Tower has roots in nature

THE Hong Kong Bionic Tower is not a skyscraper. It may soar three times higher than the Empire State Building at 1,200 metres above ground level, a shining phallic symbol of glass and concrete, but it is most definitely not a skyscraper.

It owes its heritage to a long line of trees and its designers, the Madrid-based architectural and engineering consultancy World Prestige Architecture, like to think of it as a 'vertical city'.

Nor is the tower a pie-in-the-sky scheme dreamed up by hopeless idealists, said Javier Pioz, World Prestige president, who was in Hong Kong to promote the scheme.

'When people look at this tower they often say 'what a pretty drawing'. But it is more than that. It was designed as a purely commercial project,' he said.

Mr Pioz said modern skyscraper design limited developers to about 500 metres at which point buildings become uneconomic as the need for materials to support the structure crowded out usable space.

The implications for densely populated cities were obvious: without a breakthrough in construction techniques, cities would become increasingly crowded or would spread out in uncontrolled urban sprawl, he said.