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Posts Tagged ‘Tallest’

Dark Tower: Decay Inside Africa’s Tallest Apartment Complex

30 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

ponte apartment context

Before a long descent into darkness, the cylindrical Ponte City Apartments began life as a luxurious tribute to growth and wealth in Johannesburg , filled with envy-worthy units looking out in all directions. But after years of decline and false restarts, what direction is next for the highest residential skyscraper on the continent?

dark tower spire detail

ponte apartment trash

As remarked in the film above by Philip Bloom, the transformation of this iconic 54-story, mixed-use tower in South Africa has been astonishing. “It really was icon of decadence … wealth and exuberance” with three-story units and Jacuzzi tubs – a “premier location in the city” for people “making a lot of cash.” As part of an exodus from the city center, rapid changes took place.

dark tower up down

The center of the circular plan looked excellent in theory – a way for light to enter the back side of apartments looking into the core. There were even plans for an indoor ski slope to accompany the various shops and eateries on the lower levels.

dark interior core views

In practice, it slowly became a kind of black hole filled with three stories of detritus at the bottom and marked by unwashed walls all the way up. It also developed a reputation for defenestrations – accidents, suicides and otherwise.

dark building exterior view

Investors just before the global financial crisis began to re-envision and rehabilitate the structure, but the renovations stopped as abruptly as the market crashed, leaving an ambiguous future for this iconic structure.

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Floors So Vain: The World’s Ten Tallest Vanity Heights

29 Sep

[ By Steve in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

CTBUH Vanity Height Top 10
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH for short) has coined the term “vanity height” to describe the empty, unoccupied space atop the world’s tallest towers. Here are the top ten wasteful Supertalls from the top down.

Burj Khalifa, Dubai, UAE: 244m/800.5ft of Vanity

CTBUH Burj Khalifa Dubai(image via: 4ever.eu)

The CTBUH has been using the term “supertall” to describe skyscraping buildings at least 300m (984.25ft) in height and has recently added the term “megatall” for buildings over 600m (1,968.5ft) high. All of the buildings on our list are at least 309m (1,013.75ft) tall but Dubai’s 828m (2,719ft) tall Burj Khalifa truly belongs in a class of its own.

CTBUH Burj Khalifa Dubai(images via: Business Insider and Izismile)

The Burj Khalifa’s staggering height is a bit misleading, however, if one takes the CTBUH Vanity Height factor into account. Fully 29% of the structure is non-occupiable – that works out to 244m (800.5ft), higher than a host of notable skyscrapers that DO offer renters and owners a significant amount of useable commercial and residential space.

Zifeng Tower, Nanjing, China: 133m (436.5ft) of Vanity

CTBUH Zifeng Tower Nanjing(image via: Skyscraper City)

The 450m (1,480ft) tall Zifeng Tower boasts 89 stories and was completed in 2010. Looking out the window on an 89th-floor suite won’t get you the view you expect, however, as the top 30% of the building is non-occupiable. Formerly known as the Nanjing Greenland Financial Center, the building was designed by a team led by Adrian Smith of Gordon Gill Architecture.

CTBUH Zinfeng Tower Greenland Nanjing(images via: Forbes and Jeffchenbiao)

The Zifeng Tower still offers tenants and visitors 317m (1,040ft) of practical and accessible space, with the upper floors providing a spectacular view of downtown Nanjing from any direction. Restaurants, a hotel and a public observatory are stacked atop a mix of retail and office space in the Zifeng Tower’s lower section. Amusingly, the building’s official website header reads “GREEDLAND PLAZA/ZIFENG TOWER”… we realize this is a commercial endeavor but could the owners be a little less obvious?

Bank of America Tower, New York, USA: 131m (429.8ft) of Vanity

CTBUH_ Bank of America Tower New York(image via: Panoramio/Ken Fries)

Too big to fail? Not according to CTBUH who note the 366m (1,200.8ft) tall Bank of America Tower in midtown Manhattan offers a mere 235m (771ft) of occupiable height to its tenants. That works out to a whopping 36% measurement of non-occupiable height. Not the ideal return on investment for the billion-dollar project, one might say.

CTBUH Bank of America Tower New York(images via: Horizon Solutions Site and Curbed)

On the bright side, COOKFOX Architects designed the Bank of America Tower to be one of the world’s most efficient and ecologically friendly buildings. Admirable indeed but the building, completed in 2009, needs asterisks added to its claims to be the third tallest building in New York City (after One World Trade Center and the Empire State Building) and the fifth tallest building in the United States… and you can bank on that.

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[ By Steve in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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Skyscraper Slums: Insider Tour of World’s Tallest Tent City

27 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Global & Urbex & Parkour. ]

skyscraper slum

Housing over 2,500 people in 28 of its 45 floors, the Tower of David is a half-finished structure in Caracas, Venezuela, populated with displaced people. Like the now-vanished Kowloon Walled City or a huge vertical tent city, it is feared by officials and runs by its own rules. Its residents pool resources, including skills and money, to create and maintain independent and communal water supplies, plumbing and power grids.

Even the police are afraid to enter this effectively lawless structure, but through friends one video journalist was given permission to tour and film the facility – you can follow his adventure via the video above.

skyscraper squatter city life

What may be most remarkable is how much like a normal building it is, with new couples coming in and renovating dwellings, and established businesses (including a hair salon) and community spaces (at least one church).

skyscraper interior home renovations

That is, of course, ‘normal’ once you get past architectural surprises like the absence of windows along some faces and the dizzying drops of dozens of stories off of unmarked edges lacking railings. The authorities also claim the structure is a hotbed for crime and violence, home to gang activity and drug cartels, but this one brief documentary, at least, suggests things are a bit more complicated than that.

skyscraper abandoned then occupied

As we described in previous coverage and with other images, the structure was being built into business skyscraper when construction halted during the 1990s financial crisis. It was then effectively abandoned and has since become a haven for a squatters who started moving in during the subsequent crisis 2007/2008. Now, these residents ride up the first ten stories taken by moped taxis or, if sufficiently poor, walk the distance. With no elevators, some skyscraper dwellers have to walk dozens of stories to get home. As in pre-elevator days, the top floors are thus the least desirable and many remain unoccupied –  from outside, you can see the light dwindling up toward the upper stories at night.

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Top of the World: Photos & Videos from Atop Tallest Towers

03 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]

tallest building top view

First he presented a photo-edited version (carefully stitched from dozens of photos) to show what the view would look like without the building he on top of which he took it. Still, impressive as that was, photographer Gerald Donovan‘s raw shot is all the more dizzying despite leaving the obstructions in the frame.

tallest building panoramic photograph

tallest structure top view

In the unedited version, the last bits of tower and few people right below give you a sense of the distance from Earth at which the shot was taken – 2,722 feet at the top of the Burj Khalifa.

It is in fact so tall you can see a sunset twice in the same day, per the video above. You can watch the sun set once from the ground, then take the elevator up, and witness it for a second time minutes later. Amazing. The second film above shows a 24 hour sequence of this incredible structure from below.

top of wtc photo

And if static images of the Burj in Dubai are not sufficient to get your heart racing, try watching the last video above showing the last piece being installed at the top of One World Trade Center  in New York City (image and video via the Port Authority of NJ & NY).

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