News
NI HAO FROM TAIPEI
February 12, 2010
| You may have noticed that New York editor Amanda Marsh (and her camera) were considerably absent from the Manhattan scene these past two weeks. She just returned from vacation in Taiwan (“ni hao” means “hello”) and not one to leave work behind, snapped some photos of Taipei’s real estate for you. |
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| Here’s the city’s crown jewel, TAIPEI 101, which until the January opening of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa was the tallest building in the world. Standing 1,667 feet from ground to structural top, the 4.4M-SF building rises in eight canted sections, based on the Chinese lucky number 8, a symbol of prosperity. Its two aerodynamic elevators, which travel at 1,010 meters per minute (or 0.6 miles per minute, to us Westerners) are the fastest in the world, taking you from the 5th to 89th floor in a mere 37 seconds. Taiwan-based C.Y. Lee & Partners was the architect, but it does have a New York touch—Thornton Tomasetti was the structural engineer. |
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| How does a building this tall withstand the gusts of Taiwan’s typhoons and the rattling of earthquakes? With this giant structure, the world’s largest passive tuned mass wind damper. The 660 metric-ton damper, with a diameter of 18 feet, is suspended from the 92nd to 87th floor. Its shift produces a counterforce that reduces the energy of earthquakes and wind, assuring the stability of the building and comfort for those inside. Although this is the first damper that is viewable to the public, NYC’s 601 Lexington (formerly known as the Citigroup Center) was one of the first tall buildings to use a tuned mass damper to counter vibrations. |
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| A view of the city from the 89th floor observatory. Taipei has had the most rapid economic development in the country and has become a global hub for the technology industry (providing 72% of the market share for laptop computers), according to NAI Global’s 2010 Global Market Report. The office market commands $599 per square meter per month ($709 in Class A), while vacancy hovers around 13.8%, the report says. TAIPEI 101’s tenants include Bank of America, KPMG, RBS, and Bayer. Talks between Taiwan and China have also revitalized the market, NAI Global says; Taiwanese corporations in China are reinvesting in their home country, while certain forms of Chinese investment into Taiwanese companies have been allowed. |
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| Wait a second, are we on Sixth Avenue? Robert Indiana’s famous LOVE sculpture also has a place in front of TAIPEI 101. We had no idea that so many versions of his sculpture existed worldwide! Other New York touches included a nearby mini Statue of Liberty and the New York, New York department store, which appropriately blasted Ol’ Blue Eyes from its speakers. |
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| TAIPEI 101’s neighbors, the Taipei International Convention Center, and one building of Taipei’s World Trade Center. |
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| We were surprised to see so many luxury stores in Taipei—crème de la crème names like Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry, and Tiffany & Co. popped up in more than one location around the city. Here is the interior of Breeze Center, a gigantic mall with six floors of shopping, dining, and a six-theater cinema. At 23k pings—or 818k SF to us—it is one of Taipei’s first Western-style shopping malls. (All it lacks is the ubiquitous Segway-traveling mall cop.) |
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| What’s this strange, golf ball-like structure? Not another tuned mass damper. It’s the exterior of Core Pacific City (also known as Living Mall), a 2.2M-SF, 12-story shopping center and event space. It was designed by Jon Jerde, the architect behind well-known projects like Mall of America, Las Vegas’ Bellagio Hotel, and Los Angeles’Universal CityWalk. |
