the records, the first was broken two years later, when on 24 October 2014, Alan Eustace jumped from 135,890 feet - or,41.42 km with a drogue. Baumgartner is also renowned for the dangerous nature of the stunts he has performed during his career. Baumgartner spent time in the Austrian military where he practiced parachute jumping, including training to land on small target zones, Felix Baumgartner was born first of two boys on 20 April 1969, in Salzburg, Austria. As a child, he dreamed about flying and skydiving, in 1999 he claimed the world record for the highest parachute jump from a building when he jumped from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. On 20 July 2003, Baumgartner became the first person to skydive across the English Channel using a specially made carbon fiber wing. Baumgartner also set the record for the lowest BASE jump ever. On 12 December 2007 he became the first person to jump from the 91st floor observation deck of the then-tallest completed building in the world, Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan. In January 2010, it was reported that Baumgartner was working with a team of scientists, on 15 March 2012, Baumgartner completed the first of 2 test jumps from 21,818 metres. During the jump, he spent approximately 3 minutes and 43 seconds in free fall, reaching speeds of more than 580 km/h, before opening his parachute. In total, the jump lasted approximately eight minutes and eight seconds, on 25 July 2012, Baumgartner completed the second of two planned test jumps from 29,460 metres. It took Baumgartner about 90 minutes to reach the target altitude, the launch was originally scheduled for 9 October 2012 but was aborted due to adverse weather conditions. Baumgartner also set the record for fastest speed of free fall at 1,357.64 km/h, Baumgartner was in free fall for 4 minutes and 19 seconds,17 seconds short of mentor Joseph Kittingers 1960 jump. Baumgartner initially struggled with claustrophobia after spending time in the pressurized suit required for the jump, in 2014, Baumgartner decided to join Audi Motorsport to drive an Audi R8 LMS for the 201424 Hours of Nurburgring after racing Volkswagen Polos in 2013
17.
Emporis
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Emporis GmbH is a real estate data mining company with headquarters in Hamburg, Germany. The company collects and publishes data and photographs of buildings worldwide, Emporis offers a variety of information on its public database, Emporis. com, located at www. emporis. com. Emporis is frequently cited by media sources as an authority on building data. Emporis previously focused exclusively on high-rise buildings and skyscrapers, which it defines as buildings between 35 and 100 metres tall and at least 100 metres tall, respectively, today, the database has expanded to include low-rise buildings and other structures. Michael Wutzke started a website about skyscrapers in Frankfurt in 1996, in 2000 he started skyscrapers. com which was folded into Emporis in 2003. In 2004, Stephan R. Boehm assumed the role of Chairman, Wutzke was Chief Technology Officer and managing director until 2010, when he left the company. In 2007 venture capital firm Neuhaus Partners and KfW Bankengruppe invested several million Euro in the company, effective January 1,2009, the company moved its headquarters from Darmstadt to Frankfurt. In 2011, the company moved from Frankfurt to Hamburg, in 2000 a group of Emporis senior editors began presenting the Emporis Skyscraper Award. Eligible buildings are selected from a list of all buildings in the world at least 100 meters tall which were completed that year
18.
SkyscraperPage
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SkyscraperPage is an internet forum for skyscraper hobbyists and enthusiasts that tracks existing and proposed skyscrapers around the world. SkyscraperPage. com drawings have appeared in National Geographics website, Wired, Condé Nast, The Globe and they are based in Victoria, British Columbia. The site has a database of scale-model illustration skyscrapers and other major macro-engineering projects, the scale of the drawings are one pixel per meter. The images are created using pixel art, using these diagrams, skyscrapers and other tall structures from any cities can be compared. General information is given about each structure, such as the location, the year built, if available. In 2008, the site had over 22,000 custom made drawings of skyscrapers, there were 600 artists signed up with the site, about half of whom were active. List of Internet forums List of tallest buildings in the world
19.
YouTube
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YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service was created by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—in February 2005, Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion, YouTube now operates as one of Googles subsidiaries. Unregistered users can watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos deemed potentially offensive are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old, YouTube earns advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service, and had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. YouTube began as a venture capital-funded technology startup, primarily from an $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006, YouTubes early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. The domain name www. youtube. com was activated on February 14,2005, the first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23,2005, and can still be viewed on the site, YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005. The first video to reach one million views was a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho in November 2005. Following a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in November, the site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. The site has 800 million unique users a month and it is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. The choice of the name www. youtube. com led to problems for a similarly named website, the sites owner, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being regularly overloaded by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www. utubeonline. com, in October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13,2006. In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, according to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event. On March 31,2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface, Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented, We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter. In May 2010, YouTube videos were watched more than two times per day. This increased to three billion in May 2011, and four billion in January 2012, in February 2017, one billion hours of YouTube was watched every day
20.
