Tuesday 7 October 2008

The world's ugliest tall tower, Dubai

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A new "world's tallest building" for the Arab Emirates:

World's next tallest tower in Dubai revealed: DEVELOPERS in Dubai have announced plans to build a tower 1km high - beating the booming city state's own world record.
    With the world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai, nearing completion, Dubai World president Sultan Ahmed bin Sulaim said the new tower would be "one of a kind."
    ...Foundation work has already begun on the tower, Nakheel Chief Executive Chris O'Donnell told FoxNews.
    ...The final height of Nakheel's proposed tower is likewise a secret, as is the price tag. The company would only say it will be more than 1km tall, or the height of more than three of New York's Chrysler Buildings stacked end-to-end.

Sure will be.  Ugly, but tall. 

The world's skyscrapers are not where they used to be.  Says Pardeesh Bata:

Asia and Middle East are the new “high-rise” dream locations... William F. Baker, a partner at Skidmore Owings & Merrill Properties and the chief structural engineer of Burj Dubai, has summarized the world-wide phenomenon of this new type of 21st-century supertall proposals:

“If skyscraper construction had stopped in 1990, one would say that the tallest skyscrapers are made of steel, built in the United States, and are office buildings. Today, one would say that the tallest skyscrapers are made of concrete or composite, are erected in Asia or the Middle East, and likely to be residential.” (source)

Look at this distribution of proposed and under-construction super-tall skyscraper projects in the world:
Architecture, Real Estate
Asian projects definitely dominate the scene.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hideous. Looks like a background from dystopian sci-fi.

FAIRFACTS MEDIA said...

At least it looks a bit sturdier than the Burj tower.
That looks a bit flimsy to me.
How safe are they?
What happens in a big storm or earthquake?

Unknown said...

Damn, I love these things.

I'm still waiting for Arthur C. Clarke's tower into space. Can't wait.

Peter Cresswell said...

"That looks a bit flimsy to me.
How safe are they?
What happens in a big storm or earthquake?
"

The structure is actually hidden by claddings etc., so any apparent flimsiness is simply due to the design, which in this case involves four towers around a central atrium.

All tall building are designed for high winds and earthquakes -- both for the horizontal loads that both apply to a building, and for the frequencies of those loadings.

I recently posted a link to a video showing how the damping system of the Taipei Tower acted in the Sichuan earthquake. Take a look.

Anonymous said...

PC, I'm sure I saw a doco last year on the Burj, on Prime. If it's the one of which I'm thinking, it looked absolutely stunning.

The change in Dubai inside 20 yrs is breathtaking. Didn't I read just recently that only about 6% of its income is now derived from oil, such is its diversification?

Unknown said...

Thanks for sharing this post. There are many structures in the world that can be stated as the most ugliest structures. some of them are Ryogyong Hotel, Royal Ontario Musuem, Petrobras Headquarters, Markel Building, Zizkov Television Tower, Beehive, National Library of Pristina, Center Georges Pompidou, Federation Square, Morris A. Mechanic Theater for more details on this structure visit Top 10 World’s Ugliest Structures