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Up
Close and Personal in Taipei 101
 I
was crouched over the toilet bowl, looking at the floor, at nothing
in particular actually, when I felt the building move. I looked
hard at the wood-paneled flooring. Nothing gave way, nothing caved
in but yes! - there it is again, the ground beneath my feet was
gently but perceptibly swaying, like the gallery of an airplane
caught in turbulence.
My first impulse was
to run out of the cubicle in panic when I remembered I was in the
world's tallest loo, located in the Observatory of Taipei 101.
The world's tallest building was built to sway; it will sway when
buffeted by gales, it will sway when hit by typhoons; it will sway
when struck by earthquakes but one thing it is designed NOT to do
is to topple over. With that in mind, I coolly walked out of the
washroom and proceeded to admire the fantastic panoramic view of
the city from the 89th floor of the megastructure.
Taipei 101 is a brave new building. Having wrested the title of
the world's tallest occupied building from the Petronas Twin Towers
in 2004, its 101 stories are designed to defy nature in a land that
has to live with earthquakes and typhoons. In fact the construction
of 101 is not free from tragedy. In 2003, a 6.8 earthquake caused
a crane to break free from its moorings and plunge 56 floors, killing
5 people instantly. Nevertheless, the building itself reacted as
expected and remained structurally resilient.
Visually, Taipei 101 is not particularly spectacular. If you ask
me to describe it, I'd say it looks like a column of supermarket
shopping baskets stacked one on top of the other. The designers
however, have likened their creation picturesquely to a bamboo stalk
reaching for the sky. Ah well, it's all in the point of view.
In the centre of the observatory, a circular room houses the secret
to 101's stability - a giant sphere that looks like it is made up
of huge discs of differing sizes. This wind damper, as large as
a house and the world's biggest (naturally) occupies over 2 floors.
The solid sphere starts from the 87th floor and protrudes into the
89th. It is kept in place by piston-like supports , which only serve
to make the whole contraption look like some alien spaceship!
The weather was fine that day. I went up 2 more floors to the outdoor
observatory where I felt the full force of the winds at 500 metres
above sea level. I could literally hear the winds howl and the structure
moan and creak, and find myself walking as unsteadily as a drunk
as swaying became more pronounced. It was an experience worth all
of NTD450!
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