Sofitel New York Hotel
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Sofitel New York is a boutique hotel on West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, owned and managed by the Sofitel corporation. It lies about 200 metres north of Bryant Park and New York Public Library, the hotel is inspired by French traditions in furnishings and theme, and the hotel staff are bilingual in French and English. Completed in 2000, the 109-metre-tall, 30-floor, 398-guest room limestone, construction on the hotel began in 1997, and it opened in the year 2000. After construction the building was awarded the 2000 Emporis Skyscraper Award, on May 14,2011, a 32-year-old housekeeper at the hotel, an immigrant from Guinea, alleged that IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn attempted to rape her in his hotel room. She had walked into his room as he was having a shower although he had not yet checked out, Strauss-Kahn was at New York airport, and his plane was ready to take off when airport police asked that the plane be stopped a few minutes before takeoff. He was escorted off the plane and placed under arrest, the criminal case was later dismissed, and he settled out of court with his accuser in a civil case. The architectural design by Brennan Beer Gorman features limestone and glass, the facade was architecturally inspired by Parisian Moderne limestone buildings and according to Frommers Guide exudes old-world French elegance far beyond its years of existence as a hotel. The facade is bronze with 3 flying geese above in a large portal, deSimone Consulting Engineers were the structural engineers for the building. Gaby is Art Deco inspired and is overlooked by head chef Sylvain Harribey, the New York Times describes the hotel as beautifully run, with a front desk at the far end of a ballroom-sized lobby, tucked away to the side, which gives the entrance a serene quality. The hotel staff are bilingual in both French and English, in the center of the lobby there is a 2-story rotunda with a curving staircase, a tall wooden sculpture, and a mural of Central Park. The hotel contains a 2,500 square feet Grand Ballroom with 2. 5-story windows and 8 meeting rooms with a capacity of 10 to 60 people. Frommers describes the rooms as follows, The rooms are spacious and ultra-comfortable, adorned with art from New York. The lighting is soft and romantic, the walls and windows soundproof, suites are extra-special, equipped with king beds, two televisions, and pocket doors separating the bedroom from a sitting room. Bathrooms in all rooms are magnificent, with showers and soaking tubs. The beds are said to be signature feather “Sobeds” which offer the ultimate in comfort, the majority of the beds are cream or white or white with maroon trimmings and feature large paintings above the headboards. The bathrooms have Roger & Gallet bath amenities, official site Hotel video on TVtrip. com
21.
One Wall Centre
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The tower was designed by Perkins+Will Canada, and completed in 2001, and went on to win the Emporis Skyscraper Award for the Best New Skyscraper the same year. As of November 2012 it is the third-tallest completed building in the city, the first 27 floors of the building are the 4 Diamond Sheraton Hotel. Floors 28,29, and 30 are the Club Intrawest Resort floors, floors 31 to 48 are residential condominiums. The One Wall Centre tower is part of the Wall Centre complex owned by Wall Financial Corporation and was largely the vision of Peter Wall. These tanks are designed so that the frequency of the sloshing of the water in the tanks counteracts the harmonic frequency of the swaying of the building. The tower exterior has a two-tone appearance, the glass on the lower levels is a dark glass, while the glass on the upper levels is light coloured glass. After the design was approved, an amendment was requested to change it to a significantly darker glass. This was approved by a low level staff member in the department who apparently did not realize the significance of this change. When the glass started to be put on the building the city noted that this did not meet design that was reviewed by the public. The end result is the two toned structure that many consider would have been more architecturally stimulating if the single dark glazing had been allowed. The attempt to maintain the blue appearance did not end there. If all blinds were to be drawn at once, the building would achieve the intended dark blue appearance, however, a fogging effect put the long-term safety of these windows into question and the non-reflective nature of the light glass led to very high air-conditioning costs for residents. In 2010 the strata council for the owners of the portion of the One Wall building approved a major project to replace all of the windows in all of the residential units. The cost of replacement was estimated at $6.5 million, in 2012 the strata council received approval from the City to replace the light-coloured windows with matching dark windows. The Sheraton Wall Centre required a 23 m deep excavation — the deepest excavation prior to Living Shangri-La for a building in the city, the installation features 10 elevators,8 of which are high speed geared machines. The hotel is served by four 1,400 kg traction elevators at 244 m/min, with a group of 3 for public usage, there are also two hotel service elevators with 1,800 kg capacity each at 213 m/min. The apartments are served by 2 elevators, each with a capacity of 1,600 kg at 305 m/min, there are also 2 roped hydraulic elevators, the 1,400 kg to serve the parking garage, and the 2,300 kg to serve the banquet floors. There are 6 escalators installed by Fujitec and this building was featured in the movie X-Men, The Last Stand as one of the buildings they used to give the cure to the mutants
22.
