The Burj Khalifa with the height of 830 meters, since its inauguration in January 2010, has been regarded as the tallest tower in the world. A glorious title except that an NGO CTBUH (Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat), has just awarded it a much less glorious title, that of the world’s most useless tower.
The CTBUH evaluates the usefulness of a skyscraper based on three criteria: the overall building height, the height of their highest occupied floor (if all current inhabitants occupy continuous floors starting from the ground floor) and overall height of the non-occupied part. Based on these criteria an NGO has compiled the top 10 most useless skyscrapers of the world. Here is the complete rankings:
10 – The Minsheng Bank Building in Wuhan, China
Total height: 331 m
Height of the highest occupied floor: 237 m
Unoccupied height: 94 m (28% of the height of the building)
9 – The Pinnacle in Guangzhou, China
Total height: 350 m
Height of the highest occupied floor: 265 m
Unoccupied height: 95 m (27% of the total height of the building)
8 – The Rose Tower, United Arab Emirates
Total height: 333 m
Height of the highest occupied floor: 237 m
Unoccupied height: 96 m (29% of the height of the building)
7 – Emirates Tower Two (right) – United Arab Emirates
Total height: 339 m
Height of the highest occupied floor: 213 m
Unoccupied height: 97 m (31% of the height of the building)
6 – New York Times Tower – NYC
Total height: 319 m
Height of the highest occupied floor: 220 m
Unoccupied height: 99m (31% of the height of the building)
5 – Emirates Tower One (left) – United Arab Emirates
Total height: 335 m
Height of the highest occupied floor: 241 m
Unoccupied height: 113 m (32% of the height of the building)
4 – The Burj Al Arab – UAE
Total height: 321 m
Height of the highest occupied floor: 198 m
Unoccupied height: 124 m (39% of the height of the building)
3 – The Bank of America Tower NYC
Total height: 366 m
Height of the highest occupied floor: 235 m
Unoccupied height: 131 m (36% of the height of the building)
2 – Zifeng Tower in Nanjing – China
Total height: 450 m
Height of the highest occupied floor: 317 m
Unoccupied height: 133 m (30% of the height of the building)
1 – The Burj Khalifa – United Arab Emirates
Total height: 828 m
Height of the highest occupied floor: 585 m
Unoccupied height: 244 m (29% of the height of the building)