A groundscraper is a large building that has relatively few stories but which greatly extends horizontally.
A groundscraper is a large building that has relatively few stories but which greatly extends horizontally.
Encarta defines groundscraper as "a large low or medium-rise building, typically containing offices, that spreads horizontally and occupies a large amount of land". [1]
A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least 100 meters (330 ft) or 150 meters (490 ft) in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise buildings. Historically, the term first referred to buildings with between 10 and 20 stories when these types of buildings began to be constructed in the 1880s. Skyscrapers may host offices, hotels, residential spaces, and retail spaces.
Tower 42, commonly known as the NatWest Tower, is a 183-metre-tall (600 ft) skyscraper in the City of London. It is the sixth-tallest tower in the City of London and the 19th-tallest in London overall. Its original name was the National Westminster Tower, having been built to house NatWest's international headquarters. Seen from above, the shape of the tower resembles that of the NatWest logo.
The Woolworth Building is a 792-foot-tall (241 m) residential building and early skyscraper at 233 Broadway in the Tribeca neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Cass Gilbert, it was the tallest building in the world from 1913 to 1930, and remains one of the 100 tallest buildings in the United States as of 2024.
The Shanghai World Financial Center is a supertall skyscraper located in the Pudong district of Shanghai. It was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and developed by the Mori Building Company, with Leslie E. Robertson Associates as its structural engineer and China State Construction Engineering Corp and Shanghai Construction (Group) General Co. as its main contractor. It is a mixed-use skyscraper, consisting of offices, hotels, conference rooms, observation decks, and ground-floor shopping malls. Park Hyatt Shanghai is the tower's hotel component, comprising 174 rooms and suites occupying the 79th to the 93rd floors, which at the time of completion was the highest hotel in the world. It is now the third-highest hotel in the world after the Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong, which occupies floors 102 to 118 of the International Commerce Centre.
90 West Street is a 23-story residential building in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Located on West Street just south of the World Trade Center, the building was designed by Cass Gilbert, with Gunvald Aus and Burt Harrison as structural engineers, and John Peirce as general contractor. It was erected for the West Street Improvement Corporation, led by transportation magnate Howard Carroll.
In architecture, an atrium is a large open-air or skylight-covered space surrounded by a building. Atria were a common feature in Ancient Roman dwellings, providing light and ventilation to the interior. Modern atria, as developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries, are often several stories high, with a glazed roof or large windows, and often located immediately beyond a building's main entrance doors.
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower is a skyscraper occupying a full block in the Flatiron District of Manhattan in New York City. The building is composed of two sections: a 700-foot-tall (210 m) tower at the northwest corner of the block, at Madison Avenue and 24th Street, and a shorter east wing occupying the remainder of the block bounded by Madison Avenue, Park Avenue South, 23rd Street, and 24th Street. The South Building, along with the North Building directly across 24th Street, comprises the Metropolitan Home Office Complex, which originally served as the headquarters of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
The Bayard–Condict Building is a 12-story commercial structure at 65 Bleecker Street in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Built between 1897 and 1899 in the Chicago School style, it was the only building in New York City designed by architect Louis Sullivan, who worked on the project alongside Lyndon P. Smith. Located in the NoHo Historic District, the building was designated a New York City landmark in 1975 and has been a National Historic Landmark since 1976.
The Bush Tower is a skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, just east of Times Square. Designed by Frank J. Helmle and Harvey Wiley Corbett of the firm Helmle & Corbett, the building occupies a plot at 130–132 West 42nd Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue.
The Wells Fargo Building, originally the Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Company Building, is a skyscraper in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Designed in the Beaux-Arts style by the architectural firm Simon & Simon, the building was erected for the Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co. in 1928. The 30-story high-rise is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
20 Fenchurch Street is a commercial skyscraper in London that takes its name from its address on Fenchurch Street, in the historic City of London financial district. It has been nicknamed "The Walkie-Talkie" because of its distinctive shape, said to resemble a walkie-talkie handset. Construction was completed in spring 2014, and the three-floor "sky garden" was opened in January 2015. The 38-storey building is 160 m (525 ft) tall. Since July 2017, the building has been owned by Lee Kum Kee Groups.
330 West 42nd Street, also known as the McGraw-Hill Building and formerly the GHI Building, is a skyscraper in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Raymond Hood and J. André Fouilhoux in a mixture of the International Style, Art Deco, and Art Moderne styles, the building was constructed from 1930 to 1931 and originally served as the headquarters of The McGraw-Hill Companies. The 485-foot-tall (148 m) building contains 33 stories.
The Equitable Life Assurance Building, also known as the Equitable Life Building, was the headquarters of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, at 120 Broadway in Manhattan, New York. Arthur Gilman and Edward H. Kendall designed the building, with George B. Post as a consulting engineer. The Equitable Life Building was made of brick, granite, and iron, and was originally built with seven above-ground stories and two basement levels, with a height of at least 130 feet (40 m). An expansion in 1885 brought the total height to 155 feet (47 m) and nine stories.
One South Broad, also known as the Lincoln-Liberty Building or PNB Building, is a 28-story 472-foot (144 m) office tower in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The art deco tower, designed by architect John Torrey Windrim as an annex for Wanamaker's department store, was completed in 1932. Wanamaker's Men's Store opened in the first seven floors of the building, which is located a block from Wanamaker's main store, and was intended to rival European department stores with its size and selection. In 1952, the Philadelphia National Bank (PNB) bought the building and converted it into offices and banking space. Until 2014, the building's bell tower was decorated on all four sides with PNB's initials in stainless steel 16 feet (4.9 m) tall. Wells Fargo is the main tenant, occupying almost half the building. The former banking space at street level was converted to retail and restaurant space in 2000.
The Hurt Building is an 18-story building located at 50 Hurt Plaza in Atlanta, Georgia with a unique triangular shape. One of the nation's earliest skyscrapers, the Hurt Building was built between 1913 and 1926, and was the initial home for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. It was renovated in 1985. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
The SAS Frösundavik Office Building is an office building in Frösundavik, Solna Municipality, Sweden, north of Stockholm. It serves as the head office of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and the SAS Group. The SAS head office was for a brief period located in a different building on the property of Stockholm Arlanda Airport in Sigtuna Municipality.
The Horizontal Skyscraper, designed by Steven Holl Architects and completed in 2009, is a mixed-use building located on the outskirts of Shenzhen, China. Situated in Dameisha, Yantian District, the complex includes offices for Vanke Co., a conference center, restaurant, an auditorium, a hotel, apartments and a large public park.
The Socony–Mobil Building, also known as 150 East 42nd Street, is a 45-story, 572-foot-tall (174 m) skyscraper in the Murray Hill and East Midtown neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It occupies the block bounded by 41st Street, 42nd Street, Lexington Avenue, and Third Avenue.
Spire is a 41-story residential skyscraper in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. The 440-foot (130 m) building sits in a triangular block adjacent to the intersection of Denny Way and Wall Street, roughly between the Belltown and Denny Triangle neighborhoods. It has 343 condominiums, retail space, and a rooftop terrace. The building has an automated parking system in its underground garage with capacity for 266 vehicles.
5 Broadgate is a groundscraper in the City of London. It serves as the British headquarters of Swiss bank UBS, the world's largest private bank, and was designed by Ken Shuttleworth of Make Architects. It is notable for its unique smooth steel façade with horizontal, diagonal, and vertical strips of windows, designed to look like an engine block. The building is currently owned by the National Pension Service of Korea, which purchased the building in March 2022 together with LaSalle Investment Management.
