More skyscrapers were built in 2014 than in any other year, a new report has shown.
According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, developers completed 97 tall buildings of more than 200 metres in height last year.
The total beat the previous record of 81 completions of buildings in the same height category set in 2011.
Four of the 200 metre-plus tall buildings completed last year were in the UAE — putting it in joint third place alongside Qatar in a ranking of countries building the most tall towers last year.
These included Abu Dhabi’s 381-metre World Trade Center Abu Dhabi — The Residences, which was the second-tallest building to complete worldwide in 2014.
The other building in the World Trade Center Abu Dhabi Complex to complete in 2014, the 278-metre World Trade Center Abu Dhabi — The Offices, entered the charts at number 17.
For the seventh year in a row, China topped the ranking, completing 58 of the world’s tall buildings last year.
The Philippines took second place with five completions while the United States, Japan, Indonesia and Canada tied for fourth place, with three completions each.
The number of 200-metre-plus buildings in existence has hit 935, a 352 per cent increase from 2000, when only 266 existed.
The council added that a total of 11 ‘super-tall’ buildings of more than 300 metres were completed in 2014 — the highest annual total on record.
Since 2010, 46 super-tall towers have been completed — more than half of the 85 super-tall buildings which currently exist.
CTBUH also said that 2014 was the “tallest year ever” by another measure: the sum of heights of all 200-metre-plus buildings completed across the globe in 2014 was 23,333 metres — setting another all-time record and breaking previous record of 19,852 metres set in 2011.
At 541 metres, One World Trade Center in New York was the tallest building to complete in 2014 and is now the world’s third-tallest building.
lbarnard@thenational.ae
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