Autodesk Gallery Powers of Design Exhibit: 10**2 Shanghai Tower

I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next few months. I started small and am working my way up.

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Visualization of the Shanghai Tower, which will be China’s tallest building when completed. Image courtesy of Gensler.

10² MAGNITUDE
100 m
100 meters

Shanghai Tower

632 meters

With China’s Shanghai Tower we’re not just getting bigger now, but taller. At 632 meters and 128 stories, it does more than simply reach the sky — it commands its resources. Optimized for high performance and sustainability, the tower, through its uniquely twisting shape, is designed to collect rainwater for use in air conditioning and heating systems.

Extensive use of wind tunnel and 3D simulation tests resulted in a highly efficient stack of nine cylindrical buildings sheathed in an insulated, energy-saving double-skin glass facade that reduces wind loads by as much as 24% (resulting in construction cost savings of $57 million), and uses wind turbines to generate power.

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The Shanghai Tower represents a city in a stack. There are 12 floors of living space, a public park, 12 more floors of living space, another public park, etc. So there will be people milling about trees and shrubbery, walking their dogs, playing frisbee, etc. even though they are hundreds of stories in the air. The twisting/tapering shape of the exterior envelope was inspired by the foil of a race car — it even has a notch. The tower is truly an example of performance engineering. See my previous blog article for additional information.

Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.

Previous posts on this topic include:

• 10^-15 Protons and Neutrons
• 10^-14 Atomic Nucleus of a Uranium Atom
• 10^-13 Nada, Zilch, Zero, Zip
• 10^-12 Gamma Rays
• 10^-11 Fluorine Ion
• 10^-10 Wavelength of Hard X-Rays
• 10^-9 Carbon Nanotubes
• 10^-8 Molecular Transport Nano Robot
• 10^-7 HIV Virus
• 10^-6 Red Blood Cells
• 10^-5 Sand
• 10^-4 Microelectromechanical Systems
• 10^-3 Sonata Silicium Watch Components
• 10^-2 Lego
• 10^-1 Prosthetic Fairing
• 10⁰ Biome Concept Car
• 10¹ Ma'erkang Housing Reconstruction

Future blog posts will cover:

• 10³ Bay Bridge
• 10⁴ Masdar City
• 10⁵ Palm Islands
• 10⁶ The Moon
• 10⁷ Earth
• 10⁸ Jupiter
• 10⁹ The Sun
• 10¹⁰ Distance Light Travels in 34 Seconds
• 10¹¹ Distance from Jupiter to the Sun
• 10¹² Distance from Pluto to the Sun
• 10¹³ Voyager 2
• 10¹⁴ The Solar System
• 10¹⁵ Cat's Eye Nebula
• 10¹⁶ Pillars of Creation
• 10¹⁷ Great Orion Nebula
• 10¹⁸ M15 Globular Cluster
• 10¹⁹ Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy
• 10²⁰ Triangulum Galaxy
• 10²¹ The Milky Way
• 10²² IC 1101
• 10²³ Local Group of Galaxies
• 10²⁴ The Local Supercluster
• 10²⁵ 3C 273
• 10²⁶ Outer Limit of the Universe

Measurement is alive in the lab.