On Nov. 4, during the 15th iteration of its Annual Awards Ceremony, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) announced the Shanghai Tower in China as the “Best Tall Building Worldwide.” Designed by global firm Gensler, this ambitious project was selected out of 132 entries from around the world. Completed in 2015, the 2,073-foot-tall, 133-floor mixed-use building contains commercial, office, retail, and hospitality spaces and features multi-story atriums between the tower’s double-skin façade to help with the overall ventilation of the structure. Additionally, the tower’s twisting form serves not only an aesthetic purpose, but also reduces the structure’s needed to resist wind loads by 24 percent. “Shanghai Tower shows the greatest commitment to communal space in a tall building since Commerzbank Tower completed in 1997 … The sacrifice of valuable floor area to realize this social amenity proves that the aspirations for Shanghai Tower went far beyond mere commercial gain.” said Antony Wood, a jury member and executive director at CTBUH. Previous winners of CTBUH’s honor include Bosco Verticale in Milan (2015), One Central Park in Sydney (2014), and CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2013). [CTBUH]
ICYMI: T3, a seven-story high-rise in Minneapolis, designed by Michael Green Architecture and DLR Group, will be the largest mass timber building in the U.S. when it opens later this month. [ARCHITECT]
Exton, Pa.–based software company Bentley Systems announced its 2016 Be Inspired Awards winners at their Year in Infrastructure Conference in London, honoring projects from 22 countries, across 18 categories. [ARCHITECT]
Virtual reality is taking over the architecture, engineering, and construction industries, helping professionals save time and money, as well as keeping them safe. [Wired]
This article explores ways in which President-elect Donald Trump has harmed both the architecture industry and urban landscape of today’s cities. [Fast Co. Design]
Occipital, an augmented reality startup based in San Francisco and Boulder, Colo., has released Canvas, a smartphone app that allows users to measure and virtually recreate the spaces they are in through 3D scanning. [The Verge]
Elon Musk announces that Tesla plans to open its next Gigafactory in Europe after the company’s acquisition of German engineering company Grohmann Engineering. [Electrek]