Shanghai Tower
Shanghai Tower is a, 128-story megatall skyscraper in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai. It is the world's second-tallest building by height to architectural top and it shares the record of having the world's highest observation deck within a building or structure at 562 m. It had the world's second-fastest elevators at a top speed of until 2017, when it was surpassed by the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre, with a top speed of.
Designed by international design firm Gensler and owned by the Shanghai city government, it is the tallest of the world's first triple-adjacent supertall buildings in Pudong, the other two being the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center. Its tiered construction, designed for high energy efficiency, provides nine separate zones divided between office, retail and leisure use.
Construction work on the tower 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. Since April 26, 2017, the sightseeing deck on the 118th floor has been open to the public. Since opening the tower has had significant maintenance issues and remains largely unoccupied.
Shanghai Tower is the winner of Tien-yow Jeme Civil Engineering Prize of 2018.
Planning and funding
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 adjacent Shanghai World Financial Centre opened in 2008.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 tower's construction was obtained from shareholders, bank loans, and Shanghai's municipal government. The tower had an estimated construction cost of US$2.4 billion.
Design
The Shanghai Tower was designed by the American architectural firm Gensler, with Shanghainese architect Jun Xia leading the design team.The tower takes the form of nine cylindrical buildings stacked atop each other, totalling 128 floors, all enclosed by the inner layer of the glass facade. Between that and the outer layer, which twists as it rises, nine indoor zones provide public space for visitors. Each of these nine areas has its own atrium, featuring gardens, cafés, restaurants and retail space, and providing panoramic views of the city.
Both layers of the façade are transparent, and retail and event spaces are provided at the tower's base. The transparent façade is a unique design feature, because most buildings have only a single façade using highly reflective glass to reduce heat absorption, but the Shanghai Tower's double layer of glass eliminates the need for either layer to be opaqued. The tower can accommodate as many as 16,000 people daily.
The Shanghai Tower joins the Jin Mao Tower and SWFC to form the world's first adjacent grouping of three supertall buildings. Its 258-room hotel, located between the 84th and 110th floors, is to be operated by Jin Jiang International Hotels as the Shanghai Tower J-Hotel, and at the time of its completion it will be the highest hotel in the world. The tower will also incorporate a museum. The tower's sub-levels provide parking spaces for 1,800 vehicles.
Vertical transportation system
The vertical transportation system of Shanghai Tower was designed by an American consultant, Edgett Williams Consulting Group, with principal Steve Edgett as a primary consultant. Working closely with Gensler's design and technical teams to create a highly efficient core, Edgett created an elevator system in which office floors are served via 4 sky lobbies each served by double-deck shuttle elevators. Access to the hotel is through a 5th sky lobby at levels 101/102. Each 2-level sky lobby serves as a community center for that zone of the building, with such amenities as food and beverage and conference rooms. Local zones are served by single-deck elevators throughout the tower, and the observation deck at the top of the tower is served by three ultra-high-speed shuttle elevators that travel at, the highest speed yet employed for commercial building use. 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 the event of a fire or other emergency, the building's shuttle elevators are designed to evacuate occupants from specially-designed refuge floors located at regular intervals throughout the height of the tower.In September 2011, Mitsubishi Electric announced that it had won a bid to construct the Shanghai Tower's elevator system. Mitsubishi supplied all of the tower's 149 elevators, including three high-speed models capable of travelling at per minute. When they were installed, they were the world's fastest single-deck elevators and double-deck elevators. A 10 May 2016 Mitsubishi press release stated that one of the three shuttle elevators had been installed to travel 1230 metres/minute – the equivalent of, the highest speed ever attained by a passenger elevator installed in a functioning building. The building also broke the record for the world's furthest-travelling single elevator, at, surpassing the record held by the Burj Khalifa. The Shanghai Tower's tuned mass damper, designed to limit swaying at the top of the structure, was the world's largest at the time of its installation.
Sustainability
The Shanghai Tower incorporates numerous green architecture elements; its owners received certifications from the China Green Building Committee and the U.S. Green Building Council for the building's sustainable design. In 2013, a Gensler spokesman described the tower as "the greenest super high-rise building on earth at this point in time". The building is designed to capture rainwater for internal use, and to recycle a portion of its wastewater., Huangpu River, and The Oriental Pearl Tower
The design of the tower's glass façade, which completes a 120° twist as it rises, is intended to reduce wind loads on the building by 24%. This reduced the amount of construction materials needed; the Shanghai Tower used 25% less structural steel than a conventional design of a similar height. As a result, the building's constructors saved an estimated US$58 million in material costs. Construction practices were also optimised for sustainability. Though the majority of the tower's energy will be provided by conventional power systems, 270 vertical-axis wind turbines located in the facade and near the top of the tower are capable of generating up to 350,000 kWh of supplementary electricity per year, and are expected to provide 10% of the building's electrical needs. The double-layered insulating glass façade was designed to reduce the need for indoor air conditioning, and is composed of an advanced reinforced glass with a high tolerance for temperature variations. In addition, the building's heating and cooling systems use geothermal energy sources. Furthermore, rain and waste water are recycled to flush toilets and irrigate the tower's green spaces.
