Zenith Towers

Zenith Towers Thornton Thomasetti Architects

Residents of Busan, South Korea, clamor for the status of living in high-rise condos even though they complain of meolmi (motion sickness) when typhoons strike each year. The three Zenith towers top out at 988 feet, but their wide stance and butterfly-shaped core walls shrug off blasts from storms over the China Sea. Engineers subjected 1:400-scale models of the trio to automotive-style wind-tunnel testing based on 30 years of weather data, and the architects designed smooth and rounded faces to cut through sustained winds of 100 mph, so the building doesn’t whistle, sway, or shake in that nauseating, you’re-about-to-die sort of way.