"Best Tall Building" Awards 2008

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) in Chicago has announced the winners of its annual “Best Tall Building” Awards for 2008. The Award recognizes one tall building from each of four geographical regions worldwide for the integration of sustainable design strategies, architectural form, structure, building systems and life safety for the building’s occupants.

The “Best Tall Building” winners are:
- Europe: 51 Lime Street, London
- Americas: The New York Times Building, New York
- Asia/Australasia: Shanghai World Financial Centre, Shanghai
- Middle East/Africa: Bahrain World Trade Center, Manama

“Beyond their functional purposes, the ‘green’ aspects of these tall buildings indicate a new emerging aesthetic for the skyscraper, an aesthetic based on sustainability”, praised Antony Wood, CTBUH Executive Director.

The Shanghai World Financial Centre was chosen as the overall winner – the “Best Tall Building Overall” - for its revolutionary structural design. At 101 stories, the centre is the world’s tallest building in “height to top of roof” and “highest occupied floor”; its visitors’ square and observation deck is the highest publicly accessible built space in the world.