World's Tallest Building. Another One?

Actually, two more! Hot on the heels of the Burg Dubai is a proposal, revealed 4 days ago, for a 3,280 ft high tower again in Dubai. Local city developer Nakheel, the company responsible for the famous man-made islands off the coast of Dubai reported that the tower will be the center piece of the new inner city harbor, new Dubai, that is to become the emirate's new capital. Though specifics of the building and estimated budget were not given, Nakheel executive Christopher O'Donnell stated that this would be a multi-billion pound undertaking that is projected to topout in late 2018.

The Nakheel tower, as it has now come to be known, will stretch for about 200 floors, need over 150 lifts and be built of 700,000 pounds of concrete but specific solutions for many challenges have not been outlined in the proposal. Some of these are the fact that due to the height of the tower, it will experience more than 5 different micro climate conditions throughout its floors. As the temperature at the top could be as much as 10 degrees cooler than the ground floor.

As impressive or ambitious as this might be, the Nakheel tower will eventually be over taken by the "Mile-High" Tower, already commissioned by Saudi prince Al-Walid Bin Talal, one of the richest men on earth I might add. The tower gets its name from its height. That's right! It will be exactly 1 mile high, approximately 5,280 feet, have an estimated budget of $20 Billion and is to be located in the Northern Obhur district of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

The tower has been designed to contain it all, from residences, office and commercial spaces and a few 5 star hotels but as to be expected, the technical challenges are enormous! For example, much of the lifting will have to be carried out by specialized helicopters which will also be used as commuter transportation for the builders. Also, like the Nakheel tower, there will be a number of micro-climates within the building which will need to be addressed as well as the fact that the temperature in the area drops from about 120 degrees during the day to below freezing at night. But the most important of all is the building's resistance to strong prevalent winds to stop it from swaying. To address this last concern, Betchel engineering, responsible for the tower construction, is specifying a giant computer-operated damper with wind detecting sensors to control resonant motion and building drift.

Well, I really don't have much to say except that this is ridiculous! Just to compete and say "mine is bigger than yours?" How silly! I'm sure there are many poor children in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and all over the world that could have benefited better from all the billions that will be spent on these two buildings. I am a big fan of seeing great strides taken in building technology and ground breaking designs setting precedents for us to follow but this one is way too extravagant.

Images obtained from www.dailynews.com