Image © SOM | ATCHAIN
The centerpiece of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Guizhou Culture Plaza Riverfront plan—a mixed-use development with a performing arts center, a shopping mall, and numerous residential buildings—this 1,709-foot skyscraper will soon be the highest in the Chinese city of Guiyang.
Opening in 2020, the 109-story shard’s ergonomic form takes cues from the John Hancock Center’s tapered diagonal braced tube and features the stepped superframe system developed by one of SOM’s most celebrated architects, the late Fazlur Khan.