Poised to become the second tallest building in the world and featuring structural design by Thornton Tomasetti, Incheon 151 Tower-a 151-story mixed-use tower in Incheon, South Korea-has broken ground.

Richard Tomasetti and Dennis Poon will both be presenting to this year’s Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s “Evolution of the Skyscraper” Conference in Chicago, IL.

Dennis Poon, managing principal of Thornton Tomasetti, the international engineering firm with practices in building structure, building skin and building performance, will be a featured speaker at American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in New York City.

Dennis Poon has been named one of the 50 Outstanding Asian Americans in Business for 2010.

Thornton Tomasetti’s Dennis C.K. Poon, P.E., managing principal, has been named one of the 25 Top Newsmakers of 2010 by the editors of Engineering News-Record magazine for his influence on China’s building codes regarding supertall structures.

The planned 587-meter 151 Incheon has started the journey toward becoming one of the world’s tallest buildings. If all goes as planned, the 151-story mixed-use skyscraper, which broke ground in late June and is scheduled for a 2014 finish, would rank as the world’s second-tallest. But that is only if it beats the 609-m-tall Chicago Spire, which has a leg up on Incheon but is not yet out of the ground. The Spire’s finish, originally set for 2010, may be up in the air thanks to economic woes, say observers.

The 5.7-million-sf Incheon Tower, expected to be complete by 2014, is part of the $35 billion Songdo International Business District.

A consortium led by Portman Holdings in partnership with Samsung C&T Corp., Hyundai E&C, and SYM-Associates is financing the development of a 151-story, 2,000-foot mixed-use tower in Incheon, South Korea, that, when completed, could stand as the world’s second-tallest building. Designed by Atlanta-based John Portman & Associates with Thornton Tomasetti as structural engineer, Incheon 151 Tower will feature 30 floors of commercial offices, a 300-room hotel, apartments and condos, observation levels at 118 and 119, and sky restaurants at the top of the tower.

Always famous yet never in the limelight, John Portman, 86, is an architect who made his stamp on the world through hotel atriums and Atlanta’s Peachtree Center.

The Korean CTBUH Conference 2010 was held at Seoul Olympic Parktel Olympia Hall and hosted by CTBUH Korea on August 27, 2010. The conference was deemed a success with 350 experts and professionals participating from a variety of disciplines, including academia, architecture, and building construction. Many tall buildings, such as “Shanghai Tower”, “Kingley Finance Tower”, and “Incheon 151 Tower”, were discussed under the conference topic “A New Generation of Tall Buildings in Asia”.