Goettsch Partners has completed work on a new 1,322-foot-tall tower in Nanning, China, topped by a special feature they say sets the record for the world’s highest outdoor swimming pool.

The new Guangxi China Resources Tower is a mixed-use design that incorporates a 336-room hotel, office spaces, and retail into its over 2.93-million-square-foot supertall structure, which now stands as the 18th tallest building in China and the 37th tallest in the world. 

GP CEO James Zheng called his team’s design a “symbol of rising prosperity for the city.” At 1,060 feet above grade, the swimming pool feature, located inside the 71st-floor terrace of the hotel, is higher than the iconic infinity pool located on the 57th floor of Moshe Safdie’s Marina Bay Sands, which was previously considered to be the world-record holder.

Its tapering form presents clear delineations between the lower-level office program and the hotel amenity above. The transitional nature is further defined by the four-story podium at the base. Finally, a careful selection of materials aid in the longevity of the building on the way towards achieving a LEED Gold certification that the firm's director of sustainable design, Travis Soberg, said “reinforce[s] our commitment to environmental responsibility.”

Per GP: “The tower’s faceted and fragmented geometry provides a multitude of surfaces upon which to reflect the changing light qualities of the tropical sky. In this way, the character of the tower changes throughout the day, mirroring the mood of the city. Horizontal sunshades delicately extend across the façade in a consistent texture, shading the floor-to-ceiling glass of the building’s interior spaces. This simple clarity of the façade results in a cohesive legibility of its angular geometry and creates a bold contrast to both the lush vegetation of the region and the surrounding mixture of architectural styles.”

Construction began in 2014 and was completed in November of 2020. The interior fit-out was not finished until recently, and the building is now fully occupied and operational, according to the firm.