WORLD'S TALLEST STRUCTURES

World's Tallest Structures

World's Tallest Structures

Petronas Twin Towers (Malaysia)

Introduction

The pride and joy of Malaysia, the Petronas Twin Towers, are two majestic sky scrapers that rise to an amazing height of 451.9 metres. It is an 88-storey structure which is the apple of Kuala Lumpur and indeed Malaysia's eye. The beauty and the grandeur which is visible during the day is only enhanced by the advent of nightfall as the numerous lights which turn up in the structures turn it into a beacon of brilliance visible from many miles. The twin towers were the fruits of two people Tun Mahathir Mohamad's and master architect Cesar Pelli who wished to enshrine the aspirations and ambitions in a suitable icon.

The Twin Towers consist of two structures which are adorned with the local Malaysian weaving and handicrafts. There exists the highest Skybridge in the world which connects both the towers with each other.

The pinnacles of both tower house airplane warning lights and are created using a 23 segmented mast and with a ring ball on top. (There are 14 rings in total and all of them are of varying diameters) (Galindo, 2010, Pp. 45-96)

Inside the building the screens and the wall panels are adorned by the cultural 'songket' and hardwood carvings which are native to the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The floors are designed by pandan patterns weavings and a special palm wall matting 'betram'.

It house two spacious and double decker lifts which have the capacity to carry 26 people per deck, or 52 people on both the decks altogether. Aside from this there is also a presence of executive lifts, these are for the VIP use only, and they have the ability to carry 10 people per round.

Engineering issues

Originally the towers were supposed to have simple star shaped floor plan but were later, modified to form 8 point stars. They were due to be constructed on a site which used to be a race track in KL. Oddly enough the site was never rece-ed beforehand, just selected for the building and the work started. The dedicated companies started drilling the holes for bedrock in order to support the towers.

“What we found was we were sitting not only on some decayed limestone, but we were sitting on the edge of a cliff,”

It was found that the whole of the work site was composed of limestone and brittle rock, which was too soft and unable to support the massive weight the towers, so the towers were moved from the site roughly 200 feet, on completely even and soft ground. From there they would have to drive piles deep into the earth to stabilize a concrete raft to be situated underneath the giant towers. They created 'artificial forests' created out of steel and concrete columns. The forest was created pouring concrete for 54 hours straight continuing during a thunderstorm. This fact even held the world record for most concrete poured at one time (Thomas, 2002, ...