Why Shanghai Tower Failed

[Music] soaring 632 meters above the financial heart of China Shanghai tawa is the second tallest building in the world the striking structure features incredibly fast elevators is home to our planet's highest observation deck and claims to be the world's most sustainable and negative skyscraper but despite its status as one of modern China's most iconic mega projects and its ambition to be a crowning symbol of the country's economic growth Shanghai Tower has been plagued with challenges this is how one of the world's tallest and most important skyscrapers failed [Music] plans for Shanghai tawa date back to 1993 when economic reforms were introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s the cityscape of Shanghai began to rapidly transform to accommodate the demand for office space and to put the city on the world stage as China's financial capital a cluster of three eye catching super tall skyscrapers were planned the gym now building the first of this trio was completed in 1999 and was followed nearly a decade later by the Shanghai World Financial Center but Shanghai Tower was always intended to be the jewel in the crown backed by a consortium of state-owned developers and primarily funded by Shanghai's municipal government work on the 2.4 billion US dollar tawa first commenced in 2008 eight years and 128 stories later the twisting structure completed stunning the world with its scale and unusual form while making the skyscrapers super block one of the densest places on earth with more than a million square meters of real estate on offer sitting so close together these towers invite comparison each one sets a monumental record only to be dramatically outdone by its successor but since its opening in 2016 shanghai tawa has faced a myriad of problems most notably and astonishingly low occupancy rates until as recently as 2018 the building was half empty the spaces that were leased were less to domestic corporations and only 30 percent of those had actually been able to move in the much-sought-after multinationals were even more reluctant to sign leases there were several reasons for this firstly bureaucratic red tape and safety concerns from local fire authorities who were concerned at the building's immense height meant that it took several years for the tower to gain its full fire certifications with operating losses soaring the tower ran more than 1.5 billion u.s. dollars into debt secondly the building's twisting glass facade ideal for offsetting wind loads created an impractical floor plates forcing tenants to pay for large areas of unusable floor space site inspectors found that on most levels just 50% of the floor space was used efficiently Shanghai towers low occupancy rates is painfully obvious at night when half the tower fails to light up this is partly due to extended delays around the luxury Jay Hotel that has been due to open on the towers upper floors for many years Shanghai towers world-class sustainability credentials which earned it LEED Platinum certification were in fact a key part of its commercial strategy investors are always looking for ways to lower the maintenance and energy costs of super tall buildings while rent for LEED certified structures can be up to 30% higher because of their desirable green status as such the tower boasts over 40 energy saving techniques including 200 wind turbines at its summit providing 10% of its power a dual layered glass skin that naturally cools and ventilate the building interior and the rain water recycling system but these measures did little to attract tenants in the towers early years and in addition to the problems outlined earlier Shanghai tower found itself completing at an unsettling time for the Chinese economy with commercial occupancy rates across the city falling the tower wall was asking tenants to pay expensive rents when they were looking for bargains even the International Monetary Fund noted that lack of competent commercial decision-making from China in its construction projects no private company in the world could build a tower this wildly expensive but lease so little of it despite pushing the very limits of engineering and being widely praised for its design that has undoubtedly made it an iconic symbol of China Shanghai Tower has seemingly fallen short of becoming a monument to the country's economic success standing instead as quite the opposite if you enjoyed this video and would like to get more from the definitive video channel for construction subscribe to the b1l you

Channel: The B1M

Views: 4,567,476

Rating: 4.7195363 out of 5

Keywords: B1M, TheB1M, Construction, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, shanghai, china, shanghai tower, china tower, megatall, supertall, skyscraper, gensler, gensler design, fail, failure, bad design, adrian smith, beijing, asia, tall buildings, burj khalifa, dubai

Id: JgkgBZfLu2I

Length: 5min 58sec (358 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Timedoutsob]

tldw: half empty, nobody want's to sign a lease. fire certification problems. debt. Design inside has large amounts of wasted space. Finished in a downtown as rents were going down charging high rents.

[u/Arctic_Chilean]

The B1M is a legit great channel!

[u/thisnameloves]

Sound like a typical government project: mostly wasted taxpayer money which translates to wasting taxpayers' lives.

[u/Monkeyfeng]

China's economy just isn't as strong as before.

[u/uriman]

In the West, a project is approved when there is perceived demand for it by investors. You see so many of these cart-before-the-horse type projects in Asia, Middle East (Dubai) and Russia all for political leaders to show that they "made it" just like the West. They look at a city like NYC and see all the skyscrapers and think that if we had skyscrapers, then we must be like NYC.

[u/tenhou]

Excellent video. Thank you for this. Ended up watching more of the videos on the channel.

[u/d_realist]

This is what happens when the entire mind is focused on building the product and not thinking about the users.