Friday, June 18, 2010

Pinnacle@Duxton wins Chicago award

Judging panel names it the best tall building in Asia and Australasia

THE Pinnacle@Duxton has been named Asia and Australasia's 'Best Tall Building' by the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings & Urban Habitat.

HDB's 50-storey residential project in Tanjong Pagar was named alongside Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building and winner for Middle East and Africa at the annual 'Best Tall Building' awards.

Europe's winner was the steel-clad Broadcasting Place in Leeds, United Kingdom, while New York's 55-storey Bank of America Tower took the Americas award this year.

The buildings were chosen less for their height - the Broadcasting Place in Leeds is just 70m, less than a tenth of the Burj Khalifa - and more for their 'design and technical innovations, sustainable attributes, and the enhancement they provide to both the cities and the lives of their inhabitants,' the council said.

It noted that The Pinnacle@Duxton 're-defines urban high density living by weaving continuous Sky Gardens on the 26th and 50th stories through all seven of the tower blocks'.

The overall winner of these four regional best tall buildings will be unveiled this October, at an awards ceremony in Chicago. The ceremony will also honour two individuals - William Pederson of Kohn Pederson Fox Associates and Ysrael A Seinuk of Ysrael A Seinuk PC - with lifetime achievement awards. Both were chosen for their contributions to tall buildings; their portfolios include many iconic skyscrapers.

This year's awards drew an unprecedented number of entries, said the awards committee, headed by Gordon Gill of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. Also on the jury were Ahmad Abdelrazaq of Korea's Samsung, Bruce Kuwabara of Canada's KPMB Architects, Peter Murray of UK's Wordsearch, Matthias Schuler of Germany's Transolar, Mun Summ Wong of Singapore's WOHA, and Antony Wood from CTBUH.

Source: Business Times, 18 Jun 2010