The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake in Jordan to the east and in the West Bank and Israel to the west. Its surface and shores are 422 metres (1,385 ft) below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface on dry land. The Dead Sea is 378 m (1,240 ft) deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. It is also one of the world's saltiest bodies of water, with 33.7% salinity. Only Lake Assal (Djibouti), Garabogazköl and some hypersaline lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica (such as Don Juan Pond and perhaps Lake Vanda) have a higher salinity. It is 8.6 times more salty than the ocean. This salinity makes for a harsh environment where animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is 67 kilometres (42 mi) long and 18 kilometres (11 mi) wide at its widest point. It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley, and its main tributary is the Jordan River.
The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years. Biblically, it was a place of refuge for King David. It was one of the world's first health resorts (for Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from balms for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics and herbal sachets.

Village Road of Bangladesh

A good picture is worth thousands of words. The operative word is good picture. I have a collection of pictures from Bangladesh, I would lilke to make them web-enabled. I also collected many pictures off the web for several years. Below is a list of sites I used to collect some pictures. Instead of providing hyperlinks (bandwdth theft), I copied the pictures in my web server.
Please send me any pictures you might want to include in my domain.

Bangladeshi Hill

A good picture is worth thousands of words. The operative word is good picture. I have a collection of pictures from Bangladesh, I would lilke to make them web-enabled. I also collected many pictures off the web for several years. Below is a list of sites I used to collect some pictures. Instead of providing hyperlinks (bandwdth theft), I copied the pictures in my web server.

Taipei 101

Taipei Financial Center, is a landmark skyscraper located in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. The building became the world's tallest skyscraper upon its completion in 2004. as certified by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Taipei 101, designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed primarily by KTRT Joint Venture and Samsung Engineering & Construction received the 2004 Emporis Skyscraper Award and was hailed as one of the Seven New Wonders of the World and Seven Wonders of Engineering .The tower is an icon of modern Taiwan. Fireworks launched from Taipei 101 feature prominently in international New Year's Eve broadcasts and the structure appears frequently in travel literature and international media.
Taipei 101 comprises 101 floors above ground and 5 floors underground. The name of the tower reflects its floor count and carries symbolic meanings alluding to technology and Asian tradition . Its postmodernist approach to style incorporates traditional design elements and gives them modern treatments. The tower is designed to withstand typhoons and earthquakes. A multi-level shopping mall adjoining the tower houses hundreds of fashionable stores, restaurants and clubs.
Taipei 101 is owned by the Taipei Financial Center Corporation (TFCC) and managed by the International division of Urban Retail Properties Corporation based in Chicago. The name originally planned for the building, Taipei World Financial Center, was derived from the name of the owner. The original name in Chinese was literally, Taipei International Financial Center .

Taipei 101 was overtaken in height on 2007 July 21 by the Burj Dubai in Dubai, UAE, upon completion of the Burj's 141st floor. Taipei 101 retains the title of "world's tallest building", however, as international architectural standards define a "building" as a completed structure capable of being occupied. The Burj Dubai is expected to reach completion in January 2010. Taipei 101 is likely to retain the title of the Asia-Pacific region's tallest skyscraper until 2014, when its height will be surpassed by the Lotte Super Tower 123 in Seoul, South Korea.Taipei 101 features an Indoor Observatory (89th floor) and an Outdoor Observatory (91st floor).[25] Both offer 360-degree views and attract visitors from around the world.
The Indoor Observatory stands 383.4 m (1,258 ft) above ground, offering a comfortable environment, large windows with UV protection, recorded voice tours in eight languages, and informative displays and special exhibits. Here one may view the skyscraper's main damper, nicknamed "Damper Baby", and buy food, drinks and gift items.
Two more flights of stairs take visitors up to the Outdoor Observatory. The Outdoor Observatory, at 391.8 m (1,285 ft) above ground, is the second-highest observation deck ever provided in a skyscraper and the highest such platform in Taiwan.
The Indoor Observatory is open twelve hours a day (10:00 am–10:00 pm) throughout the week as well as on special occasions; the Outdoor Observatory is open during the same hours as weather permits. Tickets may be purchased on site in the shopping mall (5th floor) or in advance through the Observatory's web site .Tickets cost NT$400 (US$13) and allow access to the 88th through 91st floors via high-speed elevator.

