The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) yesterday announced the winners of its annual “Best Tall Building” awards for 2009, recognizing one outstanding tall building from each of four geographical regions: Americas, Asia & Australia, Europe, and Middle East & Africa.

This year’s winners are:
Manitoba Hydro Place, Winnipeg , Canada
Linked Hybrid, Beijing, China
The Broadgate Tower , London, UK
Tornado Tower, Doha, Qatar

One of these four will be named “Best Tall Building Overall” at CTBUH’s October awards dinner. Recipients must possess seamless integration of architectural form, structure, building systems, sustainable design strategies, and life safety for its occupants. Additionally, winning buildings must exhibit sustainable qualities at a broad level in order to preserve urban quality of life into the future.

The CTBUH also announces the winners of its two “Lifetime Achievement” Awards. This year’s recipient of the Lynn S. Beedle Award will be John C. Portman, Jr. of John Portman & Associates, Inc. The Lynn S. Beedle Award recognizes an individual who has made extraordinary contributions to the advancement of tall buildings and the urban environment during his or her professional career. This year’s recipient of the The Fazlur Rahman Khan Medal will be Dr. Prabodh V. Banavalkar of Ingenium, Inc. The Fazlur Rahman Khan Medal recognizes an individual for his or her demonstrated excellence in design and/or research that has made a signifi cant contribution to a discipline(s) for the design of tall buildings and the built urban environment.

The awards will be presented at the 2009 CTBUH Awards Dinner, to be held in conjunction with the CTBUH 2009 Chicago Conference: Evolution of the Skyscraper. From October 22-23, high rise specialists from a variety of fields will converge in Chicago to take part in this important conference to answer questions regarding how skyscraper development must evolve to remain relevant in the current age of global climate change and international economic recession.