Dubai, William Pedersen SWFC and Bill Baker Burj Khalifa

Excerpts from a lecture by KPF founding partner, William Pedersen, October 27, 2009, "KPF in Shanghai: Skyline and Streetscape." KPF founding partner, Bill Pedersen began the October 27th' program, "KPF in Shanghai: Skyline and Streetscape," with praise for the firm's enlightened client Minoru Mori, the Japanese developer whose Rappongi Hills KPF complex designed in Tokyo in 2003. Mori developed the Shanghai World Financial Center for Lujiazui in Pudong. Pedersen illustrated the conceptual backing to the SWFC's form and development. The inventive structural system developed by Leslie E. Robertson, the "dean of structural engineers," brings the form from the heaviness of the ground to the lightness of the sky. Pedersen traced the design development from the critique of the circular void at the top to its final translation as a rectangular cut. Excerpts from a video of William F. Baker, Partner in Charge of Structural and Civil Engineering at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, discussing the Burj Khalifa in 2007. Structural engineer William F. Baker, a partner in the Chicago office of SOM, and a specialist in supertalls, has designed several exceptionally slender skyscrapers of nearly 2000 feet or higher. Only Burj Dubai, though, has found financing and moved forward... or upward! In this lecture Bill Baker made clear the innovative form and structural system of Burj Dubai and explained how the tower was "virtually designed in the wind tunnel." To learn more about the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Burj Khalifa, visit The Skyscraper Museum website: http://skyscraper.org/EXHIBITIONS/TEN_TOPS/index.php