88-story landmark supertall skyscraper

The building is located on a 24 000 m² plot of land near the Lujiazui metro station and was built at an estimated cost of 530 million USD[citation needed].

It was designed by the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Its postmodern form, whose complexity rises as it ascends, draws on traditional Chinese architecture such as the tiered pagoda, gently stepping back to create a rhythmic pattern as it rises. Like the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, the building's proportions revolve around the number 8, associated with prosperity in Chinese culture. The 88 floors (93 if the spire floors are counted) are divided into 16 segments, each of which is 1/8th shorter than the 16-story base. The tower is built around an octagon-shaped concrete shear wall core surrounded by 8 exterior composite supercolumns and 8 exterior steel columns. Three sets of 8 two-story high outrigger trusses connect the columns to the core at six of the floors to provide additional support.

The foundations rest on 1,062 high-capacity steel piles driven 83.5 m deep in the ground to compensate for poor upper-strata soil conditions. At the time those were the longest steel piles ever used in a land-based building. The piles are capped by a 4 m-thick concrete raft 19.6 m underground. The basement's surrounding slurry wall is 1 m thick, 36 m high and 568 m long, and composed of 20,500 m³ of reinforced concrete.

The building employs an advanced structural engineering system of wind and earthquake engineering which fortify it against typhoon winds of up to 200 km/h (with the top swaying by a maximum of 75 cm) and earthquakes of up to 7 on the Richter scale. The steel shafts have shear joints that act as shock absorbers to cushion the lateral forces imposed by winds and quakes, and the swimming pool on the 57th floor is said to act as a passive damper.

Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai China

This building includes modern offices, a deluxe 5-star hotel - the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, exhibition halls, banquet halls, an observation deck, and entertainment facilities which is situated in the following levels: the 1st and 2nd floors form an imposing and bright lobby of the business area; the 3rd to the 50th floors are occupied by office spaces; the 51st and 52nd floors are the mechanical and electrical facilities center, Jin Mao Tower, Shanghaiwhich are restricted for the tower's working staff; the 53rd to 87th floors are reserved for the deluxe Grand Hyatt Hotel of which, the 86th floor houses a club exclusive for the hotel guests and the 87th floor lodges the hotel restaurant; and, the 88th floor-the highest floor, is reserved for the tower's observation deck, which can hold 1000 people at any one time.

The tower has the best elevators available. Two direct elevators operate at the speed of 9.1 meters (nearly 30 feet) per second that can send visitors from the ground floor to the 88th floor for only 45 seconds. There are also five to six elevators every 10 floors, which reduce waiting-time to 35 seconds even during rush hours.

The tower has an annex building 6-stories high which houses the exhibition halls, conference rooms, multi-function halls, grand banquet halls and a recreational center.

The basement of the tower is a parking area 3 stories deep, which can hold 800 cars and 2000 bicycles. The parking area is equipped with 360-degree surveillance cameras as a security feature of the building.

Jin Mao Tower

Being the fourth tallest building of the world and the second tallest building in China, Jin Mao Tower is located in the center of Lujiazui Finance and Trade Districts in Pudong. Jin Mao Tower can be conveniently accessed from either Puxi (the area west of the Hungpu River) by taking the tunnel (travel time is about two minutes) or the Hongqiao and Pudong International Airports (travel time is about 30 minutes) by car.

The 88-stories Jin Mao Tower was completed in 1999. It is 420.5 meters (almost 1380 feet) tall and covers an area of 2.3 hectares (5.68 acres). The architect, Adrian D. Smith, of this skyscraper ingeniously combined the elements of traditional Chinese culture with the newest architectural styles of the time, which makes Jin Mao Tower one of the best-constructed buildings in China.

Sears Tower

Sears' optimistic growth projections never came to pass. Competition from its traditional rivals (like Montgomery Ward) continued, only to be surpassed in strength by other retailing giants like Kmart, Kohl's, and Wal-Mart. The fortunes of Sears & Roebuck declined in the 1970s as the company lost market share and its management grew ever more cautious.[7] The Sears Tower itself was not the draw Sears hoped it would be. The tower stood half-vacant for a decade as more office space was erected in Chicago in the 1980s. The company was eventually obliged to take out a mortgage on its signature building.[citation needed]

