The following post is from Jason Kane:

Following a task through to completion is the common denominator of all successful people. The effort required to construct some of the great buildings of the world is best described as excruciating. The following is a list of the five tallest buildings completed and currently under construction:

Shanghai World Financial Center
This award winning structure has a distinctive trapezoid aperture. Designed by the American architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, it is located in the Pudong district of Shanghai, China. Construction began August of 1997 and it reached is height of 1,614 feet on September 14, 2007. The office building has 101 floors and opened to the public August 28, 2008. The cost of construction was $1.20 billion.

Taipei 101
Located in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan, this structure held the rank of world’s tallest from 2004 to 2010. It stands 1,670 feet tall and houses 101 floors. Construction began in January 1999. It reached its current height on October 17, 2003. It houses office space, restaurants, stores, a library, fitness center and meeting facilities. It opened to the public in December 2004 and cost $1.80 billion to build.

Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel
Like the name says, this combination hotel and residential building houses a four-faced clock atop the Faimont hotel. Located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, it stands 1,972 feet tall to the top of its spire. The highest of its 120 floors is 1,833 feet. Construction began in 2004 and it was completed in 2012.

Burj Khalifa
Located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, this building holds 17 records. It has remained the world’s tallest structure at 2,722 feet since its completion in 2010. It also houses the world’s fastest elevators, highest nightclub, highest restaurant and the most floors of any other building with 163. Construction started in January 2004. Floor area is estimated at 3,331,100 sq ft and it cost $1.5 billion.

Sky City
Construction is underway on a 220 floor building in the city of Changsha, China. It will be about 30 feet taller than Burj Khalifa. The plan is to complete the 2749-foot tower in 90 days. If completed as planned by the the end of March 2013, it will be an engineering accomplishment beyond all others. That is a rise rate of thirty feet per day. Broad Group Construction Company says they will finish the project at a cost of $1,500 per square meter compared to the $15,000 per square meter cost of Burj Khalifa by using prefab technology. Broad Group has quieted skeptics before by constructing a 30 story hotel in 15 days.

Jason Kane writes about construction sites and construction safety equipment like lanyards and ladder safety systems.

Thanks partly to an ambitious expansion by Amazon.com, apartment projects in Seattle are going up at a dizzying pace: According to a recent CBRE study, 18,500 apartment units will be added over the next three years.

Are developers still on board with the apartment boom, or are they suffering anxiety over the surge in new units? Tim Overland of Security Properties tackles that question in the DJC’s Real Estate Marketplace Northwest special section.

Readers can also learn from local pros about what’s next in the office, industrial and retail markets.

Check it out!

Chinese company Broad Sustainable Building Corp. erects buildings on ridiculously short time frames: It built a low-rise office in nine days earlier this year and a 30-story hotel in 15 days last year.

How do you top that? You build the world’s tallest building in 90 days — duh.

In early 2013, Broad will start building Sky City in the city of Changsha in the Hunan province. At 2,749 feet tall, it will be nearly 33 feet taller than the Burj Khalifa, the current height champion.

Sky City is a fitting name: The building will have apartments for more than 30,000 people, schools, a hospital and more than a dozen helipads.

But, what will be sacrificed by using pre-fab components to construct the world’s tallest building in record time? In a word: style.

Sky City looks like a massive block built from Legos. In contrast, the Burj Khalifa resembles a giant stalagmite reaching for the stratosphere.

More interesting architecture can be found in some of China’s other skyscrapers: the 2,073-foot-tall Shanghai Tower (under construction), the 1,667-foot-tall Taipei 101 and the 1,476-foot-tall Nanjing Greenland Financial Complex.

Sky City

Burj Khalifa

Shanghai Tower

Taipei 101

Nanjing Greenland

Did the Great Recession slow down sustainable projects? Not so, according to Jim Kleppe of Golder Associates. Kleppe was one of the authors in the DJC’s A&E Perspectives special section, which hit the newsstand today.
Read Kleppe’s article by clicking here.
But, don’t stop there. Brian Runberg wrote about how sustainable living doesn’t have to be expensive. Then there’s the TAF building, a really cool project built in Lakewood Park in White Center.
Finally, to get a good pulse on what designers are thinking, check out the DJC’s A&E Surveys. For example, Baylis talks about its stellar year here.

The health care sector was one of the stronger industries during the Great Recession, helping many contractors get through difficult times. Many of those projects are now finished.

The DJC is profiling some of those projects – along with other issues facing those who design, build and develop health care facilities – in a special section called Health Care Design & Construction.

Read how Mortenson Construction used virtual tools to fast-track Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, how Aldrich and Associates turned a former TV studio into a kidney dialysis clinic, and how lean design is different for every health care project.

Contractor Ken Coleman has learned that old dogs can be taught new tricks. The owner of Compass Construction writes about what has changed over the past 25 years in mixed-use construction in the DJC’s special section covering urban development.
While you’re reading about Ken’s adventures, make sure to check out the numerous articles on the local apartment market that has heated up in the past few years.

Enjoy!

The Chinese are at it again — this time building a pre-fabricated office in nine days.

The kicker here is that it was eight days behind schedule. That’s right, they wanted to build it in one day!

Broad Sustainable Building Corp. wanted to erect the five-story building in 24 hours to show that the system can be used for high-rises, saving money and, or course, time.

Broad Sustainable Building has built higher buildings in short time-frames, one profiled on this blog (30-story hotel in 24 days). Watch below as a swam of construction workers dressed in blue jumpsuits guide the pieces into place in quick fashion.

Who said building with bricks is boring?
Just look at the cover of the DJC’s special section on the MIW 2012 Excellence in Masonry Design Awards, where you will find the Orion Building designed by Stuart Silk Architects. Not only does that dental/office building look great, but it also uses an energy-efficient concrete form masonry unit wall system.
The MIW honored 14 other projects — all profiled in the special section.
Can’t get enough award-winning projects? You’re in luck. The DJC has put together another special section, this one covering AIA Washington’s Civic Design Awards. In it you will find 13 projects, including three in a new “unbuilt” category.
Projects in both sections were photographed by a group of talented local photographers that included Lara Swimmer, Benjamin Benschneider, Steve Keating and others.

It’s been called one of the “8 big openings of 2012,” it’s right here in Tacoma and it’s happening this weekend. I’m talking about LeMay – America’s Car Museum.
Perhaps just as fascinating as the cars inside is the museum itself. Learn more about it in the DJC’s special section.

First we got some cool award-winning concrete projects from WACA to check out, now we’ve got the region’s top wall and ceiling projects.
The DJC is publishing a special section covering the Northwest Wall & Ceiling Bureau awards. It profiles 14 projects in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, including the Swedish Issaquah campus, which was recently voted the top project of 2011 by DJC readers, and the Consolidated Rental Car Facility at Sea-Tac Airport, which also won a concrete award and was the subject of another DJC special section last month.
One of my favorites was the Rental Car Facility’s ceiling, pictured above, which curves in three directions.