Photography

Merdeka 118 in KL. The world's second tallest building. 679m.

These tall buildings are kind of inefficient.  Past around 40 floors or so, the elevator shafts start eating too much of the floor space (since the higher you go, the more elevators you need).  But, despite their inefficiency, they can be beacons of great beauty.

The taller the building the less sense it makes practically/economically. Most ultra-tall buildings are made to simply show-off. With that said, some of them are truly impressive and beautiful architecturally....

The same way I think the Merdeka is more interesting architecturally than the Burj Khalifa.... Anyway, the design of the Petronas towers actually reminds me of the Library tower (U.S. Bank tower) in Los Angeles.... Cheers, Filip

I haven't seen the Petronas Towers nor the Merdeka in person. But I have seen the Burj Khalifa in person and it was a beautiful structure. Also, it's lit up at night incredibly as well. It kind of looks like an over-commercialized advertisement at night. But during the day, it's a beautiful structure. I have seen the Taipei 101 building and while I don't like the look of Taipei 101 especially, but I do appreciate Taipei 101 from a technology perspective, Taipei 101 is a very impressive building. It's super flexible structure, ultra-high-speed pressurized elevators (this is starting to become common in super tall buildings) like an airplane, and the way it was built to accommodate earthquake tremors and monsoons is remarkable. Also, its floor plate and size is significantly larger than most super tall buildings. Keep in mind, Taipei 101 is around 40% shorter (about 500 meters) than the Burj Khalifa (about 800 meters), but has 30% more square footage (Taipei 101 has around 4 million square feet when Burj Khalifa only has around 3 million). Each floor is massive on Taipei 101! And the floors don't get much smaller towards the top like they do on Burj Khalifa. It was necessary to do this to make the building more efficient from a lease/revenue perspective. For instance, elevator shafts, stairways, ancillaries, and other "core" services only takes up around 11% average of the floor space per floor (less the further up you go, a little more on the lower floors). It's not unusual for this number to be close to 20% average in buildings that are less tall. Aesthetically, I'm not a huge fan of Taipei 101, but from a practicality standpoint, a technology standpoint, a safety standpoint, and every "practical" view - Taipei 101 is one of the best super-tall structures in the world. Burj Khalifa doesn't have to deal with earthquakes nor typhoon winds, so we cannot fault the Burj Khalifa for not installing these special technologies. But we can certainly praise Taipei 101 for the engineering behind it.

of those intricate details pertaining to the Taipei 101! Much appreciate the 'breakdown' of them. Cheers, Filip

But not knowledgeable enough to be an expert witness on the subject. 

A beautiful building. And what an interesting back story about the two different companies that built the towers.

is that during the construction works, the buildings were not even - an obvious problem for the sky bridge. I am not sure how it was rectified!

I have no idea how they rectified it neither.

If you start looking at the floor plates for each floor in these super tall buildings, the first 50% of the lower floors have very little usable (rentable) space, since the elevator shafts use up so much of the floor space. Many elevators don't go all the way up the building, so the upper floors generally have more square meters of usable space. And the upper floors generally rent for more money per square meter due to views. Overall, developers are hoping that the prestige factor of the building nets them more money in rents to offset the additional costs in building such a building.

I find it subjectively more compelling, in an architectural context, than the Burj Khalifa.... Thank you for sharing the image here with us! Cheers, Filip

I've always been fascinated by the these impressive buildings, which are a marvel in terms of engineering and architecture.

Every time I can travel abroad,I usually look for rooftops (bars or just decks) to have an unparalleled view of the city.

Has the tower been finished?

There is an expectation that it will open early next year

It would be perfect if the weather was a little better

I heard that it was going to be "really tall". And wow! The 2nd tallest building in the world, it must be impressive to see.
It has grown into an extremely impressive building architecturally and artistically speaking.
Thanks for sharing the pic.
I hope that I can go to KL again soon and see this one also in person. I always am fascinated to see the
Petronas Towers, regardless of the number of times I visit. Now I have a new place to visit.
These tall buildings are fascinating to me, Burj Khalifa included.

Really impressive !