By 1990, Keck, Mahin & Cate, a law firm, considered moving out of its space in the Sears Tower and moving into a potential new development, which would become 77 West Wacker Drive. Brokers who were familiar with the lease negotiations stated that Sears was trying to keep Keck, Mahin & Cate in the building. Keck, Mahin & Cate decided to move into 77 West Wacker, and the Prime Group, developer of 77 West Wacker, finalized the development of the facility. During the time that Keck, Mahin & Cate was scheduled to move out of the Sears Tower, Sears planned to move its offices to its merchandise group facilities in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.[8] Sears began moving its offices out of the Sears Tower in 1992.[citation needed]
In 1994 Sears sold the building to Boston-based AEW Capital Management with financing from MetLife. At the time it was one third vacant. By 1995 Sears had completely vacated the building, moving to a new office campus in Hoffman Estates.[citation needed]
In 1997 Toronto-based TrizecHahn Corp (the owner at the time of the CN Tower) purchased the building for $110 million, and assumption of $4 million in liabilities, and a $734 million mortgage.[9][10]
In 2003 Trizec surrendered the building to lender MetLife.[11]
In 2004 Metlife sold it to a group of investors that includes New York investors Joseph Chetrit, Joseph Moinian, Lloyd Goldman, Joseph Cayre and Jeffrey Feil and Skokie-based American Landmark Properties.[12] The quoted price was $840 million with $825 million held in a mortgage.

Willis Tower

In 1969, Sears, Roebuck & Co. was the largest retailer in the world, with approximately 350,000 employees.[3] Sears executives decided to consolidate the thousands of employees in offices distributed throughout the Chicago area into one building on the western edge of Chicago's Loop. With immediate space demands of 3 million square feet (279,000 m²), and predictions and plans for future growth necessitating even more space, Sears commissioned architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill to produce a structure that would be one of the largest office buildings in the world. Their team of architect Bruce Graham and structural engineer Fazlur Khan designed the building as nine square "tubes"—each essentially a separate building—clustered in a 3x3 matrix.[4] All nine tubes would rise up to the 50th floor of the building. At the 50th floor, the northwest and southeast tubes end, and the remaining seven continue up. At the 66th floor, the northeast and the southwest tubes end. At the 90th floor, the north, east, and south tubes end. The remaining west and center tubes continue up to the 108th floor.

Sears executives decided early on that the space they would immediately occupy should be efficiently designed to house the small army that was their Merchandise Group. But floor space for future growth would be rented out to smaller firms and businesses until Sears could retake it. Therefore, the floor sizes would need to be smaller, and to have a high window-space to floor-space ratio, to be attractive and marketable to these prospective lessees. Smaller floor sizes necessitated a taller structure. Skidmore architects proposed a tower which would have large 55,000-square-foot (5,000 m²) floors in the lower part of the building, and would gradually taper the area of the floors down in a series of setbacks, which would give the Sears Tower its distinctive, husky-shouldered look.

As Sears continued to offer optimistic projections for growth, the tower's proposed height soared into the low hundreds of floors and surpassed the height of New York's unfinished World Trade Center to become the world's tallest building. Restricted in height not by physical limitation or imagination but rather by a limit imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration to protect air traffic, the Sears Tower was financed completely out of Sears' deep pockets and topped with two antennas to permit local television and radio broadcasts. Sears and the City of Chicago approved the design, and the first steel was put in place in April 1971. The structure was completed in May 1973. Construction costs totaled approximately $150 million USD at the time,[5] which would be equivalent to roughly $950 million USD in 2005. For comparison, Taipei's Taipei 101, built in 2004, cost around the equivalent of US$1.76 billion in 2005 dollars.

Black bands appear on the tower around the 29th–32nd, 64th–65th, 88th–89th, and 104th–109th floors. These are louvers which allow ventilation for service equipment and obscure the structure's belt trusses which Sears Roebuck did not want to be visible as on the John Hancock Center.

Tallest buildings in Hong Kong

The International Commerce Centre(abbr. ICC Tower) is a 118 floor, 484 m (1,590 ft) skyscraper under construction in West Kowloon, Hong Kong; as part of the Union Square project built on top of Kowloon Station. The development is owned and jointly developed by MTR Corporation Limited and Sun Hung Kai Properties, Hong Kong's metro operator and largest property developer respectively.

