The Ping An Finance Center () is a 115-

storey A storey (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or story (American English), is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the wor ...

, supertall skyscraper in

Shenzhen, Guangdong Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...

, China. It was completed in 2017, and is the tallest building in Shenzhen, the 2nd tallest building in China and the 5th tallest building in the world. The building contains office, hotel and retail spaces, a conference center, and a high-end shopping mall.

Observation deck

The

observation deck An observation deck, observation platform, or viewing platform is an elevated sightseeing platform usually situated upon a tall architectural structure, such as a skyscraper or observation tower. Observation decks are sometimes enclosed from we ...

is named Free Sky and located on floor 116, which broke the record of having the highest observation deck in a building at . The observation deck allows 360-degree views. Inside there are a transparent viewing area, interactive experience area, and special display area to showcase youth cultures with Shenzhen special characteristics through multimedia facilities. The opening hours are 10am to 8pm, last entry 7.15pm.

Features

The building houses the headquarters of Ping An Insurance, with their company name representing the building name. The building was commissioned by Ping An Insurance and designed by the American architectural firm

Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) is an American architectural firm based in New York City that provides architecture, interior, programming and master planning services. They engineer different projects including civic and cultural spaces, co ...

. The design of the building is meant to be unique and elegant, and to represent the history and achievements of the main tenant. A stainless-steel facade that weighs approximately provides a modern design to the building. It is the second largest skyscraper in the world by floor area after Azabudai Hills Main Tower in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The building has a gross floor area of . The 115-storey tower has a width-to-height aspect ratio of 1:10 and also has an 11-story podium. Including the podium, the building has of floor space. A five-level basement adds . The tower has eight main columns which form the superstructure. The column dimensions range from approximately at the lowest level to at the top of the tower.

Phase 2

The second building of the project, a , 47-story skyscraper known as the South Tower, has been completed. Construction began in April 2014 and it opened in 2018/19. The complex includes a 5-star

Park Hyatt Hyatt Hotels Corporation, commonly known as Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, is an American multinational hospitality company headquartered in the Riverside Plaza area of Chicago that manages and franchises luxury and business hotels, resorts, and vac ...

hotel, a planned retail bridge connecting the two skyscrapers from levels 3 through 6.

Elevators

The Ping An International Finance Center is equipped with 33 double deck elevators, travelling at maximum speeds of up to .

History

The building is located within the

Central Business District A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...

of Shenzhen in Futian. Its lot was purchased by Ping An Group via auction at a price of 1.6568 billion RMB on 6 November 2007. Design of the building began in 2008 with

providing the architectural design and Thornton Tomasetti providing structural design. Its

foundation stone A cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry Foundation (engineering), foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entir ...

was laid on 29 August 2009, and construction started in November the same year. China Construction First Building Group was hired as the general contractor to construct the building. In March 2013, the construction process was temporarily halted, due to the suspected use of concrete made with unprocessed sea sand, which could corrode the steel structure. Construction resumed on the building after sample testing. On the morning of 15 July 2014, upon a -long steel column being lifted to place, the skyscraper exceeded in height, surpassing the KK100 Tower to become the tallest building in Shenzhen. The building was

topped out In building construction, topping out (sometimes referred to as topping off) is a builders' rite traditionally held when the last beam (or its equivalent) is placed at the top of a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony is ofte ...

on 30 April 2015, and became the second tallest skyscraper in China at a height of . The original plan was to add a -long antenna atop the building to surpass the

Shanghai Tower The Shanghai Tower is a 128-story, megatall skyscraper located in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai.

and become the tallest building in China. However, in February 2015, it was decided that the antenna would not top the tower due to the possibility that it might obstruct flight paths.

Climbing attempts

The Ping An Financial Center building has been the subject of frequent rooftopping attempts. In January 2015, daredevil Malaysian photographer Keow Wee Loong climbed the then incomplete building and released video footage and a photo taken from a crane at the tower's top. The structure was subsequently climbed during the period of the Chinese New Year on 19 February 2015 by two Russian and Ukrainian

urban explorer Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex, and sometimes known as roof and tunnel hacking) is the exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. Photography and historical inte ...

s, Vadim Makhorov and Vitaly Raskalov from Ontheroofs, who further climbed out to a crane above the under-construction tower and documented their ascent with video and photos.

Previous status

Low occupancy

According to ''

South China Morning Post The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remaine ...

'', almost 30 percent of the office space remained empty in the second quarter of 2019.

References

External links

Thorton Tomasetti
* {{Supertall skyscrapers, under-construction Ping An Insurance Skyscraper office buildings in Shenzhen Kohn Pedersen Fox buildings Futian District Retail buildings in China Skyscrapers in Shenzhen Office buildings completed in 2017 2017 establishments in China 2017 in Shenzhen