Taipei 101: General
From Structural Facts
|
View This Structure's:
| |||
|
| Select | General | Your | Topic(s) | To | Continue |
| Statistics | Aesthetics | Engineering | Construction | Companies |
Contents |
General Tidbits
- Surpassed Petronas Towers in August 10, 2003. Now currently the World's Tallest Skyscraper and also holds 2 other titles, tallest to structural top, tallest to roof and height.
- The pinnacle reached full height on October 9, 2003. It is the date marked having it reached to the highest point in terms of structural height than any other skyscraper in the World.
- T.A.I.P.E.I 101 is mnemonic for Technology, Art, Innovation, People, Environment, and Identity. The numerical 101 represents the concept of striving beyond perfection. - SkyscraperPage.com
- It is the first world's tallest building in the 21st century. It is also the first skyscraper in the World to surpass the half kilometer mark by a mere measurement of 8m. - Emporis.com
- The shopping mall opened on the November 13, 2003 before the official opening of the Tower.
- The building underwent numerous redesigns due to aviation restrictions imposed by the nearby Taipei Municipal (Sung Shan) Airport before a special variance was granted and the building was constructed to the full original intended height. - SkyscraperPage.com
- The cost of the construction is about $700 million, making it one of the most expensive skyscrapers built.
- It is also noted that the Taiwan Stock Exchange rented 7 floors in the building.
The 730 ton Tuned Mass Damper
More details of this article is located in our Taipei 101 Engineering page.
Taipei 101 is also known for its engineering system to counterattack earthquakes. The 730 ton $4 million Tuned Mass Damper located at the near top of the tower where the restaurant levels are should be able to handle any quake that comes by. It is also by far, the largest mass damper sphere in the World measuring a diameter of 5.5m.
Architecture
More details of this article is located in our Taipei 101 Aesthetics page.
Taipei 101 boasts great symbolic meaning on the exterior and architecture. Decorated with its intricate craftsmanship of details and finishes, form, construction, standing majestically tall like a beautiful giant modern-day pagoda and like an impressive bamboo plant growing with freedom and reaching towards the sky, you know that it is built differently than other ordinary structure.
Has Taipei 101 caused more earthquakes?
This question has been circulating round newspapers all over the world. Because of it's heavy weight, the 700, 000 ton skyscraper caused micro quakes of 2.0 at the Richter scale. Cheng Horng Lin, a geologist, stressed that the skyscraper may have reopened an ancient earthquake fault.
The Taipei basin and was a very stable area with no active earthquake faults at the surface. Things changed when Taipei 101 started to rise form the ground. During the period of construction (1999-2003), at least two micro quakes happened per year. "Since the construction finished there have been two larger earthquakes (magnitude 3.8 and 3.2) directly beneath Taipei 101, which were big enough to feel," stressed Dr Lin.
The construction of Taipei 101 is very much different from other skyscrapers built, because of using specially made hybrid beam frames and columns, to give extra and added protection to the structure. However Dr. Lin stressed that all these have a huge vertical loading on the foundation. It is this exceptional downward stress that Dr Lin thinks may have caused the extra earthquakes.
But other experts are cautious...
An excerpt from - TODAY Newspaper, Singapore
Other experts are more cautious about blaming the skyscraper for the earthquakes. "A building will change the stress on the ground under the building, but this probably won't reach down to around 10km, the level where the earthquakes occurred," says John Vidale, an earthquake expert at the University of California in Los Angeles. Zygmunt Lubkowski, an earthquake analyst for the engineering firm Arup, is concerned at the lack of data. "Earthquakes occur on timescales of thousands to millions of years. From just 10 years of earthquake data it is hard to tell if the extra earthquakes are just noise in the signal or due to the building."
Compared with dams and underground waste deposits, skyscrapers such as Taipei 101 are mere pinpricks on the Earth's surface. "It is a point load which is probably going to be insignificant at depth," says Leonardo Seeber, a geologist from the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in New York.