Its formal development name is Union Square Phase 7 and the name International Commerce Centre was officially announced in 2005. International Commerce Centre will be completed in phases: from 2007 to 2010. Upon completion by 2010, the skyscraper will become Hong Kong's tallest building and will have the third highest roof in the world, after Burj Dubai and the Shanghai World Financial Center.

Sun Hung Kai Properties, together with another major Hong Kong developer, Henderson Land, also co-developed the current record holder for Hong Kong's tallest building, 2 International Finance Centre - located directly across Victoria Harbour in Central, Hong Kong Island.

The International Commerce Centre

The International Commerce Centre will be Hong Kong's tallest with 482m height once construction has finished (2010).
Architects: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates PC; Wong & Ouyang (HK) Ltd.
Info: The final design of this tower was made in 2001 after more than four design proposal changes. The original World's Tallest design (574m with a pyramidal top) was changed, and the new design is by KPF. This tower will form a "gateway" for Victoria Harbour with Two International Finance Centre (2IFC) at the opposite side of the harbour.
A 7-star hotel with 300 rooms will be located near the top portion of the tower on 13 floors. It will also include convention and conference facilities. The 7-star hotel will be the highest elevated hotel in the world, surpassing the Hyatt in Shanghai's Jin Mao Tower.
On Sunday Sept. 13 2009 six workers died in a construction accident in this building when a construction platform inside a lift shaft collapsed

Two International Finance Centre

Two IFC is the taller of two International Finance Centre buildings and part of a US$2.8 billion complex that includes a luxury shopping mall, the Four Seasons Hotel, and Hong Kong Station. The complex is located on the north shore of Hong Kong Island, across from Victoria Harbour where an even taller skyscraper

Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

The Petronas Twin Towers (Malay: Menara Berkembar Petronas) (also known as the Petronas Towers or just Twin Towers), in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia are twin towers and were the world's tallest buildings before being surpassed by Taipei 101. However, the towers are still the tallest twin buildings in the world. They were the world's tallest buildings from 1998 to 2004 if measured from the level of the main entrance to the structural top, the original height reference used by the international organization Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat from 1969 (three additional height categories were introduced as the tower neared completion in 1996).Malaysia

Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur

Thousands of people were evacuated on September 12, 2001 after a bomb threat was phoned in the day after the September 11 attacks destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Bomb Disposal squads found no bomb in the Petronas towers but they evacuated everyone. Workers and shoppers were allowed to return three hours later, around noon. No-one was hurt during the evacuation.[26]

On the evening of November 4, 2005, a fire broke out in the cinema complex of the Suria KLCC shopping centre below the Petronas Twin Towers, triggering panic among patrons who joined screaming in the thick, acrid smoke. There were no reports of injuries. The buildings were largely empty (except the shopping mall, Suria KLCC) because of the late hour; the only people involved were moviegoers and some diners in restaurants.[27]

On the morning of September 1, 2009, French urban climber, Alain "Spiderman" Robert, using only his bare hands and feet and with no safety devices, scaled to the top of Tower Two in just under 2 hours after two previous efforts had ended in arrest.[28] On March 20, 1997, police arrested him at the 60th floor, 28 floors away from the "summit." He made a second attempt on March 20, 2007, exactly 10 years later, and was stopped once again on the same floor (though on the other tower).[29]

The Petronas Twin Towers remain the tallest twin buildings in the world

Designed by Argentine-American architect César Pelli, the Petronas Towers were completed in 1998 after a seven year build and became the tallest buildings in the world on the date of completion.[6] They were built on the site of Kuala Lumpur's race track.[7] Because of the depth of the bedrock, the buildings were built on the world's deepest foundations.[8] The 120-meter foundations were built within 12 months by Bachy Soletanche, and required massive amounts of concrete.[9]

The 88-floor towers are constructed largely of reinforced concrete, with a steel and glass facade designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art, a reflection of Malaysia's Muslim religion.[10] Another Islamic influence on the design is that the cross section of the towers is based on a Rub el Hizb (albeit with circular sectors added to meet office space requirements).[11]

Due to a lack of steel and the huge cost of importing steel, the towers were constructed on a cheaper radical design of super high-strength reinforced concrete.[12] High-strength concrete is a material familiar to Asian contractors and twice as effective as steel in sway reduction; however, it makes the building twice as heavy on its foundation than a comparable steel building. Supported by 23-by-23 meter concrete cores[13] and an outer ring of widely spaced super columns, the towers use a sophisticated structural system that accommodates its slender profile and provides 560,000 square metres of column-free office space.[14] Below the twin towers is Suria KLCC, a shopping mall, and Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, the home of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.

