Lotte World Tower, Seoul Named World’s Fifth Tallest Building by Council on Tall Buildings

Points the Way for Sustainability Technology for High Performing Urban Buildings

[New York, April 4, 2017] Today, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has announced that the Lotte World Tower in Seoul, South Korea is world’s fifth tallest building.
Lotte World Tower, which opened to the public on April 3, is far more than a super tall building.

It demonstrates how to successfully accomplish commercial, sustainability and civic goals within a super-tall vertical structure within urban centers.

One the central challenges facing super tall towers is that they are prodigious consumers of energy. The more than 3.2 million sq of consists of five components; retail (ie, shops and restaurants), high-end offices, premium residential units, luxury hotel and observation deck.

To provide optimal comfort for Lotte Tower’s occupiers, while minimizing energy and water consumption, Syska’s MEP design incorporated innovative sustainability technology, including:

• Displacement air and a radiant floor cooling/heating system for the eight-story atrium lobby, rather than traditional–and highly inefficient– air-conditioning. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was carried out for the lobby to investigate system performance.
• 100% outside air units with energy recovery wheels to capture spill and exhaust air.
• Variable frequency drives to run the HVAC equipment motor more efficiently
• Geo-thermal, photovoltaics and windspire turbines providing a renewable source to support the buildings energy needs.
• SCADA system to monitor and control power usage.
• Water saving features including low flow fixtures and grey water reuse to yield anticipated water savings of 30 percent.
• Independent but connected telecommunications, technology, security, AV, lighting and control systems, providing resilience and integration into the building’s complex systems.