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Taipei 101 Now World's Tallest Building 401

Posted by michael from the spires-are-cheating dept.
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.
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Taipei 101 Now World's Tallest Building More

Taipei 101 Now World's Tallest Building

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  • Adding a spike to the top... (Score:5, Funny)

    by aiyo ( 653781 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @03:19AM (#7247210)
    ..is like sticking a toothpick on my dick to gain that extra two inches. Not very fair huh?

  • Spires shouldn't count (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 18, 2003 @03:22AM (#7247221)
    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?
    • Nope, i've thought this myself.. Its stupid.. if i wanted, and with appropriate concil approval i could put a 508 spiral on my house and then my house would be the talest building in the world...

      Should be floor, but then you'r gunna run around with people saying "Technically, this" and "Technically that"... So theres no use in changing it now!
    • Taipei 101 will hold 3 of the World's Tallest Building titles when it is topped out: Tallest to structural top, Tallest to roof and Highest occupied floor.

      Taipei 101 now holds the title of the world's tallest building measured to the roof, replacing the Sears Tower.

      The articles do not give a number for Highest occupied floor, but:
      1667 - 197 (spire) = 1470 feet.
      The Sears Tower is occupied to 1431 feet.
      • Take a look at the pics here:
        http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?117 8316

        The Taipei 101 is counting that little thin section as part of the building rather than the spire. But it's pretty obvious it's not usable office space, there wouldn't be room.

        The sears tower, with 108 usable floors to it's 101 still beats it in my mind.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @09:05AM (#7248029)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Personally, I think spires should count. I'm tired of the whole "we've got the biggest building now, nyaa nyaa!" thing, and spires could end it once and for all. Why? Three words: the space elevator. If it counts as a "spire", then whatever base it sits on can be called the "tallest building in the world", and no amount of sticking dirigible docks on the empire state building or this new thing in Taipei can change it.

      Either that or the stupid spire rule will go away. Either way, I forsee only good coming o

  • World's tallest building? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Takara ( 711260 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @03:23AM (#7247225)
    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?
  • ...or is it silly to include a spire making up about 12% of the length? Ok I know they'll find "creative" ways of not making it a spire etc., but still... Antennas don't count, so why should spires? The way it is, they're practically non-working antennas. Though they can't actually use them as such, because then they'd lose the record, wouldn't they?

    Kjella

  • Principle of tall buildings (Score:3, Interesting)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscowar ... m ['oo.' in gap]> on Saturday October 18, 2003 @03:38AM (#7247263) Journal
    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!
    • Some of them even take their bigger penis [cayuganet.org] to the grave in the form of giant obelisks. It's funny walking through a cemetery and seeing all the "ordinary" graves in contrast to the schmucks who decided to tower above everyone else even in death.

      --

  • the *actual* tallest building.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by phrawzty ( 94423 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @03:59AM (#7247304) Journal
    While this is likely the world's tallest skyscraper, the tallest man made structure on the planet is the CN Tower [skyscrapers.com] 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. :)
    • I remember several people on their hands and knees, trying to overcome their fear of heights and crawl out the middle of the glass. Some others slowly walked over it.

      I waltzed right to the middle of that section, and started jumping up and down. Everyone scrambled off like a bunch of roaches.

      hehehehe
  • 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.

  • So... if I add a 504m spire to the top of my house, I'll be able to beat them? Better not waste any time then...

  • A diagram of the tallest 10 buildings (Score:5, Informative)

    by jensen404 ( 717086 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @04:28AM (#7247353)
    http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?1178316 [skyscraperpage.com].
    • If that comparison is accurate, then they REALLY need to change the rules to just be something to the effect of the highest floor and not include the spires on top. Considering Petronas was considered the tallest before, and the Sears Tower appears to be MUCH taller than them when you are looking at them side by side.
  • Change the rules to include poles et al.

    Then next time OBL decides it would be cool to fly a jumbo into the worlds tallest building, he'll get there and be like "dang, it's a two storey with a 5000m flag pole!"