Kingdom Centre
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Kingdom Centre, is a 99-storey,302.3 m skyscraper in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Besides the shopping mall, Kingdom Tower contains the Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh, there is a 56 m skybridge atop the skyscraper. The building is situated on 100,000 square metres site with carparking for 3,000 vehicles, the upper third of the tower features an inverted parabolic arch. The building utilises butt jointed glazing combined with the lack of both distinguished floor lines and other buildings around it. The lower two thirds were constructed with a concrete frame while the top third has a tubular steel frame. The architectural model maker of the Center was Richard Tenguerian, al Faisaliyah Center List of tallest buildings in Saudi Arabia Jeddah Tower Kingdom Centre official website Omrania official website Kingdom Centre at Ellerbe Becket
23.
30 St Mary Axe
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30 St Mary Axe is a commercial skyscraper in Londons primary financial district, the City of London. It was completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004, after plans to build the 92-storey Millennium Tower were dropped,30 St Mary Axe was designed by Norman Foster and Arup Group and it was erected by Skanska, with construction commencing in 2001. The building has become a feature of London and is one of the citys most widely recognised examples of contemporary architecture. The building stands on the sites of the Baltic Exchange, the headquarters of a global marketplace for ship sales and shipping information. On 10 April 1992 the Provisional IRA detonated a bomb close to the Exchange, the Exchange Hall was a celebrated fixture of the ship trading market. The Baltic Exchange and the Chamber of Shipping sold the land to Trafalgar House in 1995, the salvaged material was eventually sold for £800,000 and moved to Tallinn, Estonia, where it awaits reconstruction as the centrepiece of the citys commercial sector. In 1996, Trafalgar House submitted plans for the Millennium Tower, the Gherkin nickname was applied to the current building at least as long ago as 1999, referring to that plans highly unorthodox layout and appearance. On 23 August 2000, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott granted planning permission to construct a much larger than the old Exchange on the site. The site was special because it needed development, was not on any of the sight lines, the plan for the site was to reconstruct the Baltic Exchange. GMW Architects proposed a new rectangular building surrounding a restored exchange—the square shape would have the type of floor plan that banks liked. This gave the architect a free hand in the design, it eliminated the restrictive demands for a large, capital-efficient, money-making building, Swiss Res low level plan met the planning authoritys desire to maintain Londons traditional streetscape with its relatively narrow streets. The mass of the Swiss Re tower was not too imposing, like Barclays Banks former City headquarters in Lombard Street, the idea was that the passer-by in neighbouring streets would be nearly oblivious to the towers existence until directly underneath it. The building was constructed by Skanska, completed in December 2003, the primary occupant of the building is Swiss Re, a global reinsurance company, which had the building commissioned as the head office for its UK operation. The building uses energy-saving methods, which allow it to use half the power that a tower would typically consume. Gaps in each floor create six shafts that serve as a ventilation system for the entire building. The shafts create a giant double glazing effect, air is sandwiched between two layers of glazing and insulates the office space inside. Architects promote double glazing in residential houses, which avoids the inefficient convection of heat across the narrow gap between the panes, but the tower exploits this effect. The shafts pull warm air out of the building during the summer, the shafts also allow sunlight to pass through the building, making the work environment more pleasing, and keeping the lighting costs down
24.
Taipei 101
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Taipei 101 – stylized as TAIPEI101 and formerly known as the Taipei World Financial Center – is a landmark supertall skyscraper in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. The building was classified as the worlds tallest in 2004. It used to have the fastest elevator in the world, traveling at 60.6 km/h, in 2016, the title for the fastest elevator was given to one in Shanghai Tower. Construction on the 101-story tower started in 1999 and finished in 2004, the tower has served as an icon of modern Taiwan ever since its opening. The building was created as a symbol of the evolution of technology. Its postmodernist approach to style incorporates traditional design elements and gives them modern treatments, the tower is designed to withstand typhoons and earthquakes. A multi-level shopping mall adjoining the tower houses hundreds of stores, restaurants, fireworks launched from Taipei 101 feature prominently in international New Years Eve broadcasts and the structure appears frequently in travel literature and international media. Taipei 101 is primarily owned by pan-government shareholders, the name that was originally planned for the building, Taipei World Financial Center, until 2003, was derived from the name of the owner. The original name in Chinese was Taipei International Financial Center, Taipei 101 comprises 101 floors above ground, as well as 5 basement levels. It was not only the first building in the world to break the mark in height. As of 28 July 2011, it is still the worlds largest and highest-use green building. It also surpassed the 85-story,347.5 m Tuntex Sky Tower in Kaohsiung as the tallest building in Taiwan, Taipei 101 claimed the official records for the worlds tallest sundial and the worlds largest New Years Eve countdown clock. Various sources, including the owners, give the height of Taipei 101 as 508 m, roof height. This lower figure is derived by measuring from the top of a 1.2 m platform at the base. CTBUH standards, though, include the height of the platform in calculating the overall height, Taipei 101 displaced the Petronas Towers as the tallest building in the world by 57.3 m. The record it claimed for greatest height from ground to pinnacle was surpassed by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is 829.8 m in height. Taipei 101s records for roof height and highest occupied floor briefly passed to the Shanghai World Financial Center in 2008, Taipei 101 is designed to withstand the typhoon winds and earthquake tremors that are common in the area east of Taiwan. Evergreen Consulting Engineering, the engineer, designed Taipei 101 to withstand gale winds of 60 metres per second, as well as the strongest earthquakes in a 2
25.
