Tong Family

!>http://www.building.com.hk/feature/05_00jinmaopic2.jpg! This is an amazing building. Incredibly beautiful with a super high atrium in the Grand Hyatt that has the highest hotel rooms in the world.
“Buildings.com.hk”:http://www.building.com.hk/feature/05_00jinmao.htm includes many interesting nerdy facts about it. Edward had told me that it had a huge ball in the center to keep it centered, but this is actually true of the Taipei 101 building (it has a 500 metric ton sphere in its center that in an earthquake has enough mass to keep the building from toppling).
In fact, this is earthquake proof to 6.0 and typhoon proof mainly because of its extensive concrete foundation.
bq. The Jin Mao Building occupies a site area of 23,000 sq m , with a foundation area of 19,600 sq m. The depth of the tower block is 19.65 m, while that of the annex block is 15.5 m. 429 steel bar piles, each 914 mm in diameter, were piled to a depth of 83 m. The total volume of soil used in the work approached 320,000 cu m.
Wow!