Jeddah Tower In Saudi Arabia

[hindesky]

"Along the coast of Saudi Arabia, developers appear to be dusting off the desert sands on what will be the world’s tallest tower. 

Jeddah Economic Co. is resuming work on Jeddah Tower, a skyscraper with aspirations to reach a height of more than 3,200 feet, or 1,000 meters, which would stake its claim as the world’s tallest building, the Middle East Economic Digest reported. 

The project, which broke ground in 2013, has been rife with stops and starts, including delays after Saudi Prince Bakr bin Laden was detained by Prime Minister and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in a corruption purge of the country’s royals in 2017. Bin Laden was the owner of the construction firm Saudi Binladin Group, which was building the tower before work ceased in 2018, Dezeen reported. 

The tower, formerly known as Kingdom Tower and designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture in Chicago, reached the 63rd floor — of 165 planned stories — before construction stopped, Dezeen reported. Construction firms Skanska, Samsung C&T, China State Construction Engineering Corp. and Hyundai E&C are among the more than a dozen contractors invited to bid on completing the tower and have three months to send in their proposals, MEED reported."

https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/construction-development/work-resumes-on-planned-worlds-tallest-tower-120849

http://smithgill.com/work/jeddah_tower/

 

[strickn]

Having trouble finding a megatall that looks more interesting than it could have at a smaller size... an ounce of architectural thought diluted into a gallon or two of engineering.  There's one under construction now in Monterrey, Nuevo León, which shares a very tiny state border with Texas, and it's not much better to behold than these, although it has a sort of vaulted outdoor sky loggia/porch in the plans.

[editor]

Designed by AS+GG.

When I lived in Chicago, I was friendly with a lot of the big-name global architecture firms, and spent a bit of time in AS+GG's offices, so I dug up some pictures I took.

When you design buildings on the scale of AS+GG, building a regular scale model doesn't give you the detail needed to understand the building the way you need to, so you have to build them extra large.  Some of AS+GG's models are seven feet tall. 

Here's its Burj Kahlifa model, which is what became the Burj Dubai:

I don't remember her name, but she's explaining the Jeddah Tower.

 

I believe these are all Jeddah Tower renderings on the wall.

 

I was into architecture models at the time, so I took a lot of pictures of the models around the office:

 

This is a bunch of options AS+GG came up with for one tower.  I don't remember which version got built.

 

And because creative people thrive in a creative environment, there's a piano in the lobby for lubricating the brain cells:

The lobby also opens onto a private rooftop garden about 25 stories above the street.

 

[Houston19514]

8 hours ago, editor said:

Designed by AS+GG.

When I lived in Chicago, I was friendly with a lot of the big-name global architecture firms, and spent a bit of time in AS+GG's offices, so I dug up some pictures I took.

And because creative people thrive in a creative environment, there's a piano in the lobby for lubricating the brain cells:

 

The lobby also opens onto a private rooftop garden about 25 stories above the street.

 

Fun pictures.  I'm guess they must have relocated since you visited them.

[editor]

18 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

Fun pictures.  I'm guess they must have relocated since you visited them.

Yeah. It looks like they moved a couple of blocks away to 30 West Monroe. 

It's fitting, I guess. That's the former Inland Steel building, and something of a shrine for skyscraper architects. 
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Steel_Building
 

I've had more than one architect tell me they wished they could move there.