Shanghai Tower
The Shanghai Tower is a 128-story, megatall skyscraper located in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai. It is currently the tallest building in China, and the world's third-tallest building by height to architectural top. It was the tallest and largest LEED-CS Platinum certified building in the world from 2015 to 2024. It was also the second tallest-building in the world, from 2015 to 2021, until the completion of Merdeka 118 in Malaysia. The Shanghai Tower also had the world's fastest elevators at a top speed of until 2017, when it was surpassed by the Guangzhou CTF Finance Center, with its top speed of.
Designed by the international design firm Gensler and owned by the Shanghai Municipal 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. The US-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat cites it as "one of the most sustainably advanced tall buildings in the world."
Groundbreaking and construction work on the tower began on 29 November 2008 and topped out on 4 August 2013. The exterior was completed in summer 2015, and work was considered complete in September 2014. Although the building was originally scheduled to open to the public in November 2014, the actual public-use date was shifted to February 2015. The observation deck was opened to visitors in July 2016; the period from July through September 2018 was termed a "test run" or "commissioning" period.
Since 26 April 2017, the sightseeing decks on the 118th and 119th floors have been fully open to the public. By 2020, the opening of a further deck, dubbed the "Top of Shanghai" on the 121st floor at 562 m, made it the highest observation deck in the world, beating out the Burj Khalifa's observation deck at 555 m. The J Hotel Shanghai Tower, opened on the 120th floor in 2021, became the world's highest luxury hotel by height above ground level.
History
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 Center 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.
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. 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 thusly exceeding the heights of its two adjacent supertall skyscrapers, the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center.
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 when 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 2015.
2017 and later
Until June 2017, the tower faced problems attracting tenants due to the absence of all the necessary permits from the local fire department, and consequent impossibility of obtaining 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 tower's floor plate has an "efficiency rate of only 50 per cent on some floors, compared with 70 per cent for a typical ", as the tower's "much-talked-about outer skin, which is ideal for allowing in natural light and cuts down on air-conditioning costs... means much of the floor space can’t be used."In July 2020, major water leaks broke out from the 9th to 60th floors of the tower, which damaged a number of office equipment and electronics. The tower management said that following emergency repairs, a comprehensive inspection would be taken on the floor where the leak originated, later reporting that the leaks had been caused by equipment failure. According to Shanghai Observer, misinformation videos had circulated online alleging that the tower's ceiling was collapsed using footage from a shopping center in Nanning in a 2016 incident. On 19 June 2021, the J Hotel Shanghai Tower, a luxury hotel owned and operated by Jin Jiang International, a major Chinese hotel and tourism company, opened for business. Occupying the topmost 120th floor of the tower with 165 rooms, it became the "highest hotel in the world" according to CNN.
Being the second-tallest building in the world from since its completion in 2015, the Shanghai lost its title in 2021, when the Merdeka 118 surpassed it. The tower surpassed the Shanghai Tower by slightly over 49 meters.
In December 2022, it was reported that, following its initial pre-pandemic tenancy issues, the tower had reached office space occupancy rates of 80% and commercial space occupancy rates of 98%. The tower management disclosed that 41% of its leased space were to foreign company tenants, which included JPMorgan, CNG Paribas and Allianz, and 30% were to Fortune 500 companies. Current tenants of the tower also include Alibaba, Intesa Sanpaolo and AllBright Law Offices.
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 that total 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, the J Hotel Shanghai Tower, located between the 84th and 110th floors, is operated by Jin Jiang International Hotels, and is 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 traveling per minute. When they were installed, they were the world's fastest single-deck elevators and double-deck elevators, respectively. A 10 May 2016 Mitsubishi press release stated that one of the three installed shuttle elevators traveled at 1230 meters/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-traveling 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 comprises numerous green architecture components; 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 recounted the tower as "the greenest super high-rise building on Earth at this point in time". The building is designed to catch rainwater for internal use, and to reuse a portion of its wastewater.File:View from the Shanghai Tower observatory deck.jpg|thumb|View from Shanghai Tower Observation Deck showing The Bund, 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 sustainable. 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.
