A diagram showing how the floors are divided -


http://i44.tinypic.com/ilatf7.gif

I am pleasantly surprised to see that this tower is under construction. This building has been on the drawing board a really long time. I first saw the design for this tower in an architecture book I forget the name of it but this book predates the NY Times and the Bank of America buildings.

Finally in construction mode, the hard part is over.

Shard'ed in my pants.

Is this building still supposed to be 87 floors? That seems like a lot for a tower of only slightly over 1,000 feet (office included). I think I could only count 75 floors or so on the diagram. :shrug:

72 occupiable floors. 87 floors including the radiator/plant on top.

This article clip looks really futuristic. With the Foster building and the pink haired lady it looks like it could be from some London sci-fi movie. I guess the future is now.

A panorama I took this afternoon:



http://www.willfox.com/images/skyscr...pano040309.jpg

And a video...

http://www.willfox.com/videos/skyscrapers/shard/1.wmv

It's about 16mb. Make sure you watch this in "full screen" mode. :)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cbf878e4-1...0779fd2ac.html

Shard reaches for the sky amid office sector gloom

By David Fickling

Published: March 16 2009 02:00

Construction of western Europe's tallest building will begin in London today amid the gloomiest market for commercial building in decades, thanks to backing from a group of Qatari banks.

Designed by Renzo Piano, the Shard of Glass will tower 1,016ft above London Bridge station and stand nearly three times as high as St Paul's Cathedral.

The developers hope to avoid comparisons with One Canada Square, which it will overtake as the UK's tallest building when it is completed in 2012. The 800ft centrepiece of Canary Wharf was finished in the depths of the last recession in 1991 but remained part-occupied for most of the 1990s, leading to the collapse of its Canadian developer Olympia & York.

"This will be a landmark building and we've already let out 40 per cent of it," said Bernard Ainsworth, project managing director.

New orders in the non-residential building sector in the three months to the end of January came to just £2bn, compared with £4.1bn in the same period last year, according to recent data from the Office of National Statistics.

By comparison, the development cost of London Bridge Quarter alone is priced at £2bn, with £650m in contracts put out to tender so far.

"This is one of the few shows left in town now," said Chris Cole, chief executive of WSP, the structural engineer on the project.

Financial backing will be provided by a consortium of four Qatari banks - QInvest, Qatar National Bank, Qatari Islamic Bank and Barwa - as well as UK-based property developers Sellar. They came in after European lenders, including Credit Suisse and Hypo Real Estate, withdrew following the onset of the credit crunch in 2007. Hypo was bailed out by Germany's central bank last October.

Construction companies have been focusing on work for the public sector and regulated utilities, with hopes attached to projects such as the Olympics site, Crossrail and the widening of the M25.

But Derek Tordoff, director-general of the British Constructional Steelwork Association, said any stimulus from public projects would be blunted by their comparatively small scale next to the massive but ailing commercial sector.

"Everyone thinks the Olympics is the saviour of the construction industry but there will be more steel going into [the Shard] this year than into the entire Olympics site," he said.

One major public sector client has already bought into the Shard project: Transport for London will lease about 20 per cent of the total floor space, while a Shangri-La hotel will take up another 20 per cent. But the remaining 60 per cent is unlet.

Fears about the outlook for the office rental market meant that most new office projects were being called off, said Bill Page of Jones Lang Lasalle. That gave some hope of a supply-led recovery, although rents fell at double-digit rates last year and, he added, would continue to do so this year and next, before levelling off in 2011 and only starting to rise again in 2012.

"Most people just don't want to develop into this market," he said.

http://raisingtheroof.blogs.nytimes....ruction&st=cse

Race is on to Build Tallest Tower in Europe

By Kevin Brass
March 24, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/...Shardnight.jpg


http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/...hardaerial.jpg


Last week construction started on the Shard of Glass, a Renzo Piano-designed tower destined to remap the London skyline. When completed the tower will be 310 meters tall (about 1,016 feet)—three times as high as St. Paul’s Cathedral, it is often noted–which will give it bragging rights as the tallest building in western Europe.

The Shard will beat out the 259-meter (about 850-foot) Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt, the current tallest building in western Europe. But it will be about 50 meters shorter than Moscow’s Federation Tower, which is currently under construction.

However, the Shard may not hold even the western Europe record for long. In Paris, developers have already announced plans for the Hermitage Plaza, twin towers designed by Foster + Partners, which are planned to hit 323 meters (about 1,060 feet), a full 13 meters taller than the Shard.

Of course, there are a variety of mega-towers on the drawing board that would dwarf both the Shard and Hermitage.

The competition for the world’s tallest tower starts these days with the Burj Dubai, currently under construction, which is at 688 meters (2,300 feet) and growing (and the developers are vague about the ultimate height). Last year details were unveiled for the Nakheel Tower, which is designed to be one-kilometer tall (1,000 meters), but that project is stalled for at least a year.

Meanwhile, plans have already been announced for the Shanghai Tower, which will be China’s tallest at 632 meters (2,072 feet). The Russia Tower in Moscow, another Foster + Partners project, is slotted for 600 meters (about 1,969 feet). And the Santiago Calatrava-designed Chicago Spire is slotted to be 609 meters (2,000-feet)—but right now it’s nothing more than a hole in the ground.

Beyond the can-you-top-this contest, the Shard’s ability to move forward while so many other projects have stalled is a victory for the developer, the Sellar Property Group. (A London Times profile of chairman Irvine Sellar can be found here.). The project was floundering last year, until a group of Qatar-based investors jump-started the project.

Scheduled for completion in 2012, the Shard is the centerpiece of a £2 billion regeneration of the London Bridge Quarter, which includes a variety of residential commercial and office space.

I can't wait to see the future construction updates!

does anyone know if they are re cladding the guys hospital tower?
i passed it yesterday and there were men fixing some sort of metal sheeting over the concrete...it was only a small part that was having this done at the time

The future scares me. :)

I also have to say that using 'faulty towers' as a comment on these proposals irks me. Fawlty Towers might be my favourite show of all time.

I personally love the look of "The Shard" and think it will mesh nicely with London's urban fabric. Not so sure how I think about the tree amigos yet, they seem a bit awkward.

This rendering shows plans for a possible recladding. We'll hear more news later this year -


http://www.willfox.com/images/skyscr...tal/reclad.jpg

I hope that's not the final reclad. It looks worse than before! Reminds me of a square lizard.

These updates were never posted here. Sorry, they're old.


25th March 2009



29th March 2009

Nice, this one will be great for London. Very Kewl. Going to be kewl to watch it rise...

:cool:

any new pictures of the site?

These were posted by Nihil Dicit: