China World Trade Center Tower III

A slim, tapering 330 m glass tower in Beijing's CBD, the city's tallest building until China Zun was completed.

It is the second-tallest building in Beijing, after China Zun. It holds offices, a five-star hotel, shops and a ballroom, and it was designed by the same firm that did One World Trade Center in New York. It stands at the junction of the East Third Ring Road and Jianguomen Outer Street.

What is inside

Offices fill floors 1 to 55, and the China World Summit Wing hotel takes floors 64 to 77. A restaurant and an observation deck use floors 79 to 81.

Four elevators run straight from the lobby to the hotel lobby on the 64th floor at up to 10 metres per second.

A record helipad

In 2010 the tower had the highest rooftop helipad in the world, at 330 metres, beating the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles at 310 metres.

Since then the Guangzhou International Finance Center has overtaken it, so the helipad is now the second-highest.

How it stands up

Beijing has strong earthquakes, so a tower this tall needs a strong skeleton. The engineers combined a braced frame core of steel and concrete with a frame around the outside, joined by two outrigger systems that act like arms bracing the core. Because the tower tapers, three belts of steel trusses let the number of outside columns shrink toward the top. The glass skin is layered with fritted glass and metal fins that work as vertical sunshades, which cut heat from the sun and let in daylight, and the building earned LEED Gold certification. Some sources count 81 storeys rather than 74 because they count the top levels differently.

On the globe

The model shows the slim, tapering glass tower. Look at how it narrows toward the top.