Location: Shanghai, China.

Architect: KPF – Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates.

The Shanghai World Financial Center is a 101-story skyscraper in Shanghai, China, designed to represent the interaction between the heavens and the earth. The tower houses a mix of office and retail spaces, as well as the Park Hyatt Shanghai hotel on the upper floors. The SWFC Sky Arena offers visitors aerial views of the city and the chance to walk almost 500 meters above the ground via the 100th-floor Sky Walk. The building’s podium features an angled wall representing the horizon, which creates a prominent façade for the landscaped public space on the tower’s western side. The tower’s elegant form was achieved through an innovative structural solution that abandoned the original concrete frame structure in favor of a diagonal-braced frame with outrigger trusses coupled to the columns of the mega-structure. This reduced the weight of the building by more than 10%, resulting in a more transparent structure in visual and conceptual harmony with the tower’s form. The Shanghai World Financial Center is an icon of Shanghai and China, with its clear and elegant form dramatic at all scales.

Photo credit: Mori.