Tomorrow Square

Tomorrow Square is a skyscraper beside People's Square in Shanghai, China. It is about 285 metres tall with 55 floors and was completed on 1 October 2003. When Wikipedia was written, it ranked as the twelfth tallest building in the city.

It is a mixed-use tower. The lower part holds executive apartments, and the upper part is a JW Marriott hotel with 342 rooms. At the base are a conference centre, shops and an entrance to the subway. The tower is made of two square prisms, with the upper one turned diagonally from the lower one to mark the change between apartments and hotel. The top ends in a peak made of four triangles.

A twist in the middle

The shape is the tower's best-known feature. The apartment part is one square prism, and the hotel part is a second prism rotated by 45 degrees. The point where they meet shows from far away as a visible turn in the outline. At the very top, four sloping triangles meet in a peak. Together these shapes make Tomorrow Square easy to spot on Shanghai's crowded skyline.

Standing up to wind and quakes

A tall, slim tower has to resist strong wind and earthquakes. Engineers used flat slabs for the hotel floors and beam-and-slab construction for the office floors. Strong walls combined with a stiff frame keep the tower steady sideways. The foundations are bored piles about 80 metres long, supporting a thick base mat. The tower sits close to People's Square and has direct subway access underneath.

On the globe

The model shows the twisting square shaft and the peaked top with four leaning planes, as in the card.