Hearst Tower (Manhattan)
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The Hearst Tower is a building with the addresses of 300 West 57th Street and 959 Eighth Avenue, near Columbus Circle, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The six-story base of the building was commissioned by the founder, William Randolph Hearst. The building was completed in 1928 at a cost of $2 million, the original cast stone facade has been preserved in the new design as a designated Landmark site. Originally built as the base for a skyscraper, the construction of the tower was postponed due to the Great Depression. The new tower addition was completed nearly eighty years later, and 2,000 Hearst employees moved in on June 26,2006, the uncommon triangular framing pattern required 9,500 metric tons of structural steel—reportedly about 20% less than a conventional steel frame. Hearst Tower was the first skyscraper to break ground in New York City after September 11,2001, the building received the 2006 Emporis Skyscraper Award, citing it as the best skyscraper in the world completed that year. Hearst Tower is the first green high-rise office building completed in New York City, the floor of the atrium is paved with heat conductive limestone. Polyethylene tubing is embedded under the floor and filled with circulating water for cooling in the summer, rain collected on the roof is stored in a tank in the basement for use in the cooling system, to irrigate plants and for the water sculpture in the main lobby. 85% of the structural steel contains recycled material. The atrium features escalators which run through a 3-story water sculpture titled Icefall, a wide waterfall built with thousands of glass panels, the water element is complemented by a 70-foot-tall fresco painting titled Riverlines by artist Richard Long. The layout of the Hearst Tower is such that the facade is very jagged, plans for a rig, designed by Tractel-Swingstage, to hold window cleaners, took 3 years and 3 million dollars because of the buildings concave windows, referred to as birds mouths. The device was installed in April 2005 on 420 feet of elevated steel track looping the roof of the tower, on June 12,2013, two window cleaners were trapped on the window cleaning crane partway down from the top of the tower. The unique zigzag grid on the exterior and birds mouth divots on its corners necessitated development of a special scaffold for window washers. Tokyo Ginko Kyokai Building Diagrid Notes Sources Up to the Sky, Hearst Tower, Documentary by Sabine Pollmeier and Joachim Haupt. Hearst Tower Documentary produced by Treasures of New York Stichweh, Dirk, prestel Publishing, Munich 2009, ISBN 3-7913-4054-9. Luxis, Hearst Tower New York, NY Hearst Magazine Tower at Structurae in-Arch. net, The Hearst Magazine Building background New York Architect Images
26.
Het Strijkijzer
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Het Strijkijzer is a residential and office skyscraper in The Hague, Netherlands. It is 132 metres with 42 floors, making it the third tallest building. Inspired by the Flatiron Building in New York City, its name is the Dutch word for the ironing appliance, the building contains 300 studio flats for students and first-time property owners, and 51 luxury flats, accessible by a separate lift. There are also furnished flats for rental on a weekly or monthly basis, below is space for catering, a laundromat, ironing facilities and office space. Since 2011, there is a terrace on the 42nd floor. From the terrace, one can see the ships on the North Sea, construction of Het Strijkijzer started in 2005. The contractor, Boele & van Eesteren, thus had to pay attention to the safety aspect and to the minimising of noise. The lower floors were made of concrete poured on-site and the floors were completely constructed with precast concrete. Construction progressed with an average of two floors per week, Het Strijkijzer was topped off in March 2007. In June 2007 the building was capped with a crown which was mentioned in the news shortly after installation because in high winds it emitted a high-pitched whistling sound. Hoftoren and Prinsenhof Tower in The Hague have also had problems because of the nature of their tops. In the short term, the problem has been alleviated by affixing 380 plywood sheets to the crown, a visually more pleasing, permanent solution to replace this temporary measure is being sought. The corners of the triangle are rounded, and each has its own lobby, pair of lifts, the southern entrance, at the end of the longer wing, is for the residents of the studio flats. Both at the base of the building and at six floors higher up, on the small north-eastern side of these six floors, a display was attached in 2011. Measuring 19x14 metres, this LED display features Twitter messages, photos of local events, advertisements and, regularly, residents also receive a keycard which gives them access to their apartment and storage
27.
Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower
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Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower is a 204-metre, 50-story educational facility located in the Nishi-Shinjuku district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. The building is home to three institutions, Tokyo Mode Gakuen, HAL Tokyo, and Shuto Ikō. Completed in October 2008, the tower is the second-tallest educational building in the world and is the 17th-tallest building in Tokyo and it was awarded the 2008 Skyscraper of the Year by Emporis. com. Before selecting a design for its new Tokyo location, Mode Gakuen held a competition asking architects to submit proposals for the building. The only condition was that the building could not be rectangular, Mode Gakuen received more than 150 proposals by approximately 50 architects. The winning proposal was a structure designed by Tange Associates. According to Tange Associates the buildings cocoon shape symbolizes a building that nurtures the students inside, white aluminum and dark blue glass exterior form the structures curved shell, which is criss-crossed by a web of white diagonal lines earning it the name Cocoon Tower. The buildings design earned the firm the Emporis. com 2008 Skyscraper of the year award, built on the former site of the now demolished Asahi Mutual Life Insurance Company headquarters, construction of the Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower began in May 2006 and was completed in October 2008. The 204-metre-tall, 50-story tower is the second-tallest educational building in the world and is the 17th-tallest building in Tokyo, the vertical campus can accommodate 10,000 students for the three vocational schools that occupy the building. Tokyo Mode Gakuen, for which the building in named after, is a fashion school, the other schools, HAL Tokyo and Shuto Ikō, are information technology and medical schools, respectively, that are operated by Mode Gakuen University. Each floor of the tower contains three rectangular classrooms that surround an inner core, the inner core consists of an elevator, a staircase and a support shaft. Every three floors, a student lounge is located between the classrooms and faces three directions, east, southwest and northwest. Mode Gakuen Spiral Towers 30 St Mary Axe Media related to Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower at Wikimedia Commons
28.
Aqua (skyscraper)
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Aqua is an 82-story mixed-use residential skyscraper in the Lakeshore East development in downtown Chicago, Illinois. Designed by a led by Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects, with James Loewenberg of Loewenberg & Associates as the Architect of Record. The buildings eighty-story,140,000 sq ft base is topped by a 82,550 sq ft terrace with gardens, gazebos, pools, hot tubs, a walking/running track, each floor covers approximately 16,000 sq ft. The Aqua was awarded the Emporis Skyscraper Award as 2009 skyscraper of the year, Aqua was designed by Jeanne Gang, principal and founder of Studio Gang Architects, and it was her first skyscraper project. The project was the largest ever awarded to an American firm headed by a woman, Loewenberg & Associates are the architects of record, led by James Loewenberg. The Aqua Tower is located at 225 North Columbus Drive, and is surrounded by high-rises, to capture views of nearby landmarks for Aquas residents, Gang stretched its balconies outward by as much as 12 ft. The result is a composed of irregularly shaped concrete floor slabs which lend the facade an undulating. Gang cites the striated limestone outcroppings that are a topographic feature of the Great Lakes region as inspiration for these slabs. The building contains 55,000 sq ft of retail and office space, in addition to 215 hotel rooms,476 rental residential units, Aqua is the first downtown building to combine condos, apartments and a hotel. Carlson Hotels Worldwide announced May 12,2010, that it agreed to spend $125 million to open the first Radisson Blu hotel in the United States on 18 vacant floors of the highrise, the name Aqua was assigned to the building by Magellan Development Group LLC. Sustainability was an important factor in Aquas design, Gang and her team refined the terrace extensions to maximize solar shading, and other sustainable features will include rainwater collection systems and energy-efficient lighting. The green roof on top of the base will be the largest in Chicago. The tower will seek LEED certification. construction. com/people/awards/2009/0107-PaulTreacy. asp
29.
8 Spruce Street
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8 Spruce Street is one of the tallest residential towers in the world, and it was the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere at the time of opening in February 2011. The building was developed by Forest City Ratner, designed by Frank Gehry Architects and WSP Cantor Seinuk Structural Engineers and it contains a public elementary school owned by the Department of Education. Above that and grade-level retail, the tower contains only residential rental units, the school is sheathed in reddish-tan brick, and covers 100,000 square feet of the first five floors of the building. It hosts over 600 students enrolled in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade classes, a fourth floor roof deck holds 5,000 square feet of outdoor play space. Above the elementary school is a 904-unit luxury residential tower clad in stainless steel, the apartments range from 500 square feet to 1,600 square feet, and consist of studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom units. All units are priced at market-rate, with no low or moderate income-restricted apartments, all units are rental-only, none are available for purchase. The building originally included space for New York Downtown Hospital next door, the hospital was allocated 25,000 square feet, of parking below ground. As of 2016, it is a valet parking garage. There are public plazas on both the east and west sides of the building, one 11,000 square feet, street-level retail, totaling approximately 1,300 to 2,500 square feet, is included as part of the project. Early reviews of the 8 Spruce Street tower have been favorable, New Yorker magazines Paul Goldberger described it as one of the most beautiful towers downtown. Comparing Gehrys tower to the nearby Woolworth Building, completed in 1913, Goldberger said, even so, it is as majestic as its cross-town rival, the great neo-Gothic Woolworth Building designed by Cass Gilbert at 233 Broadway on the other side of City Hall Park. Gehry designed both the exterior, interiors and amenities spaces, along with all 20 model apartments, the building received the Emporis Skyscraper Award for 2011
30.