Construction
In 2008, the site – previously a driving range – was prepared for construction. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on 29 November 2008, after the tower had passed an environmental impact study. The main construction contractor for the project was Shanghai Construction Group, a member of the consortium that owns the tower.A repetitive slip-forming process was used to construct the tower's core floor by floor. By late April 2011, the tower's steel reinforcement had risen to the 18th floor, while its concrete core had reached the 15th floor, and floor framing had been completed up to the fourth floor. By late December 2011, the tower's foundations had been completed, and its steel construction had risen above the 30th floor. By early February 2012, the tower's concrete core had risen to a height of, with around fifty floors completed. In the first months of 2012, cracks began appearing in the roads near the tower's construction site. These were blamed on ground subsidence, which was likely caused by excessive groundwater extraction in the Shanghai area, rather than by the weight of the Shanghai Tower.
By May 2012, the tower's core stood high, while floors had been framed to a height of. By early September 2012, the core had reached a height of. By the end of 2012, the tower had reached the 90th floor, standing approximately tall. By 11 April 2013, the tower had reached 108 stories, standing over tall and exceeding the heights of its two neighbouring supertall skyscrapers, the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Centre.
Construction crews laid the final structural beam of the tower on 3 August 2013, thus topping out the tower as China's tallest, and the world's second-tallest, building. A topping-out ceremony was held at the site of the last beam. During the ceremony, Gensler co-founder Art Gensler stated:
The principal architect of the project, Jun Xia, said: "With the topping out of Shanghai Tower, the Lujiazui trio will serve as a stunning representation of our past, our present, and China’s boundless future." Gu Jianping, general manager of the Shanghai Tower Construction Company, expressed the firm's wish "to provide higher quality office and shopping space, as well as contribute to the completeness of the city skyline's and the entire region's functionality".
In January 2014, the tower's crown structure passed the mark, as its construction entered its final phase. The tower's crown structure was completed in August 2014, and its façade was completed shortly after. The tower's interior construction and electrical fitting-out were completed in late 2014. The opening was gradually introduced during the summer of 2016.
Post-construction history
The tower has faced problems attracting tenants due to the absence of all the necessary permits from the local fire department, and consequent impossibility to obtain the official occupancy permit. Following a report in June 2017, approximately 60% of its office space has been leased, but only 33% of those tenants have moved in, leaving entire floors of the tower empty; the luxury J hotel has also yet to open.The tenants of the tower include Alibaba, Intesa Sanpaolo and AllBright Law Offices. As of 2019, 55 floors stood empty.
In 2020, major water leaks broke out from the 60th to the 9th floor of the tower which damaged a large quantity of office equipment and electronics. The tower said the problem was fixed and a comprehensive inspection would be taken on the floor where the leak originated. Some Chinese social media users criticized the leakage as typical of the results of tofu-dreg projects. According to the local newspaper, there were misinformation videos circulating online showing that the tower's ceiling was collapsed, but was in fact from a shopping center in Nanning 2016.
Floor plans
The following is a breakdown of floor use in the Shanghai Tower:| Floor | Purpose |
| 128th floor | Mechanical layer 9 |
| 125th–127th floor | Concert hall Exhibition Hall Tuned mass damper display |
| 122nd–124th floor | Mechanical layer 8 |
| 121st floor | Observation deck |
| 120th floor | Restaurants |
| 118th & 119th floor | Observation deck |
| 116th & 117th floor | Mechanical layer 7 |
| 111th–115th floor | Boutique floors |
| 110th floor | VIP Business Center |
| 105th–109th floor | J Hotel Presidential Suite, Super Deluxe Room |
| 104th floor | Restaurant, Spicy Hall, VIP Room |
| 103rd floor | Theme Restaurants, Luxury Boutique Wine Cellar, Banquet Hall |
| 102nd floor | Cafeteria |
| 101st floor | J Hotel Skylobby / Lounge, Sky Bar |
| 99th & 100th floor | Mechanical layer 6 |
| 86th–98th floor | J Standard Hotel Rooms, Deluxe Rooms |
| 85th floor | Spa, fitness center |
| 84th floor | Swimming pool, Sky Lounge, Bar, Sky Gardens |
| 82nd & 83rd floor | Mechanical layer 5 |
| 70th–81st floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 68th & 69th floor | Sky lobby |
| 66th & 67th floor | Mechanical layer 4 |
| 54th–65th floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 52nd & 53rd floor | Sky lobby |
| 50th & 51st floor | Mechanical layer 3 |
| 39th–49th floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 37th & 38th floor | Sky lobby |
| 35th & 36th floor | Mechanical layer 2 |
| 24th–34th floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 22nd & 23rd floor | Sky lobby |
| 20th & 21st floor | Mechanical layer 1 |
| 8th–19th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 6th & 7th floor | Mechanical layer |
| 5th floor | Conference Center |
| 3rd & 4th floor | Shops and restaurants |
| 2nd floor | Shanghai Center Grand Ballroom, Boutique Office Lobby, shops and restaurants |
| 1st floor | Office lobby, hotel lobbies, shops and restaurants |
| B1 | Sightseeing Floor entrance, shops and restaurants |
| B2 | Subway station entrance, shops and restaurants |
| B3–B5 | Parking, cargo handling areas, hotels logistics, mechanical layer |