Other buildings have used spires to increase their height but have always been taller overall to the pinnacle when trying to claim the title. In the aftermath of the controversy, the rules governing official titles were partially overhauled, and a number of buildings re-classified structural antenna as architectural details to boost their height rating (even though nothing was actually done to the building).

The Petronas Twin Towers were the tallest buildings in the world

The Petronas Twin Towers were the tallest buildings in the world until Taipei 101 was completed in 2004, as measured to the top of their structural components (spires, but not antennas).[3] Spires are considered integral parts of the architectural design of buildings, to which changes would substantially change the appearance and design of the building, whereas antennas may be added or removed without such consequences. The Petronas Twin Towers remain the tallest twin buildings in the world.[4]

The Willis Tower and the World Trade Center towers were each constructed with 110 occupied floors – 22 more than the Petronas Twin Towers’ 88 floors. The Willis Tower and the World Trade Center’s roofs and highest occupied floors substantially exceeded the height of the roof and highest floors of the Petronas Twin Towers. The Willis Tower’s tallest antenna is 75 m (246 ft) taller than the Petronas Twin Towers’ spires. However, in accordance to CTBUH regulations and guidelines,[2] the antennas of the Willis Tower were not counted as part of its architectural features.[5] The spires on the Petronas Towers are included in the height since they are not antenna masts. Therefore, the Petronas Twin Towers exceed the official height of the Willis Tower by 10 m, but the Willis Tower has more floors and much higher square footage.

The Empire State Building for the thrill of a lifetime

For the better part of a century, visitors to the New York have headed straight to the Empire State Building for the thrill of a lifetime: the journey aloft to its fabled Observatory nearly a quarter of a mile above Fifth Avenue. Here you are treated to breathtaking panoramas across the rooftops, avenues and byways of the New York Metropolitan areas, to as far away as four neighboring states.

New York Pass grants its holders free entry to the Empire State Building Observation Deck & to 50 other top Attractions in New York City.

When you are visiting Empire State Building with the New York Pass, you can also try the New York Skyride - an awesome aerial tour of New York City that sends you on a ride around, above and even below all the city has to offer… and it is also free for New York Pass holders.

Hong Kong City Church

Central Plaza is the second tallest skyscraper in Hong Kong. With a height of 374 m (1,227 ft), Central Plaza is only surpassed by 2 IFC (415 m / 1,362 ft) in Central. The building is located at 18 Harbour Road, in Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island. It was the tallest building in Asia from 1992 to 1996, until the Shun Hing Square in Shenzhen, People's Republic of China, was built. The 78-storey building was completed in August 1995. The building surpassed the Bank of China Tower as the tallest building in Hong Kong until the completion of 2IFC.

Central Plaza was also the tallest reinforced concrete building in the world, until it was surpassed by CITIC Plaza, Guangzhou. The building uses a triangular floor plan. On the top of the tower is a four-bar neon clock that indicates the time by displaying different colors in 15 minute intervals, blinking at the change of the quarter.

An anemometer is installed on the tip of the building's mast; the anemometer sits at 378 m (1,240 ft) above sea level. The mast has a height of 102 m (335 ft). It also houses the world's highest church--Hong Kong City Church.

Central Plaza Hong Kong

Central Plaza is made up of two principal components: a free standing 368 m (1,207 ft) high office tower and a 30.5 m (100 ft) high podium block attached to it. The tower is made up of three sections: a 30.5 m (100 ft) high tower base forming the main entrance and public circulation spaces; a 235.4 m (772 ft) tall tower body containing 57 office floors, a sky lobby and five mechanical plant floors; and the tower top consist of six mechanical plant floors and a 102 m (335 ft) tall tower mast.

The ground level public area along with the public sitting out area form an 8,400 m² (90,400 sq ft) landscaped garden with fountain, trees and artificial stone paving. No commercial element is included in the podium. The first level is a public thoroughfare for three pedestrian bridges linking the Mass Transit Railway, the Convention and Exhibition Centre and the China Resource Building. By turning these space to public use, the building got 20% plot ratio more as bonus. The shape of the tower is not truly triangular but with its three corners cut off to provide better internal office spaces.