Dive Brief:
- Elevator company Otis has announced its plan to build the world's tallest elevator-testing tower in Shanghai, China, at 886 feet tall, according to Dezeen.
- Typical elevator test towers are approximately 328 feet tall, but as developers continue to build taller skyscrapers, there is a growing need for testing at greater heights.
- Otis provides elevators for some of the tallest buildings in the world, including the record holder, the 2,717-foot-tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
Dive Insight:
The creator of the first safety elevator, Elisha Otis, founded Otis in 1853, and the company services two million elevators and escalators all over the world. The company also furnished elevators for the 1,965-foot Ping An Finance Center in Shenzhen, China, which will be the world's tallest office building and the fourth tallest building in the world when it is complete.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has declared 2016 the year of the "megatall" building — 1,968 feet or higher — and forecast a doubling of their numbers from three to seven in the next five years. According to the CTBUH, developers built more skyscrapers in 2015 than in any other year on record.
There is also a new record-breaking crop of skyscrapers set for completion this year, aside from the Ping An. The Goldfin Finance 117 (1,959 feet) in Tianjn, China, and the Lotte World Tower (1,820 feet) in Seoul, South Korea are also scheduled to make their debuts.
The world’s second tallest building is the Shanghai Tower (2,073 feet) in Shanghai, China, and number three is the Makkah Royal Clock Tower (1,972 feet) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. However, there are plans to overtake all of these record holders with new towers in the planning stages, such as the 3,780-foot Bride of the Gulf in Basra, Iraq, and The Tower, with an as-of-yet undisclosed height, but "a notch taller" than the Burj Khalifa, according to developers.