Absolute World
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Absolute World is a Residential condominiums twin tower skyscraper complex in the five tower Absolute City Centre development in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. The project was built by Fernbrook Homes and Cityzen Development Group, with the first three towers completed, the last two towers were topped off at 50 and 56 storeys. Over six hundred registrants and ninety-two submissions from architects in seventy countries took part in this competition. On January 30,1995, an announcement was made at Atrium at BCE Place in downtown Toronto at 12,00 PM informing the public who the six finalists were along with seven honorary mentions. Submissions were judged by a panel which included architects, civic leaders, the public was invited to vote for the favourite designs which were on display at the Square One Shopping Centre as well as online, along with the judging panel. The voting was to stop on March 22,2007 with the winning design announced from CN Tower on March 28,2007 at 10,30 AM. On March 28, at 10,30 AM, Yansong Ma, founder of the MAD office, sales were to start in May 2007 with construction beginning later that year, and anticipated completion in 2009. Within days of the announcement, the building had been nicknamed the Marilyn Monroe tower due to its curvaceous. Burka Varacalli Architects, a Toronto firm, was hired as MADs local partner in April 2007. On June 14,2012, the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the larger of the two towers twists 209 degrees from the base to the top, making it very similar to Turning Torso in Malmö, Sweden. The structural design was done by Sigmund Soudack & Associates Inc, the tower has six levels of underground parking. The following table lists the amount of rotation for each floor of Tower 1, List of tallest buildings in Mississauga List of twisted buildings Absolute Condos official website Skyscrapernews article on the building Absolute World images gallery at Urban Toronto
31.
The Shard
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Standing 309.7 metres high, the Shard is the tallest building in the United Kingdom, the fourth-tallest building in Europe and the 107th-tallest building in the world. It is also the second-tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom, the Shards construction began in March 2009, it was topped out on 30 March 2012 and inaugurated on 6 July 2012. Practical completion was achieved in November 2012, the towers privately operated observation deck, The View from The Shard, was opened to the public on 1 February 2013. The glass-clad pyramidal tower has 72 habitable floors, with a gallery and open-air observation deck on the 72nd floor. It was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano and replaced Southwark Towers, the Shard was developed by Sellar Property Group on behalf of LBQ Ltd and is jointly owned by Sellar Property and the State of Qatar. Sellar flew to Berlin in the spring of 2000 to meet the Italian architect Renzo Piano for lunch, the inquiry took place in April and May 2003, and on 19 November 2003, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister announced that planning consent had been approved. The government stated that, Mr Prescott would only approve skyscrapers of exceptional design, for a building of this size to be acceptable, the quality of its design is critical. He is satisfied that the tower is of the highest architectural quality. This enabled them to pay off the costs incurred and to buy out the Southwark Towers occupational lease from the buildings tenants. Vacant possession of the site was secured a year later, after PricewaterhouseCoopers completed the relocation of their operations, in September 2007, preparations for the demolition of Southwark Towers began. However, later that month, turbulence in the financial markets reportedly put the Shards construction in jeopardy. In November 2007, building contractor Mace was awarded the contract to build the Shard for a price of no more than £350 million. However, this increased to almost £435 million in October 2008. In April 2008, demolition of Southwark Towers was visibly under way, and by October, the building had been reduced in height. The demolition was completed in early 2009, and site preparation began for the construction of the Shard, in late 2007, the gathering uncertainty in the global financial markets sparked concerns about the viability of the Shard. However, in January 2008, Sellar announced that it had secured funding from a consortium of Qatari investors, the consortium included Qatar National Bank, QInvest, Qatari Islamic Bank and the Qatari property developer Barwa Real Estate, as well as Sellar Property. The deal involved a buyout of the Halabi and CLS Holdings stakes, the new owners promised to provide the first tranche of finance, allowing construction of the tower to begin. In 2009, the State of Qatar consolidated its ownership of London Bridge Quarter, including the Shard, London Bridge Quarter is today jointly owned by the State of Qatar and Sellar Property
32.
