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Description
This is my version of the Shanghai World Financial Center in Minecraft, 100% designed & built by me. No mods used.
Scale is 1:3 to the real building, due to the height limit of 256 blocks.
Built entirely of glass & ice blocks to replicate the look of the real skyscraper.
Took about 5 days to build from scratch, to perfecting the proportions of the base & degree of slope to the aperture.

Info:

The Shanghai World Financial Center, (abbr. SWFC), is located in the city of Shanghai, China. Construction on the mighty skyscraper began in 1997, having been developed by a Japanese development company. Completed in 2008, it has been declared as the best finished skyscraper that year by a consortium of architects.

It has been designed to be used as a mixed-use building, consisting of hotels, apartments, shopping outlets, restaurants, observation, & even a museum. It stands at a height of 492 meters (1,614 ft) has a floor count of 101, & also has 91 elevators.

The skyscraper had to be designed to cope with the worst of what the weather can throw at it, as Shanghai is often hit by vicious thunderstorms & typhoons in the Summer & early Autumn months.
To reduce wind pressure on the building, an aperture was fitted on the peak of the building, allowing wind to pass through, thus minimising swaying in high winds.

The aperture is by far the SWFC's most distinctive feature, although construction halted for a short time over a political backlash over it's intended shape. Originally, it was meant to be circular, having associations with Chinese mythology & architecture. But it also represented the Rising Sun on the Japanese flag, & relations between the two countries has been very poor ever since the end of World War 2.

A quick redesign of the aperture settled on a trapezoid shape, & construction resumed thereafter.
In addition to it's already impressive list of innovative features, there are purpose-built, air-tight rooms for evacuation in the event of a fire every twelfth floor.

Even though it has been surpassed in height by the Shanghai Tower, which has been topped out & will undergo fitting & finishing, that tower will not be completed until 2014. Still, it is in magnificent skyscrapers like the SWFC that will advertise China as a growing economic powerhouse.

Description
This is my version of the Shanghai World Financial Center in Minecraft, 100% designed & built by me. No mods used.
Scale is 1:3 to the real building, due to the height limit of 256 blocks.
Built entirely of glass & ice blocks to replicate the look of the real skyscraper.
Took about 5 days to build from scratch, to perfecting the proportions of the base & degree of slope to the aperture.

Info:

The Shanghai World Financial Center, (abbr. SWFC), is located in the city of Shanghai, China. Construction on the mighty skyscraper began in 1997, having been developed by a Japanese development company. Completed in 2008, it has been declared as the best finished skyscraper that year by a consortium of architects.

It has been designed to be used as a mixed-use building, consisting of hotels, apartments, shopping outlets, restaurants, observation, & even a museum. It stands at a height of 492 meters (1,614 ft) has a floor count of 101, & also has 91 elevators.

The skyscraper had to be designed to cope with the worst of what the weather can throw at it, as Shanghai is often hit by vicious thunderstorms & typhoons in the Summer & early Autumn months.
To reduce wind pressure on the building, an aperture was fitted on the peak of the building, allowing wind to pass through, thus minimising swaying in high winds.

The aperture is by far the SWFC's most distinctive feature, although construction halted for a short time over a political backlash over it's intended shape. Originally, it was meant to be circular, having associations with Chinese mythology & architecture. But it also represented the Rising Sun on the Japanese flag, & relations between the two countries has been very poor ever since the end of World War 2.

A quick redesign of the aperture settled on a trapezoid shape, & construction resumed thereafter.
In addition to it's already impressive list of innovative features, there are purpose-built, air-tight rooms for evacuation in the event of a fire every twelfth floor.

Even though it has been surpassed in height by the Shanghai Tower, which has been topped out & will undergo fitting & finishing, that tower will not be completed until 2014. Still, it is in magnificent skyscrapers like the SWFC that will advertise China as a growing economic powerhouse.