Pencil tower

Common card · No. 296050

A pencil tower (also known as a skinny skyscraper, pencil-thin tower, super-slender tower, or super-slim tower) is a high-rise building or skyscraper with a very high slenderness ratio, meaning it is very tall while being very thin. There is no universal definition of how slender these buildings are to be categorized, but some definitions of 10:1 or 12:1 ratios and higher have been used. Hong Kong started developing pencil towers in the 1970s. Residential buildings of twenty or more stories with one unit per floor were built over small lots. It has become one of the most common types of buildings in the city, making Hong Kong the world's highest concentration of pencil towers. Hong Kong's most notable towers are the 72-story Highcliff Tower, which has a slenderness ratio of 20:1, and its neighbor, The Summit, a 65-story residential building. In the 2010s, pencil towers became a new phenomenon of building design in New York City. The newer pencil towers on Manhattan's "Billionaires' Row...

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