Dubai's Plans For New (possible) World's Tallest Building (Al Burj)

[DJ V Lawrence]

The official height (like the Burj Dubai) isn't being released until close to unveiling, but it's currently estimated height is at around 4,500 feet/228 stories according to wikipedia. Chances are very high that the tower will be much taller than that. According to the recent press conference, it IS known that the complex will include 40 towers reaching as high as 90 stories, and Al Burj itself will have five towers interconnected and will be taller than ten football fields, or three Chrysler Buildings stacked up. The expected completion is in 10 years.

Now, the reason why I say "possible" is because a design and some details are supposed to be unveiled early this month (October 2008) on the Mile-High Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. As the name suggests, their goal is to build their tower to be 5,280 feet tall, though the unveiling will reveal if the height will actually be that or lower. Kuwait is planning to build Burj Mubarak, also a 1 Kilometer-tall tower.

Here's a rendering of what would become the four tallest buildings in the world if all four are completed. The one on the right is the Burj Dubai, set to be completed next year and is already confirmed to be the current tallest.

[Pumapayam]

Here's a rendering of what would become the four tallest buildings in the world if all four are completed. The one on the right is the Burj Dubai, set to be completed next year and is already confirmed to be the current tallest.

I hope they are spending money on some sort of an army.

So many targets. . . it is becoming a scary uber dense city.

I am over it, I think they are growing way too fast and wasting too much steel so they can claim "me too, look at me I am taller" BS.

[ricco67]

I read in either PopSci/Mech several years ago that there is a limit on how tall a building could be. I forgot what the formula was, but I think it equates to a certain percentage of the diameter of the earth. Whatever the number was, it was theorized that once that certain height was reached, the ground or materials would eventually be unstable because of the stresses and weight involved.

Considering that the article that I read was over 10 or 15 years ago, it probably didn't take into consideration materials that would make a building "lighter."

[westguy]

I hope they are spending money on some sort of an army.

So many targets. . . it is becoming a scary uber dense city.

I am over it, I think they are growing way too fast and wasting too much steel so they can claim "me too, look at me I am taller" BS.

There aren't too many people there. There is a lot of money to build plenty of phalluses tall buildings.

[infinite_jim]

Perhaps they are using new carbon fiber technology to offset sluggish weight/height compressive performance?

It's funny the type of insecurity posts revealed, but we Americans went through a similar building period and mental epoch after WWI.

Kudos to them for pushing technology, however it does present a unique security and safety problem below. Hopefully they learned from our mistakes in that department. An aside, poor Mr. Yamasaka - a historical footnote of modernism and cathartic destruction (see WTC and Pruitt-Igoe)

The building itself is part of the image of dubai, not it's underlying myth. Scale is important w/r/t the human condition, which I think it's interesting to ask "How tall is too tall?". In this case I'd say that it nakedly disregards humanity and is a form of centralization of order-power in a new world order of decentralization. Seriously, is the land that valuable to rationally come to this solution? A more thorough analytical programmatic process would have revealed several complexes more like Koolhaas' CCTV; but that is my own speculation towards land use based upon the rendering.

And the real question is, would YOU go there? For myself I have heard enough horror stories about human conditions, corruption, and conspicuous consumption that looking at the image of dubai is perfectly fine an experience as I'll have of dubai. Before you ignore my previous statement < Value systems matter most, there would not be Architecture if not, only mere buildings.

[Urbannizer]

Renderings:

Work on this tower did start, but its on hold for a year. (Construction may start again on Jan. 13th, 2010.)

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