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Taipei 101 Now World's Tallest Building
mstamat writes "A 101-storey skyscraper in Taipei is from today the world's tallest building. The new scyscraper is 508 metres (1,667 feet) tall, beating the 452-metre (1,483-feet) twin Petronas towers in Kuala Lumpur. The full height was achieved after adding a 60-metre (197-ft) spire on top of the building. The story is on
Reuters." There's plenty of information about the building available.
..is like sticking a toothpick on my dick to gain that extra two inches. Not very fair huh?
Am I the only one who thinks spires shouldn't count? I think it should be the highest floor of rentable, realistically usable office space.
Am I wrong?
I would like to note that the CN-tower in Canada at 553m is the worlds tallest free-standing building, and still is.
It appears this Corporation has been set up specifically to construct the building, but I wonder whether they will be operating it in the future?
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
I noticed this in downtown Brussels: tall town houses, built for the rich burghers of the early 20th century. _Tall_ houses, with first floors way too high for times without good insulation or central heating.
And interestingly, the heights of the buildings correlate with the dates of construction: the first houses on a street are modest, then each new construction adds a little to each level, just enough to appear more important without being vulgar. When the street is full, the last construction is the most impressive, it towers over the older houses.
Of course then the whole community runs out of cash and they have to live in the cold drafty boxes they built.
I detected a similar pattern in medieval castles, and this scyskraper (sic) is a good example of the same principle at work today.
Basically, it's a bunch of boys comparing penises and sticking penis-sheaths onto them to make them look longer.
Bon amusement, mes gars!
Ceci n'est pas une signature
If however architectural spires were not included in the height either, the Sears tower (excluding aerial) would be far taller than the Peronas towers (I am not sure about Taipei 101 however).
So in answer to your question, adding a pole to the top of a building doesn't make it a bigger building. To improve your buildings height you must add a spire (i.e. a real fat pole that serves no particular purpose apart from aesthetics). The rules are stupid, I know, but then again, I didn't make them up, and at least they stop people from using carbon fiber rods to cheat.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
While this is likely the world's tallest skyscraper, the tallest man made structure on the planet is the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada. It has been the tallest since 1975, too.
:)
As an aside, i cannot stress how freakin cool it is to stand on the glass-bottomed lower obsevation deck, and peer down at the city nearly half a kilometre below.
Just a joke. Taiwan has been in race with China for years. It's interesting to see this news right after China has finished a manned space mission.
http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?1178316.
What? Like being too chickenshit to build taller? Lesson learned; terrorists won.
--
Power to the Peaceful
Sorry, but you can tack on a radio tower and claim to have the "tallest skyscraper." IMHO, it ain't the tallest unless you're comparing height from lowest occupiable space (sub-basement) to highest occupiable space (penthouse floor). Spires are mere decoration and airplane hazards.
What is your Slash Rating?
It's a highly sophisticated, interactive system of three dwarves standing on one another's shoulders to reach the brake lever.
(Previous designs employed Hobbits, but they took too many lunch breaks.)
"Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - Orwell
For the record, most structural engineers who work on very tall buildings (yes, I'm one) tend to take the view that its habitable space that matters - but having said that some large spires are accessible with observation decks and whatever so these would probably count too. There's a fair bit of difference in the amount of engineering effort required for these than for some carbon fibre mast stuck on top for bragging rights.
All generalisations are wrong... including this one.
When that goes up (or comes down from orbit, or whatever) won't that blow all the records out of the water? Or would that not count as a building? Though certainly not as an "office" building. ("Our building is half a mile high" "Yeah? Ours is 40,000 miles high...")
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
"How about if they just made a really big pole, would that be the new biggest building in the world?"
Music-industry accounting?
"Well, it's about 30 times wider than a very thin tower, so we'll just say it's 60 times as high."
Until the Petronas Towers were built, the Sears Tower in Chicago held all four titles. Petronas displaced the Sears Tower only by virtue of an enormous spire, which was part of the architectural design but did not actually have usable space. Thus Petronas got a boost to its Structural height by virtue of its spire, but the Sears Tower actually remained the leader in Highest Occupied Floor, and Roof, and Tip. Unfortunately, Structural height is the one used in the public domain to assert the title of Tallest. You can see that the Sears was taller by far in every intuitive sense of the word by looking at this scale drawing. And the illustration actually omits the Sears' antennae masts.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
The true question:
is the 448m roof of this new tower higher than the CN Tower Skydeck at 447m? If floor(447) is higher than topfloor(Tapei101), then IMO the highest still is the CN Tower (even if it's not considered a true building by charts).
have you been defaced today?
CN tower is definitely the "world's tallest building". http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/index.asp?id=4 9675
Does everybody else think the International Finance Center in Hong Kong hereis modeled after what I think it's modeled after? To quote Shrek: "Maybe they're trying to make up for something."
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I'd like to draw your attention to the Empire State Building because it was completed in 1931, decades before most of these other buildings were even thought of, decades before "modern" skyscraper architecture and engineering. It still ranks as one of the tallest (and most famous) buildings in the world over 70 years later.
-Thomas
The spire was installed on 9 October; thus, the full height was attained. The building isn't due to complete until 2004.
I must say, having lived in Taiwan for 15 years, that I think the scariest are the earthquakes and typhoons -- tall buildings are pretty shakey without any wind already. I wonder what a combination (worst-case scenario) could do...
To iterate is human; to recurse, divine!