Daredevil Photos ~ Skyscraper Climber Vistas...

Inhabitat spotlights daredevil Russian duo Raskalov Vitaliy and Vadim Makhorov and their photos of the under construction Shanghai Tower, the world's second tallest skyscraper...

Hi-Density & Livability ~ Lessons from Asian Cities

Lessons from Fall 2011 ULI meeting...

Shanghai Tower ~ Inhabitat Interviews Chris Chan

Diane Pham at Inhabitat interviews Gensler's Chris Chan on the Sustainable Shanghai Tower, Asia's Tallest Skyscraper...

"The Tower’s design was centered around innovative sustainable concepts and technologies. [...] The dramatic twisting form of the tower, for instance, was not just inspired but shaped through careful study of how wind forces will move around the tower. Iterative study was made possible only with advanced BIM systems to adjust and update the whole tower shape according to CFM (computational fluid modeling) and wind tunnel feedback."

Read the rest!

Urban Waterfronts ~ Krieger on Remaking Cities

Reading about the Bund in Shanghai got me to NBBJ architects where they spotlight Alex Krieger's Remaking the Urban Waterfront...

"Urban waterfronts are unrivaled in their potential for providing an exceptional or celebratory enterprise. [...] Along the waterfront, it seems possible to accommodate the changing needs of today’s urban dwellers, as modern society continues its shift from an industrial-based economy, with its attendant spatial demands, to a service- and lifestyle-based economy, with its own requirements."

Interesting reading, especially the case examples illustrating the top-ten principles. Also compare the "before" picture of the Bund above to the "after" redesign picture by Tim Griffith/NBBJ...

Megatall Skyscrapers ~ The Tallest 20 in 2020!

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat spotlights The Tallest 20 in 2020: Entering the Era of the Megatall...

"The projected world’s tallest 20 skyscrapers in the year 2020. Within this decade we will likely witness not only the world’s first kilometer-tall building, but also the completion of a significant number of buildings over 600 meters (around 2,000 feet) -- that’s twice the height of the Eiffel Tower. Two years ago, prior to the completion of the Burj Khalifa, this building type did not exist. And yet, by 2020, we can expect at least eight such buildings to exist internationally. The term supertall (which refers to a building over 300 meters) is thus no longer adequate to describe these buildings: we are entering the era of the megatall."

China's Economic Rims ~ Supercity Megaregions

China has three so-called Economic Rims or supercity megaregions -- Bohai, Yangtze, and Pearl -- each agglomerations around a central megacity -- Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou -- embracing upwards of a dozen smaller cities, all amidst geophysical supernodes -- Bohai Sea, Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta. Each megaregion has populations between 50-100M and has colossal infrastructure and planning issues. This is epic and fascinating! P.S. It strikes me that Taiwan with it's economic miracle history should really be thought of as a superisland and thus fourth Chinese megaregion too!

Supersized Shanghai ~ Ceaseless Urban Giant!

Shanghai Gets Supersized writes David Devoss in the Smithsonian together with Lauren Hilgers and with photos by Justin Guariglia!

"Shanghai has grown like no other city on the planet. Home to 13.3 million residents in 1990, the city now has some 23 million residents (to New York City’s 8.1 million), with half a million newcomers each year. To handle the influx, developers are planning to build, among other developments, seven satellite cities on the fringes of Shanghai’s 2,400 square miles. Shanghai opened its first subway line in 1995; today it has 11; by 2025, there will be 22. In 2004, the city also opened the world’s first commercial high-speed magnetic levitation train line. With more than 200 skyscrapers, Shanghai is a metroplex of terraced apartments separated by wide, tree-lined boulevards on which traffic zooms past in a cinematic blur. [...] With the Chinese well into their transition to what they call a "socialist market economy," it seems that they look upon the city not as an outlier, but as an example. "Every other city is copying Shanghai" [...] “Living in Shanghai is like being in a speeding car, unable to focus on all the images streaming past. All you can do is sit back and feel the wind in your face."

Check out this lovely Bund panorama -- plus the vista in 1920s...

Shanghai vs London ~ Battle of the Metro Tubes!

Fascinating piece at Bricoleurbanism on Shanghai’s Metro and London’s Tube Head to Head...

"Now that Shanghai’s Metro is officially the longest subway network in the world (by track length), [it's] interesting to do a comparison between it and the long-time title holder that it displaced, London’s Underground. [...] The shocking thing about the 2020 expansion plan is that it will make the [below] diagram (created by Kzaral aka FML in the style of the famous Tube map) a reality and not a fantasy. All this from a system that only opened its first subway line (appropriately called Line 1) in 1995. Yes, you read that right, 1995"

Vital Shanghai ~ Century of Developments!

Images of historic and present Shanghai! First the Bund 1930s... Mid-2000s... And now, as of March 2010, renovated and more pedestrianized! And then across the Huangpu River, the Pudong area 1930s... 1990... Today 2010...