Since Conco is hard at work on the Wilshire Grand Center in L.A., which will be the tallest skyscraper in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, we thought it only fitting to do a blog series on “super tall buildings.”  Keep in mind that skyscrapers are ranked by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) and they use set criteria to designate the official height for each building.  According to the Council, “measurements are from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance to the architectural top of the building.  This includes spires, but does not include antennae, signage, flagpoles or other functional-technical equipment.”  

For the new blog post in our series on tallest buildings in the world, we come to the fourth one, which is right here in the U.S.  The ultra-modern One World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan was designed by the renowned architect David Childs, of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, LLP.  The building has received the designation as the tallest building in the U.S. and the fourth tallest in the world after some controversy regarding its height.  Recently the CTBUH declared that the mast on top of the building is a spire since it is a permanent part of the skyscraper’s architecture, which means the One World Trade Center is officially 1,776 ft. tall. 

The skyscraper is built with safety in mind as well as sustainability and has received LEEDS Gold certification.  According to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who own the building, “Its structure is designed around a strong, redundant steel frame, consisting of beams and columns. Paired with a concrete-core shear wall the redundant steel frame lends substantial rigidity and redundancy to the overall building structure while providing column-free interior spans for maximum flexibility.”  The One World Trade Center is expected to open later this year.  

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.