Daedo International Financial Center

The Daedo International Financial Center (DIFC, Zhenian: 대도국제금융센터) is a complex of located in the Shin Daedo New Town area in the west coasts of Daedo, Zhenia. It was built by the the architecture firm Saram & Saram and its chief architect Han Seok-Geun, while most of the actual construction was done by Jinmu Construction & Engineering. Widely conceived as the pinnacle of the entire Shin Daedo New Town project, the complex was constructed upon reclaimed land on the coastline facing the Gulf of Danguk, with its opening coinciding with the commemoration of the 140th anniversary of the Empire of Zhenia. As a set of mixed-use skyscrapers, the International Tower in particular is one of the tallest structures of the world and remains the single tallest structure in Zhenia.

Construction work on the complex began in 1994, as construction of Shin Daedo New Town emerged to reality. Intended to be the heart of the new town project, some constituent buildings were completed by 2004, while construction of the International Tower, its tallest spire, was completed in 2007 and the entire complex in 2008 to commemorate the 140th anniversary of Zhenian unification. Although originally named 'Shin Daedo Spire' on initial plans of the new town project, it was later renamed as Daedo International Financial Center after the purpose of most of its buildings, including the International Tower, was clarified as office space for financial companies headquartered in Daedo.

The complex is overall built on a circular plaza layout with the International Tower, surrounded by a, at its center. The International Tower, specifically, is designed with three interlocking towers, each gaining inspiration from traditional Zhenian, each twisting 45 degrees to help stabilize it against high wind speeds, while vertical ailerons extend along the top edges of each interlocking tower to augment the design. Almost all of the buildings are connected via subterranean buttressed wings, allowing for easy access between each building regardless of external weather conditions. The complex altogether contains 166 elevators and 30 escalators, 70 of which are dedicated to the International Tower.

The general public reception regarding Daedo International Financial Center has been highly positive, with many referring to the complex as a 'symbol of Zhenian enterprise in the twenty-first century'. However, there had been concerns regarding office and residential vacancies when the complex was first completed, as well as the pressure the complex gave on traffic congestion on the roads around Shin Daedo New Town as a whole, as well as concerns regarding the building's immense height overtly standing out in the city's skyline as a whole.

History
Proposals for a mixed-use 'landmark tower', initially referred to as 'Shin Daedo Spire', at the center of Shin Daedo New Town's had been drawn out since the beginning of the New Town's planning phase in the late 1970s, revolving around a series of mixed-use skyscrapers with a spire at its center. The development project was later linked to the construction of Shin Daedo Station directly to its east, with later proposals including direct underground access paths to Shin Daedo Station without the need of additional modes of transport. Reflecting this, later design proposals, integrated the initially-planned transit hub beneath the center into Shin Daedo Station's main transfer hub and redirected MTX access into the station as well.



Amid significant increases in land value prior to its development, there had been debate regarding the exact use of the complex. The Jinmu Group initially vouched as the primary owner of the complex, with a proposal of relocating the headquarters of the group and almost all of its subsidiaries into the complex, later dubbed 'Jinmu Town'. Other investors, including a consortium led by the Hanshin Group, also made proposals to primarily use the complex, until the Shin Daedo International Company, the primary owner of the assets around the complex, intervened, while the Jinmu Group eventually opted out of the bid in favor of what would become the Jinmu Global Business City project. Following negotiations with the Daedo Metropolitan Government, it had been decided that much of the firms headquartered in the city's financial district would altogether relocate to the complex. As a result, the project was finally renamed Daedo International Financial Center, reflecting its purpose.

Construction of the complex began in 1994, while construction of Shin Daedo Station began earlier in 1991. While all other details, including the construction of, as well as connections to Shin Daedo Station, were revealed in the planning, the final height of the International Tower, the project's centerpiece, remained a closely-guarded secret until the topping of the tower. For this reason, there were many speculations regarding the exact height of the building, ranging from 604 meters, in remembrance of the nation's Unification Day to over 1,000 meters, which would've made it the first freestanding structure in the world to surpass the 1-kilometre mark. On January 2, 2003, after the final height was revealed, on January 2, 2003, Han Seok-Geun, the primary architect of the DIFC project, later commented, "The original idea was to break the 1-kilometre mark, for the first time in human history: engineers, however, argued against it, fearing that it would be practically dangerous to do so, given the relatively unstable base. The solution? We made a compromise at 901 meters, from base to tip - the remaining 99 meters, while they are engineering limits, are an intentional blank for the future to fill up."

On June 17, 2002, the International Tower, the central spire of the complex, surpassed the existing Jinlin Tower of Jinhae as the nation's tallest skyscraper at 433.5 meters, while it became the nation's tallest freestanding structure in the nation on December 30, 2002, surpassing the Amasar Ren Tower in Bakhan at 505.5 meters. The International Tower topped out at its 168th floor on August 28, 2005, while the first two towers constituting the complex, the Vision and Epoch Towers, as well as the first phase of Shin Daedo Station, were completed the same day and commenced operations. Daeseong and Gwangmu Towers were completed on July 7, 2006 and August 1, 2006 respectively, while the International Tower, the pinnacle of the complex, was completed in 2008. The entire complex opened and commenced operations on June 4, 2008, commemorating the 160th anniversary of Zhenian unification.

Architecture and construction


Most buildings of the Daedo International Financial Center uses the bundled design to uphold the structure. The tubular system has overall reduced the usage of steel by almost 52% compared to existing designs. The tubular system helped in the construction of numerous reinforced concrete wall segments based on steel cages, which were built at the site and height of construction with concrete pumped from the ground. Prefabricated sections, including the multi-layer filtered glass walls, were added to the building, at an effort to reduce construction time and allocate more space on-site for other tasks.