Floor Plans
| Floor | Purpose |
| 128th floor | Mechanical layer 9 |
| 127th floor | Exhibition Centre Hall |
| 126th floor | Concert Centre Hall |
| 125th floor | Tuned Mass Damper Display |
| 124th floor | Mechanical layer 8 |
| 123rd floor | Mechanical layer 8 |
| 122nd floor | Mechanical layer 8 |
| 121st floor | "Top Of Shanghai" Observatory Deck |
| 120th floor | Heavenly Jin Restaurant & J Hotel Shanghai Tower |
| 119th floor | Upper Observatory Deck |
| 118th floor | Lower Observatory Deck |
| 117th floor | Mechanichal layer 7 |
| 116th floor | Mechanical layer 7 |
| 115th floor | Boutique Floors |
| 114th floor | Boutique Floors |
| 113th floor | Boutique Floors |
| 112th floor | Boutique Floors |
| 111th floor | Boutique Floors |
| 110th floor | VIP Business Centre |
| 109th floor | Unoccupied |
| 108th floor | Unoccupied |
| 107th floor | Unoccupied |
| 106th floor | Unoccupied |
| 105th floor | J Hotel Soiree Ballroom |
| 104th floor | Kinnjyou Inaka Japanese Restaurant |
| 103rd floor | Jin Yan Chinese Restaurant |
| 102nd floor | J Hotel Management Office / Shanghai Tower Management Office |
| 101st floor | J Hotel Sky Lobbies & Lobby Lounge / Centouno Italian Restaurant |
| 100th floor | Mechanichal layer 6 |
| 99th floor | Mechanichal layer 6 |
| 98th floor | J Hotel Presidential Suite |
| 97th floor | J Hotel Presidential Suite |
| 96th floor | J Hotel Presidential Suite |
| 95th floor | J Hotel Deluxe Suite |
| 94th floor | J Hotel Deluxe Suite |
| 93rd floor | J Hotel Deluxe Suite |
| 92nd floor | J Hotel Deluxe Suite |
| 91st floor | J Hotel Deluxe Suite |
| 90th floor | J Hotel Standard Suite |
| 89th floor | J Hotel Standard Suite |
| 88th floor | J Hotel Standard Suite |
| 87th floor | J Hotel Standard Suite |
| 86th floor | J Hotel Standard Suite |
| 85th floor | J Hotel Spa / Fitness Centre |
| 84th floor | J Hotel Swimming Pool / Yi Lounge |
| 83rd floor | Mechanichal layer 5 |
| 82nd floor | Mechanichal layer 5 |
| 81st floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 80th floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 79th floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 78th floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 77th floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 76th floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 75th floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 74th floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 73rd floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 72nd floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 71st floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 70th floor | Office Zone 5 |
| 69th floor | Sky Lobbies |
| 68th floor | Sky Lobbies |
| 67th floor | Mechanichal layer 4 |
| 66th floor | Mechanichal layer 4 |
| 65th floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 64th floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 63rd floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 62nd floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 61st floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 60th floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 59th floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 58th floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 57th floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 56th floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 55th floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 54th floor | Office Zone 4 |
| 53rd floor | Sky Lobbies |
| 52nd floor | Sky Lobbies |
| 51st floor | Mechanichal layer 3 |
| 50th floor | Mechanichal layer 3 |
| 49th floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 48th floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 47th floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 46th floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 45th floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 44th floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 43rd floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 42nd floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 41st floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 40th floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 39th floor | Office Zone 3 |
| 38th floor | Sky Lobbies |
| 37th floor | Sky Lobbies |
| 36th floor | Mechanichal layer 2 |
| 35th floor | Mechanichal layer 2 |
| 34th floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 33rd floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 32nd floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 31st floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 30th floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 29th floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 28th floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 27th floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 26th floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 25th floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 24th floor | Office Zone 2 |
| 23rd floor | Sky Lobbies |
| 22nd floor | Sky Lobbies |
| 21st floor | Mechanichal layer 1 |
| 20th floor | Mechanichal layer 1 |
| 19th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 18th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 17th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 16th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 15th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 14th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 13th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 12th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 11th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 10th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 9th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 8th floor | Office Zone 1 |
| 7th floor | Mechanichal layer 1 |
| 6th floor | Mechanichal layer 1 |
| 5th floor | Conference Centre |
| 4th floor | Shanghai Tower Mall |
| 3rd floor | Shanghai Tower Mall |
| 2nd floor | Shanghai Centre Grand Ballroom / Boutique Office Lobby / Shanghai Tower Mall |
| 1st floor | Shanghai Tower Office Lobbies / J Hotel Shanghai Lobbies / Shanghai Tower Mall |
| B1 floor | Parking / Observatory Deck Entrance / Shanghai Tower Mall |
| B2 floor | Parking / Shanghai Metro / Shanghai Tower Mall |
| B3 floor | Parking |
| B4 floor | Parking / Hotel logistics / Utility Office |
| B5 floor | Parking / Mechanichal layer / Cargo handling area |