As part of the search for the Best Skyscraper of 2015, the following selection looks at the most striking new skyscrapers of Europe. The current Elite Eight tournament already has Moscow’s 354 meter-tall OKO-tower present, and together with the ones below they define Tall Europe in 2015. The traditional skyscraper cities, such as Frankfurt, Warsaw and de La Defence area in Paris are absent. Istanbul had a couple but they didn’t make the cut and boomtown London has just one horse in the race, albeit a purple one, which is indeed quite an uncommon facade color. Intead, cities like Seville, Lyon, Turin, Basel take the stage this year. Here is the voting bracket which decides which one will represent Europe in the grand finale.

With its 80 years of experience in bringing together architecture and structural engineering Skidmore, Owings & Merrill remains groundbreaking to this day, particularly in the construction of gigantic skyscrapers, the so-called “supertalls”.

The exhibition and the accompanying DETAIL volume present the approaches, the roots and the theoretical background of the SOM Structural Group. One central question is how far architecture can go – in terms of height. Typical structural concepts and [more]

The rise of the supertalls has been several years in the making, and One57, 432 Park Avenue, and One World Trade Center have offered a preview of the increasingly gargantuan changes taking place across New York City. But 2016 will mark the start of a new era for the city’s skyline. With six supertalls of 300 meters (984 feet) or greater now rising, the city’s total number of such buildings will nearly double, from seven to thirteen. The New York Post featured YIMBY’s compilation of the towers.

Manhattan long held the title of the world’s most impressive skyline, with the boom of the 1920s cementing the island’s status as the skyscraper capital of the globe. The Chrysler Building (at 1,046 feet) and the Empire State Building (at 1,250 feet) marked the city’s first official supertalls, and the ESB held the title of the world’s tallest building until the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center were completed in the early 1970s.

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A record-breaking total of 106 skyscrapers over 200 metres tall were completed in 2015, and even more are predicted for 2016, according to new industry research.

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Top 9 tallest skyscrapers completing in 2016:

1) Ping An Finance Center, China, by Kohn Pedersen Fox
2) Goldin Finance 117, China, by P&T Group
3) Lotte World Tower, Korea, by Kohn Pedersen Fox
4) CTF Finance Center, China, by Kohn Pedersen Fox
5) Wuhan Center Tower, China, by ECADI
6) Marina 101, UAE, by National Engineering Bureau
7) Eton Place Dalian Tower 1, China, by NBBJ
8) Vostok Tower, Russia, by NPS Tchoban Voss and Schweger Associated Architects
9) Dalian International Trade Center, China, by Dalian Architectural Design & Research Institute

Humanity has become obsessed with breaking its limits, creating new records only to break them again and again. In fact, our cities’ skylines have always been defined by those in power during every period in history. At one point churches left their mark, followed by public institutions and in the last few decades, it’s commercial skyscrapers that continue to stretch taller and taller.

But when it comes to defining which buildings are the tallest it can get complicated. Do antennas and other gadgets on top of the building count as extra meters? What happens if the last floor is uninhabitable? The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has developed their own system for classifying tall buildings, measuring from the “level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance to the architectural top of the building, including spires, but not including antennae, signage, flag poles or other functional-technical equipment.” Using this system more than 3,400 buildings have been categorized as over 150 meters tall.

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100 Future Tallest Buildings in the World
The Skyscraper Center

Met een wervelende lasershow is dinsdag 15 december de start van de bouw van Amstel Tower in Amsterdam ingeluid. De woon- en hoteltoren verrijst naast het Amstelstation. In de toren komt een hotel en 192 huurappartementen. Het merendeel van de appartementen bestaat compacte en hoogwaardig afgewerkte tweekamerappartementen voor het middensegment.

De hoogte van de woontoren wedijvert straks met de twee kantoortorens aan de overzijde van het spoor. Het ontwerp van Powerhouse Company wordt de hoogste woontoren binnen de ring. De contouren van het gebouw worden tot en met begin 2016 elke avond met laser uitgelicht. Lees verder →

Innovative towers are transforming skylines worldwide, shifting the focus from record breaking spires to imaginative solutions that embrace sustainability and economic conditions. The race to scrape the skies has taken a refreshing turn, and congratulations are in order for Bosco Verticale in Milan by Stefano Boeri Architetti, recipient of the 2015 Best Tall Building Worldwide. Read on >>>

In november was de expositie over de Venezolaanse wolkenkrabber Torre David te zien in De Dépendance in Rotterdam. Het is voor het eerst dat ‘Torre David – Informal Vertical Communities’ te zien is geweest in Nederland.

Tijdens de Architectuurbiënnale van Venetië in 2012 werd de tentoonstelling over de gekraakte kantoortoren in Carácas onderscheiden met de Gouden Leeuw. De expositie, met een fotoserie van Iwan Baan, is de weerslag van een onderzoek dat Urban Think Tank deed. Het bureau van Alfredo Brillembourg en Hubert Klumpner heeft een jaar lang onderzoek gedaan naar de 45 verdiepingen hoge toren en haar bewoners. De toren is ontworpen door architect Enrique Gómez en was bijna voltooid, toen in 1993 de ontwikkelaar onverwacht overleed. Het gebouw werd daarna gekraakt door 750 families, die er een alternatieve, informele samenleving stichtten.