The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is an international body in the field of tall buildings, including skyscrapers, and sustainableurban design. A non-profit organization[5] based at the Monroe Building in Chicago, Illinois, United States, the CTBUH announces the title of "The World's Tallest Building" and is widely considered to be an authority on the official height of tall buildings.[6][7][8][9][10] Its stated mission is to study and report "on all aspects of the planning, design, and construction of tall buildings."
The CTBUH ranks the height of buildings using three different methods:[12]
Height to architectural top: This is the main criterion under which the CTBUH ranks the height of buildings. Heights are measured from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance to the top of the building, inclusive of spires but excluding items such as flagpoles and antennae.
Highest occupied floor: Height to the floor level of the highest floor that is occupied by residents, workers or other building users on a consistent basis.
Height to tip: Height to the highest point of the building, including antennae, flagpoles, and technical equipment.
A category measuring to the top of the roof was removed from the ranking criteria in November 2009.[13] This is because flat-topped skyscrapers are not as common in the modern era, as skyscrapers with intricate spire designs and parapet features atop their roofs make it more difficult to define the roof of a building.
The CTBUH insist that a building should only be added to the official tallest list when it is (i) topped out structurally and architecturally, (ii) fully clad, and (iii) open for business, or at least partially open. This became the CTBUH official definition of a building's "completion".[14]
The CTBUH maintains an extensive database (named The Skyscraper Center) of the tallest buildings in the world, organized by various categories. Buildings under construction are also included, although not ranked until completion. The CTBUH also produces an annual list of the 10 tallest buildings completed in that particular year. Topping the 2008 list was the 492-metre (1,614ft)Shanghai World Financial Center in Shanghai, the then tallest building in the world according to the criteria of highest occupied floor, and home to the world's highest observation deck. Second on the 2008 list was the 363-metre (1,191ft)Almas Tower in Dubai, third was the Minsheng Bank Building in Wuhan which stands at 331 metres (1,086ft), whilst fourth was The Address Downtown Burj Dubai (306 metres (1,004ft)). All in all, six of the 10 tallest buildings completed in 2008 are located in Asia, three in the Middle East and one in North America.
Events
The CTBUH also hosts annual conferences and a World Congress every three to five years. The 2012 World Congress was held in Shanghai from September 19 to 21 .[15] The next World Congress was held in Chicago between October 28 and November 2, 2019.[16] The CTBUH also bestows Tall Building Awards each year, with four regional awards to the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and Asia and Australasia. Among these four regional awards, one is given the "Best Tall Building Award Overall." There are also two lifetime achievement awards. Starting in 2010, these awards are presented at a symposium and dinner held on the Illinois Institute of Technology's campus.[17] In 2012, the CTBUH added two new awards for Innovation and Performance.[18]
Publications
In addition to the monthly newsletter and daily updated global news archive, the CTBUH publishes a quarterly CTBUH Journal. The Journal includes peer-reviewed technical papers, in-depth project case studies,[19] book reviews,[20] interviews with prominent persons in the tall building industry,[21] and much more.
The CTBUH also publishes guidebooks, reference manuals, and monographs related to the tall building industry. In 2006 it published the book 101 of the World's Tallest Buildings in conjunction with author and CTBUH member Georges Binder, a reference to 101 of the world's tallest skyscrapers. It includes photos, plans, details on architects, engineers and stakeholders, and comprehensive technical data on each building. Since 2008 it has published a Best Tall Buildings book to accompany that year's awards.[22]
The Emirates Towers is a building complex in Dubai that contains the Emirates Office Tower and Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel, which are connected by a 9,000 m2 (96,875 sq ft) two-story retail complex known as "The Boulevard". The building is owned by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The two towers, which rise to 354.6 m (1,163 ft) tall to the tip and 241.4 m (792 ft) high of occupied space, respectively, stand as the 51st tallest buildings in the world and 11th tallest in Dubai. The Emirates Towers complex is located on the Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is a symbol of the city of Dubai. The Emirates Office Tower was constructed by the construction wing of Al Ghurair Investment group and the Emirates Hotel Tower was built by Ssangyong and BESIX subsidiary Six Construct. The hotel has 400 rooms. A curiosity of the design is that the towers have a similar number of floors; the taller office tower actually contains 56 floors above ground, while the hotel tower contains 54 floors. This is because the individual floor heights of the office tower are greater than that of the hotel. The building also contains 17 elevators inside. The grounds of these towers are so vast that one of the most popular features of the Emirates Towers are peacocks belonging to the nearby Zabeel Palace that are left to roam around.
Nakheel Tower was a planned skyscraper on hold in Dubai, United Arab Emirates by developer Nakheel. The project was previously called Al Burj. While the proposal changed over time, the tower was intended to be the tallest building in the world, surpassing the 828-metre (2,717 ft) Burj Khalifa which was completed in 2010.
Rose Rayhaan by Rotana, also known as the Rose Tower, is a 72-storey, 333 m (1,093 ft) hotel on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is no. 5 on the list of world's tallest hotels. The tower was originally designed to be 380 m (1,250 ft), but modification reduced it to 333m or 1093 ft.
Adrian Devaun Smith is an American architect. He designed the world's tallest structure, Burj Khalifa, as well as the building projected to surpass it, the Jeddah Tower. A long-time principal of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, he founded his own architectural partnership firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture in Chicago in 2006. Among his other projects, he was the senior architect for Central Park Tower in New York City, Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, and Zifeng Tower in Nanjing.
The tallest building in the world, as of 2024, is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The title of "world's tallest building" has been held by various buildings in modern times, including Lincoln Cathedral in Lincoln, England, and the Empire State Building and the original World Trade Center, both in New York City.
The Tall Building Awards or CTBUH Awards recognizes projects and individuals who have made an extraordinary contribution to the advancement of tall buildings and urban environment, as well as achieving sustainability at the highest and broadest level. The annual awards are judged by an independent panel of experts commissioned by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), a non-profit organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. As of 2019, there are two individual lifetime achievement awards, The Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award and Fazlur Khan Lifetime Achievement Medal, and several categorical awards for projects and structures.
Vanity height is defined by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) as the height difference between a skyscraper's pinnacle and the highest usable floor. Because the CTBUH ranks the world's tallest buildings by height to pinnacle, a number of buildings appear higher in the rankings than they otherwise would due to extremely long spires.
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