The Tallest Building in the World: The Contenders

[rider]

The tallest building in the world: the contenders

Read more at http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3124932

The Burj Dubai
Potential nickname: It doesn’t need one – the Burj Dubai has become a brand of its own.
Location: Dubai
Developer: Emaar Properties
Size: 688m and counting
Architect: Skidmore, Owings and Merrill

Details: Already dwarfed by the other proposals on this list, the Burj Dubai is the granddaddy of them all, already an icon of the city under construction in the heart of Dubai.

Odds of being completed: Better than any on this list, for obvious reasons. Failing the enormous and catastrophic overnight collapse of the Dubai construction market, the Burj Dubai will be completed towards the end of next year.

Odds on being the tallest: n/a – Of course it is already the tallest in the world, but you wouldn’t get good odds on it remaining as such. Emaar still hasn’t admitted how tall it will be when completed, but surely there’s only so much higher it can go. The only hope it has of remaining the tallest will be if all the others fall by the wayside. Not impossible given the instability of the world markets, but highly unlikely. It could always boost its stature by sticking a colossal aerial on top – but then what’s to stop the others doing the same?

The Burj Dubai




The 'New Dubai Tower
Potential nickname: The Fountain Pen
Location: Dubai
Developer: Nakheel
Size: 1km
Architect: Woods Bagot

Details: Nakheel’s unnamed tower will form the centrepiece of its £21.7bn New Dubai development in the Jebel Ali area of the city.

Odds of being completed: Good. Work has apparently already been going for a year, and the property collapse is currently predicted to hit Dubai after this goes to market. Nakheel is still one of the most reliable names in Gulf development.

Odds on being the tallest: 3/1. Chances are by the time it gets halfway to completion, Emaar will have announced a taller one.

The 'New Dubai Tower




Dubai 1
Potential nickname: The One
Location: Dubai
Developer: Meraas
Size: Unknown
Architect: Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill, formerly of SOM

Details: Meraas have promised only that Dubai 1 will be “one of the tallest buildings in the world” but early reports about the £45bn Jumeira Gardens project said it would boast a 2.4km tower – yes, that’s more than twice as tall as every other tower on this list.

Odds of being completed: Middling. If it can overcome the technical challenges of building a tower as much as three times the size of the Burj Dubai, any developer backed by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum has got to put its money where its mouth is, right?

Odds on being the tallest: 4/1. Whether or not Dubai 1 aims to be the tallest is still a matter of conjecture, but if Meraas decides to go for it, will any of Dubai’s developers have the courage to build taller than the Sheikh’s own company?

Dubai 1




The Tower of a Thousand and One Arabian Nights
Potential nickname: The Big Kuhner
Location: Silk City, Kuwait
Developer: Tamdeen Real Estate
Size: 1,001m
Architect: Eric Kuhne

Details: Despite the naff name, Eric Kuhne’s helter-skeltering tower is the genuinely beautiful jewel in the crown of the £66bn City of Silk development.

Odds of being completed: At the moment, rocky. Kuwait’s Central Bank has organised crunch meetings this week to help deal with a crash in its stock market brought on by the global credit crunch. The government has apparently lost about $300bn on investments abroad.

Odds on being the tallest: 10/1. The developers have committed the cardinal sin of announcing how tall the tower will be before it’s built. That allows all of its rivals to build theirs taller.

The Tower of a Thousand and One Arabian Nights




The Kingdom Tower
Potential nickname: The Saud in the Cloud
Location: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Developer: Kingdom Holdings
Size: “at least” 1km
Architect: ?

Details: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia says the Kingdom Tower will be the world’s tallest, and not only has he avoided saying how tall it is, he hasn’t even sent out designs to the world’s media, or tell us who has been commissioned to design it.

Odds of being completed: Royally good. If the King says it will be completed it will be completed, never mind the rapidly declining real estate market in Saudi Arabia. Don’t forget, the Saudis have oil aplenty so chances are it will be built even if it has to stand empty.

Odds on being the tallest: 2/1 favourite. The secrecy surrounding this project is such that none of Kingdom Tower’s rivals will have any idea about its eventual height until it is well on its way to completion.

The Kingdom Tower
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[REK]

2.4 km? You have GOT to be kidding me....

[MyTwoSense]

couldn't this go in the exisitng dubai thread?

[Blue Line]

2.4 km? You have GOT to be kidding me....