  • Spires do not a skyscraper make (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shaldannon ( 752 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @04:53AM (#7247395) Homepage
    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.
  • anyone out there who can shoot some decent photographs ? The stuff on reuters is tiny. The Other link has onl y3 pictures which do not really depict the size of the construction... It doesn't seem all that huge.
  • For what it's worth:
    Taipei: 508 m (1,667 ft)
    Kuala Lumpur: 452 m (1,483 ft)
    Toronto: 553 m (1,814 ft)
    Chicago: 412.4 m (1,353 ft)
    The new plan for rebuilding the World Trade Center in New York includes the 'Freedom Tower' (estimated date of completion: 2008) with usable space up to 341 m (1118.8 feet)
    Main roof: 541.3 m (1,776 ft) - 1776 being the American year of independance, no coincidence
    Spire: 98.8 m (324 ft)
    Height with spire: 640.1 m (2,100 ft)

  • Spires & what have you (Score:2, Informative)

    by kaluta ( 575272 )
    There's a decent (short) discussion of the whole 'depends how you measure it' thing here [about.com].

    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

  • Since these buildings tend to have active or passive dampers to counteract oscillation, perhaps one measure of how "usefully" high a building is could be the height of the mass damper above ground level.

    The Taipei 101 has a pendulum-style damper, I think. I wonder how it's controlled if its motion is detected as contributing to oscillation rather than dampening it?

    Interestingly, the spire has its own TMDs. I guess I'm a TMD kind of guy: there's something suitably retro about dragging 800 tons of stuff up a

  • Clarke's Space Elevator (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Esion Modnar ( 632431 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @06:28AM (#7247567)
    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...")

  • Sears is still 2nd, petronas is 3rd (Score:5, Informative)

    by abde ( 136025 ) <apoonawa-blog@QUOTEyahoo.com minus punct> on Saturday October 18, 2003 @07:33AM (#7247716) Homepage
    It's worth noting however that there are FOUR definitions of "height" [emporis.co.uk] when used in ranking the world's tallest buildings:

    Tip Height is defined as the vertical elevation from the base to the highest man-made part of the building, or any fixed attachment thereto, whichever is higher. This includes flagpoles, antennae, fences, cooling towers, signs, aircraft warning lights, and all kinds of chimneys. Mobile parts such as extendable signs may be included in the measurement as long as the variation of their heights is regular; in this case the maximum height shall constitute the tip height. Attachments such as flags, loose ropes or wires, and trees shall not be considered.

    Structural Height is defined as the vertical elevation from the base to the highest architectural or integral structural element of the building. This includes fixed sculptures, decorative and architectural spires, ornamental fences, parapets, balustrades, decorative beacons, masonry chimneys, and all other architecturally integral elements along with their pedestals.

    Roof Height is defined as the vertical elevation from the base to the highest exterior portion of the shell enclosing the building's interior space. This excludes spires, parapets, and other protruding non-habitable elements. In the event of ambiguity between the enclosing "shell" and the projecting element, then the roof's thickness shall be established by setting its height 10 cm above the highest reach of inhabitable space inside the building.

    Highest Occupied Floor Height is defined as the elevation from the base to the top of the floor slab of the highest occupiable interior level, excluding mechanical, storage, or stairway penthouses whose walls are set back from the perimeter of the highest non-mechanical floor. In the event that the floorplate is not of uniform level, then its height shall be defined as the median height taken across its entire area.

    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 [skyscraper.org]. And the illustration actually omits the Sears' antennae masts.

  • Does this mean that the Space [slashdot.org] Elevator [slashdot.org] will put an end to this "tallest building" race?

    I hope so, if their concept of a "tallest building" includes the toothpick-like antennae.

  • highest public deck? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by m0i ( 192134 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @08:17AM (#7247841) Homepage
    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).
  • The cynics and muckrakers of /. are out in force this week. Nothing gets by them!

    Anyway, the sucker's huge. You can see it about 20 km away towering over the mountains that normally block the entire cityscape of Taipei. If you're in Taiwan, you can see it from Freeway 3 just before Tucheng. It's amazing. And the antenna on top is puny in comparison with the rest of the building... trust me.
  • No one seems to have mentioned that Taipei is in an earthquake zone, a very serious one.
  • .... that the one upmanship in tall structures seems to be isolated to Asia now?
  • The whole thing is childish and smacks of penis-envy. Why can't the Malaysians simply add a bigger spire to theirs?

    There ought to be some requirement that only habitable are counts towards the tallest building. To hell with spires and radio towers.

  • I wonder if the esteemed Dr M believes that it is another Jewish conspiracy [abc.net.au].

  • Empire State Building (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tomster ( 5075 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @11:07AM (#7248485) Homepage Journal
    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

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