While almost all of the constituent buildings have structural integrity and stability in mind, the International Tower in particular has numerous design characteristics in order to withstand physical forces coming into play due to its immense height. The tower itself consists of three interlocking towers, twisting 45 degrees from bottom to top, with each of the edges adjoining at the central core of the entire tower, in order to maximize structural stability. In addition, it has three vertical ailerons stretching from each of the three intertwined towers along the full length of the building's edge, effectively redirecting strong currents of wind and scattering the vortices around the building to minimize swaying and vibration. A and auxiliary units, occupying the 164th and partially the 165th floors, mitigate the swaying of the structure while also adding to the structural integrity of the building especially in cases of earthquakes - there are speculations that the International Tower alone could withstand a Magnitude 9.0 earthquake on its own, a feature crucial for a skyscraper close to tectonic valleys in the central Danguk Peninsula.

Given both the immense scale of the project and the need to increase efficiency of space usage for elevator shafts, usage of double-deck elevators were necessitated early on. With this in mind, all buildings of the complex excluding the Aria Exposition Center utilizes numerous sets of double-deck elevators to increase efficiency of vertical transport.

International Tower


The International Tower is the centerpiece of the complex. Standing at 901 meters by tip height, it is both the tallest building and freestanding structure in Zhenia by height. The International Tower was built by Jinmu Construction & Engineering (Jinmu C&E), although it was designed in cooperation with architecture firm Saram & Saram. The tower's observatory is located on the 166th and 167th floors, making it the tallest observatory in the nation and well among the tallest in the world, as well as the first observatory in the world to be built above 800 meters from the base of the building.

The International Tower consists of three interlocking towers, each twisting 45 degrees alongside another and eventually forming three directly-linked wings at its base. Its overall floor layout starts with the commerce center occupying the first seven floors from ground level, followed by a series of vertically-stacked 30-story sections, each section dedicated by purpose and separated by multiple two-story "international plazas". Each plaza doubles as an evacuation zone for residents and tenants to evacuate in cases of emergency, in accordance to new Zhenian regulations regarding the safety of skyscrapers. Given the intertwining design of the three towers comprising the spire as a whole, some of the lower sections have more ample floor area than the higher sections.

As of 2020, tenants of the International Tower include the Zhenia World Central Group, the Daedo Bank of Industry and Commerce (DBIC) and the Daedo headquarters of the Hanshin Group dubbed 'Hanshin Two'. The Excelsior, the high-end hotel and residence brand of the Hanshin Group, has occupied floors 130 to 159, making it the single tallest hotel in the nation by height.

Daeseong and Gwangmu Towers
Named after the epoch names of the two emperors of the Empire of Zhenia, the Daeseong and Gwangmu Towers are twin 49-story towers located to the west of the International Tower, connected to the waterfront and facing the Gulf of Danguk. They are the second and third tallest buildings forming the complex respectively, at 194 meters and 190 meters by roof height respectively. Built as high-rise apartments, the first five floors of the two towers are dedicated to the Hanshin Group's urban duty free store, while the remainder houses a combined total of 320. Larger condominiums on the Daeseong and Gwangmu Towers, despite the rise of newer additional high-rise residential skyscrapers across the nation over the past decade, remains among the most expensive residences in the nation. In 2015, the penthouse at Daeseong Tower had been sold to Abayadi petroleum magnate Bassam Jamil at a price of $120 million, making it the single most expensive real estate deal in Zhenian history.

Shin Daedo Station




Shin Daedo Station, although it started out as a separate development from what would become the Financial Center, is the primary transportation hub of the complex and has been developed in tandem with the complex. Upon its completion in 2006, Shin Daedo Station became the second-largest station in the nation, surpassing Jinhae Central Station when it was completed. As the first major station in the city primarily dedicated to ZNX traffic, the station was built with the purpose of serving both as the western terminus of ZNX lines ending in Daedo and as an alternative stop to lighten the load of traffic on Daedo Central Station, with the ultimate intention of being the city's new main rail hub. Shin Daedo is served directly by all ZNX lines serving the city.

Shin Daedo Station is directly linked to the International Financial Center both aboveground and underground. With its main entrance 480 m away from the International Tower, it is directly linked to the International Tower via the Shin Daedo Intermodal Transit Center, adjacent to Shin-saegi (New Century) Avenue. Extending three stories aboveground and five stories underground, the Shin Daedo Intermodal Transit Center acts as a central node for all metropolitan bus and lines to, from and around Shin Daedo, MTX Lines 4 and 12 and the Shin Daedo Light Rail Transit. The Jinmu Group has owned the operation rights to the Transit Mall, located in the underground floors of the transit hub.

On November 8, 2019, Shin Daedo Station was selected as one of the seven sites for the "future vertical transit hubs" around Daedo. Primarily funded by a joint venture of Jinmu Motors, Surimae and the Daedo Metropolitan Government, the projected vertical transit hub is set to provide short-haul aerial transport around the area, with services expected to begin by 2023. Expected to occupy the top three floors of the headquarters of Daedo Metro, located just southwest of the main station, the 'future vertical transit hub' is also expected to be linked directly to the complex via the Intermodal Transit Center.

Transportation
Designed as the central node of Shin Daedo New Town and coupled with the adjacent Intermodal Transit Center and Shin Daedo Station, Daedo International Financial Center offers several transportation options. The Intermodal Transit Center offers direct transfers between all modes of transport leading to and from the complex, such as the Shin Daedo Light Rail traversing the new town and numerous bus lines connecting the rest of the city with Shin Daedo. While most Daedo Metro connections are served at the adjacent Shin Daedo Station and Intermodal Transit Center, the complex is also served via the Shin Daedo Central Waterfront Station, an extension of Daedo Metro Line 4 and transferable via Shin Daedo Light Rail.