Where are you getting that?  All I see are 1km buildings.

[Neville]

Dubai 1
Potential nickname: The One
Location: Dubai
Developer: Meraas
Size: Unknown
Architect: Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill, formerly of SOM

Details: Meraas have promised only that Dubai 1 will be “one of the tallest buildings in the world” but early reports about the £45bn Jumeira Gardens project said it would boast a 2.4km tower – yes, that’s more than twice as tall as every other tower on this list.

[Blue Line]

Ahh, sorry about that.

[3231]

^Dubai 1

[Neville]

Ehh, its ok. It's easy to miss stuff when you don't read it...

Seriously though.. 2.4km is EXTREME and wasteful....

[Blue Line]

Especially considering what's wrong it.

[ColDayMan]

Man has been trying to build taller and taller for years.  I say why not...doesn't hurt (unless the building collapses...or you know, something else...bah).

[REK]

Man has been trying to build taller and taller for years.  I say why not...doesn't hurt (unless the building collapses...or you know, something else...bah).

I agree to a certain extent, and a place like Dubai - where they've already thrown good city planning out the window* - is a great place to try this sort of thing. But there has to be a practical purpose (like a lack of land, stratospheric demand for office space etc..).  I can't think of a practical reason to build a 2.4 km building anywhere on the planet.


*to their credit, i guess you can't have a traditional transit oriented, walkable city when it's about 5,000 degrees out every day. I think they are putting light rail in down Shiek Zayed road, so that's a positive step.

[ColDayMan]

There also isn't a practical reason to build 2,000 ft condo towers in Chicago but hey, it's happening.  Also, it is a myth Dubai isn't urban as the old section of the city is more urban than most North American cities (though I agree that the Newbai is, well, Las Vegas next to the Gulf).

[Clvlndr in LV]

The tower listed as Dubai 1 (I've seen it referred to as One Dubai) has its height listed in other sources as 850 meters (2,789 ft.). I'm fairly sure the article is incorrect. If you care to see it in context with the entire Jumeirah Gardens project here is the link.

 http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=150505&page=3

Be prepared to have your jaw drop. Here is a small taste (the stand alone model)

[David]

Good points. A lot of this Dubai hatering is based on jealousy. Most of this stuff  would be going up in America if it could get financed. Vegas for example has most of the top 20 largest hotels in the world. There's no reason to have hotels that large of scale but it's vegas!

[X]

Besides the height, I don't see why we should want any of these buildings.  In that last picture it looks as if the only way to even approach the building is on a highway.

[David]

quote author=X link=topic=17547.msg334957#msg334957 date=1224467830]
Besides the height, I don't see why we should want any of these buildings.  In that last picture it looks as if the only way to even approach the building is on a highway.
[/quote]

I like the designs but I don't understand why each building is so isolated (does anyone know?). I would love to see something like 1001 Arabian Nights in Manhattan with first floor retail!

[musky]

couldn't this go in the exisitng dubai thread?

Agreed

[Clvlndr in LV]

^Technically not all the contenders are in Dubai.

quote author=X link=topic=17547.msg334957#msg334957 date=1224467830]
Besides the height, I don't see why we should want any of these buildings.  In that last picture it looks as if the only way to even approach the building is on a highway.

I like the designs but I don't understand why each building is so isolated (does anyone know?). I would love to see something like 1001 Arabian Nights in Manhattan with first floor retail!
[/quote]

I don't think they are all that isolated. If you go to the link I posted for the Jumeirah Gardens project you'll see this tower (One Dubai) is part of a massive project, and it's adjacent to their main avenue Sheikh Zayed Rd. and their new metro line.

[mrnyc]

whoa. and here i thought neo was "the one"

[airforce_jm]

Id like to see someone photoshop one of these buildings right in the middle of downtown Cincy.

[mrnyc]

here's the burj dubai april 2009:



http://thelatestpheanom.wordpress.com/tag/engineering/

[Mildtraumatic]

I was in Dubai in 94 and I'm sure I wouldn't recognize it anymore. Wonder what this place will look like in twenty years.

[MayDay]

^I'm hearing that quite a few of their projects - major ones - have been put on hold, according to the updates on the forum at skyscraperpage.com.

[C-Dawg Njaim]

I have to admit I do like Burj Dubai, but it's so tall, it's scary. Any building taller than Terminal Tower seems too tall to me.