Wangjing SOHO
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Wangjing SOHO is a complex of three curvilinear asymmetric skyscrapers in Wangjing, a suburb of Beijing, China between central Beijing and Beijing Capital International Airport. According to Zaha Hadid, the architect, it is a welcome. The towers contain both office and retail space, originally the SOHO was designed as a two-tower complex but due to height concerns it was redesigned as a three-tower project featuring towers of lower maximum height. One of the more than a dozen properties developed by SOHO China, the structure was designed by Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. Architecture News Daily describes it as three curved towers whose “shimmering”, metallic skin unifies the complex as each volume appears to “dance” around each other. According to Der Spiegel, the design of the Wangjing SOHO has been pirated, satoshi Ohashi of Zaha Hadid Architects mentioned that the Chongqing project may have obtained details of the SOHO project in digital form. Ohashi mentioned that Zaha Hadid Architects had taken measures against Chongqing Meiquan Properties Ltd. He also mentioned that, But even if the rules in favor of SOHO. But it could order the payment of compensation, during the press conference the Chinese Intellectual Property commission was present and issued a report at the end of the event. The developer of the Chongqing Meiquan project later wrote in the blog, “Never meant to copy. Koolhaas calls these architects Photoshop designers and says, Photoshop allows us to make collages of photographs -- this is the essence of architectural, design today becomes as easy as Photoshop, even on the scale of a city. Zaha Hadids reaction was more philosophical, she said that it would be exciting if the cloned designs came up in the future with innovative design mutations
33.
Shanghai Tower
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The Shanghai Tower is a 632-metre, 128-story megatall skyscraper in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai. As of 2015, it is the worlds tallest building, by height to highest usable floor and it also has the worlds highest observation deck within a building or structure, and the worlds fastest elevators at a top speed of 20.5 m/s. It is the worlds second-tallest building by height to architectural top and its tiered construction, designed for high energy efficiency, provides nine separate zones divided between office, retail and leisure use. Construction work on the began in November 2008 and topped out on 3 August 2013. The exterior was completed in summer 2015, and work was considered complete in September 2015, although the building was originally scheduled to open to the public in November 2014, the actual public-use date slipped considerably. The observation deck was opened to visitors in July 2016, the period from July through September 2016 was termed a test run or commissioning period, planning models for the Lujiazui financial district dating back to 1993 show plans for a close group of three supertall skyscrapers. The first of these, the Jin Mao Tower, was completed in 1999, the Shanghai Tower is owned by Yeti Construction and Development, a consortium of state-owned development companies which includes Shanghai Chengtou Corp. Shanghai Lujiazui Finance & Trade Zone Development Co. and Shanghai Construction Group, funding for the towers construction was obtained from shareholders, bank loans and Shanghais municipal government. The tower had a construction cost of US$2.4 billion. The Shanghai Tower was designed by the American architectural firm Gensler, the tower takes the form of nine cylindrical buildings stacked atop each other, totalling 127 floors, all enclosed by the inner layer of the glass façade. Between that and the layer, which twists as it rises. Each of these nine areas has its own atrium, featuring gardens, cafés, restaurants and retail space, both layers of the façade are transparent, and retail and event spaces are provided at the towers base. The tower is able to accommodate as many as 16,000 people on a daily basis, the Shanghai Tower joins the Jin Mao Tower and SWFC to form the worlds first adjacent grouping of three supertall buildings. The tower will also incorporate a museum, the towers sub-levels provide parking spaces for 1,800 vehicles. The vertical transportation system for Shanghai Tower was designed by an American consultant, access to the hotel is through a fifth sky lobby at levels 101/102. Each two-level sky lobby serves as a community center for that zone of the building, with such amenities as food and beverage and these three shuttle elevators are supplemented by three fireman’s elevators which will significantly increase the visitor throughput to the observation deck at peak usage periods. In September 2011, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. announced that it had won a bid to construct the Shanghai Towers elevator system, Mitsubishi supplied all of the towers 149 elevators, including three high-speed models capable of travelling at 1,080 metres per minute. When they were installed, they were the worlds fastest single-deck elevators, the building also broke the record for the worlds furthest-travelling single elevator, at 578.5 metres, surpassing the record held by the Burj Khalifa
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Kungstornen
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Kungstornen are twin tower skyscrapers, individually named Norra Kungstornet and Södra Kungstornet, in Norrmalm, Stockholm. The 16-storey Norra Kungstornet is 60 m and was built between 1919 and 1924, and the taller 17-storey,61 m Södra Kungstornet was built between 1924 and 1925, together, they are considered the first modern skyscrapers in Europe. They are 16 m and of similar, but not identical and their construction was inspired by American models, particularly the architecture of Lower Manhattan of the time. The north tower was designed by Sven Wallander who also authored the 1919 master plan for Kungsgatan, the southern tower was designed by Ivar Callmander
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Skatteskrapan
