Seventh Tallest in the World - International Commerce Centre

While we are currently providing concrete services for the new Wilshire Grand Center in Los Angeles, which is on its way to becoming the tallest building in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, we have started blogging about other tall skyscrapers.  We recently saw an article from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat that is already discussing the emergence of mega tall skyscrapers that will be built in the next decade.  Apparently a kilometer-tall (3280 ft.) building is already under construction.  The CTBUH now defines super tall skyscrapers as those over 300 meters (984 ft.) and buildings over 600 meters (1968 ft.) as mega tall.    

On our list of buildings, we are at number seven, which is the International Commerce Centre in West Kowloon, Hong Kong.  The 1,588 ft. building has 118 floors with a 360 degree observation deck and is the tallest building in Hong Kong as well containing the third largest number of floors.  The ICC was completed in 2010 and a winning entry in an international design competition.  The project was designed by the American architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) in association with Wong & Ouyang (HK) Ltd.

The skyscraper is part of the Union Square reclamation project and is built right above the Kowloon Station, which connects Hong Kong to the airport.  According to ArchDaily, the structure is made up of eight concrete mega-columns that “splay out 3 degrees as they touch the ground plane.”  The building includes office, retail, a hotel and the world’s highest cocktail lounge on the 108^th floor.   

Energy efficient abounds in the skyscraper and set new standards for sustainability.  It contains an “Energy Optimizer” air-conditioning system and a passenger smart elevator system that maximizes efficiency by assigning elevators to groups with similar destinations.  Water is saved by harvesting water from the a/c system and used in cooling towers and other situations that use non-potable water.      

Conco is a leading supplier of concrete services for the Western United States and is once again involved in doing concrete work for a major landmark project. The new Wilshire Grand Center will reshape the Los Angeles skyline as the tallest building west of the Mississippi.  As a part of the project, Conco successfully poured the largest continuous mat foundation ever done in the U.S. on February 15, 2014.