Firework Show or Building? The Taipei 101 Building

July 17, 2012

The Taipei 101 formerly know as the Taipei World Financial Center was constructed in 2004 while construction started in 1999. It remained the tallest building from 2004-2010. The building is has 101 above ground (hence the name) and 5 floors below ground. The building is located in the Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. The building consists of the faster elevator in the world, reaching speeds of 1010 meters per minute or 55.2 feet per second! This building has many unique features such as its lights on the side of the building. Normally lights wouldn't be so unique but for this building the lights change everyday. They change to the color spectrum starting with red on Monday and ending in purple on Sunday. Another unique feature of this building is that it shoots off fireworks as you can see in the image above. The fireworks shows are very grand and seen across the world.

The safety features of this building are extraordinary. This is one of the safest sky scrapers in the world. Extreme typhoon winds and earthquake tremors are very common for its location. Therefore the architects and engineers implemented a 728 ton steel pendulum that serves as a tuned mass damper costing 4 million dollars. That is what that large golden sphere is in the image above. Basically this balances the building if it sways in the wind. Nothing will take this building down for a while at least.

Not only is this building very safe but very environmentally friendly. The roof of this building collects water meeting 20-30% of its water sources. As you can see this building has curtain walls of blue-green glass. You might think that it would be not very efficient but the glass is made from UV protection sufficient from blocking external heat by 50%. I like this building so much because it is so above average with new concepts that have not been in any other buildings.