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Skatteskrapan is a 26-storey,86 m building in Stockholm, Sweden. It is located at Götgatan 76 in the district of Södermalm, with an initial height of 81 metres and 25 floors, it was the tallest building in Sweden from its completion in 1959 to 1964 when it was surpassed by the 84 metres tall Dagens Nyheter Tower. The building was designed by the architect Paul Hedqvist for the Swedish National Tax Board, svenska Bostäder took over ownership of the building from its former host Vasakronan on 29 December 2003. In 2008 the building was bought by AP Fastigheter that merged shortly after with Vasakronan, the building is protected as a cultural landmark by the city of Stockholm, which means it cant be rebuilt on the outside. The rebuilt skyscraper, which was built by Skanska now has room for 415 student apartments as well as office and conference apartments on the top floors, in connection to the rebuilt scraper, a new seven floor-building was built aside with 61 student apartments and 19 rented apartments. On the first and second floors of the skyscraper, and in the building, there is room for shops. The official name of the new building complex is now Skrapan, in the rebuilding process a new floor with a skybar was added increasing the floor count from 25 to 26
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Dagens Nyheter Tower
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The Dagens Nyheter Tower, called DN-Skrapan in Sweden, is an office building in the Kungsholmen district of Stockholm, Sweden. It is eighty four metres tall and has 27 floors, none of which are underground and it was completed in 1964 and was designed by architect Paul Hedqvist. It originally was home to Dagens Nyheter, Swedens largest daily newspaper however in the 1990s, the newspaper Expressen is also located in that building. Today, the building is used by different companies. Media related to DN-skrapan at Wikimedia Commons 59°19′40″N 18°1′4″E
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Kista Science Tower
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Kista Science Tower is a 32-storey,124 m skyscraper in Kista, Stockholm, Sweden. With its roof-top antenna, its height is 156 m, making it one of the tallest buildings in the country, just right in between Turning Torso and Scandic Victoria Tower. The black cube on top of the roof is, contrary to rumors, not meant to be the start of more floors, it is the top of the elevator shaft. The tower has 33 floors in total, three of which are below the entrance level consisting mainly of parking spaces. Kista Science Tower was completed in 2003 and it was the tallest skyscraper in Sweden at the time but was soon surpassed by Turning Torso, built in Malmö in 2005. It is still the tallest office building in Scandinavia, the building is home to the fastest elevators in Sweden. They reach speeds of 5 to 6 metres per second, the building houses several technology and IT companies. It is located next to Kista Galleria, a shopping complex. List of tallest buildings in Sweden
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Treaty of Roskilde
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The Treaty of Copenhagen restored Bornholm to Denmark and Trøndelag to Norway in 1660, while the other provinces transferred in Roskilde remain Swedish. As the Northern Wars progressed, Charles X Gustav of Sweden crossed the straits from Jutland and occupied the Danish island of Zealand. A preliminary treaty, the Treaty of Taastrup, was signed on 18 February 1658 with the final treaty, the treatys conditions included, The immediate cession of the Danish province Scania to Sweden. The immediate cession of the Danish province Blekinge to Sweden, the immediate cession of the Danish province Halland, which under the terms of the Peace of Brömsebro, negotiated in 1645 was then occupied by Sweden for a term of 30 years, to Sweden. The immediate cession of the Danish province of Bornholm to Sweden, the immediate cession of the Norwegian province of Bohuslän to Sweden. This effectively secured for Sweden unrestricted access to western trade, the immediate cession of the Norwegian province of Trøndelag, then including Nordmøre and Romsdal, to Sweden. Danish renunciation of all anti-Swedish alliances, Danish prevention of any warships hostile to Sweden passing through the straits into the Baltic. Restoration of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp to his estates, Danish payment for Swedish occupation forces costs. Danish provision of troops to serve Charles in his broader wars, the Swedish king was not content with his stunning victory, and at the Swedish Council held at Gottorp on 7 July, Charles X Gustav resolved to wipe his inconvenient rival from the map of Europe. Without any warning, in defiance of international treaty, he ordered his troops to attack Denmark-Norway a second time. His army partly trapped at Landskrona and partly isolated on the Danish islands by superior Danish and Dutch forces under Vice-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, meanwhile, Norwegian forces succeeded in expelling the Swedish occupiers from Trøndelag. Eventually, the resulting Treaty of Copenhagen in 1660 restored Trøndelag to Norway, the relinquishment of Trøndelag by the Treaty of Copenhagen reflects strong local resistance to the Swedish occupation. King Karl X Gustav was afraid that the Trønders would rise against their Swedish occupiers, only about one third of the men ever returned to their homes. Some of them were forced to settle in the Swedish province of Estonia, many of Trøndelags men were already in the Dano-Norwegian army and navy, so the Swedish-forced conscription nearly emptied Trøndelag of males. The result was devastating, as the farms were left without enough hands to harvest the fields, some local historians of Trøndelag have termed this the genocide of the Trønders. According to the article of the Treaty of Roskilde, which ceded Scania. However the territories were gradually integrated in the Swedish realm, the nobility was soon amalgamated with the Swedish nobility and introduced into the Swedish House of Lords with the same rights and privileges as the original Swedish noble families. The provincial Scanian Law was replaced by the national Swedish law in 1683, in the same year the national Danish law came into force in Denmark, also replacing provincial laws there
