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Kingdom Tower: World’s Tallest Building
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Why does man have to go one better than everyone else every time? As soon as the biggest, the tallest, the highest, the something-est gets built and made, then it has to be toppled by something that is even bigger. One-upmanship is what man does best at times; going that little bit further, whether it be for good or for bad.
It’s now the Saudi Arabians in Jeddah that are starting this Sunday (April 27th) laying the foundations for the Kingdom Tower, the world’s tallest building to be! But the foundations will need to be 60 meters deep (196.85 ft).
• It will stand 1**, 000 meters** tall (3280.84 feet), which is 173 meters (over 567 feet) taller than the current title-holder, which is the Burj Khalifa, Dubai.
• Its total cost will hit $1.23 billion (although that’s the cost at the outset…since when did builders manage to stick to what the price tag said?).
• There will be 200 floors to the building.
• The architects are Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture.
But, just how do you go about building a 1-km building?
The building will have to withstand the sea water nearby and also the wind. The building will have a tapering look to it rather than just a block of concrete, meaning that it will be able to stand the wind load, with the shape changing in the building every few floors until it tapers to a point at the top.
Some architects believe today that we can design and build without too much trouble buildings of between one and even two kilometers high. Beyond that it seems that we might have some trouble going further up.
But, it’s not just building the thing that is a feat in itself; it’s also providing the equipment and the machinery to enable people to get to the top. No point in building a kilometer-high building if you have to walk to the top. There will be 59 elevators in the Kingdom Tower (including 54 single-deck and 5 double-deck elevators). There will also be 12 escalators. Speed of the elevators? 10 meters per second!
According to statistics analyzed by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat:
• 2013 was the 2nd best year for the completion of buildings that are over 200 meters tall.
• The best ever year was in 2011 with 81 buildings completed around the world and 2013 saw 73 buildings of that height going up.
• It’s in the United Arab Emirates that we find three of the tallest buildings in the top five.
• It’s China that built more buildings of over 200 meters than any other country, completing last year 37 buildings in 22 different cities. That means that China built 50% of the world’s tallest building in 2013. The tallest building in China is in Changzhou: the 332-meter Modern Media Center.
• The USA only built one 200+ building in 2013 and that was the one at 1717 Broadway, New York. It measures 230 meters. But, the spire of the 541-meter One World Trade Center will only enter the figures this year (2014).
• It’s Asia that dominates the world with 73% of all completions in 2013 in that area.
• There were no megatall (600-plus meters) buildings built in 2013.
• There were 9 supertall buildings of over 300 meters, however.
• There is a forecast of approximately 65 to 90 buildings that will be over 200 meters that are on the books for 2014.
• 13 buildings that are planned for completion in 2014 will be considered supertalls.
• They include the Spine Tower in Istanbul, Turkey and the KKR2 Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
But, will people want to work and even live in the staggering kilometer-high tower? That’s another matter. But, one thing is for sure, people always get attracted to what’s the biggest, the tallest and the best. But, why aren’t we building the best in the West?
Originally posted: Kingdom Tower: World’s Tallest Building
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My girl says girth is better than heighth. Plop this sucker in the pentagon and it wouldn't even feel it.
my girls. i'm old. i'm lucky. i've had a lot of fun.
But, why aren’t we building the best in the West?
Traffic. Parking. Earthquakes. Sunlight encroachment. Workman's comp for the window washers. Hurricanes. Tornadoes. With the Internet everyone works at home anyway. With the economy nobody needs the office space, and putting residential outdoor balconies 2,000 feet up is just inviting trouble. Giant apes. Towering infernos.
IWC :
... 2 dollar per hour workers in other countries ...
... cheaper land ( ??? just guessing there ) ...
Who wants to exist in a kilometer termite mound that is mostly a huge filing cabinet? Other than certified documents are people still even storing dead trees? This makes no sense to me, unless it's some pervert's phallic obsession.
It's all fun and games until the lifts stop working!
I dunno. I live in a city of high-rises and have met a few women who, when they're looking for a new job, choose not according to the job specs or company, but which building the company is in. That's it. Their sole criteria. They assume the pay and conditions will be roughly equal for their qualifications. I haven't met any men who have actually said the same thing, but I guess there's more than a few.
There's only 3.5% unemployment, so I suppose companies know the deal and figure they have no choice but to pay the obscenely high rents in prime buldings to attract staff.
So that's where the carefully controlled monopoly pricing of gasoline went.
are there a lot of angry part time airline pilots in saudia arabia?
Everything's bigger in Saudi Arabia.™
Maybe that's why Obama likes going there and bowing to kings...
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
Ozymandius - Percy Shelley
Ozzy rocks, really like his music.
enter sandman-metallica
Universal penis envy!
'twere ever so, Freud had his thingie and "men of power" have to evidence this.
It is a FU moment for the owner, imagine how deflating it is when the next "spire" is "bigger" than the current "champion".
Us little piglets don't compete in such trivia, rather, we gather in the disappointed sows who do not aspire to such things. Ben Franklin said it best: "they don't tell, they don't swell, and they are grateful as hell"
- Ned
I guess having the biggest dick is important to some people.
And that, Ned, is pure poetry! Ol' Ben was right, the older ones are more grateful.
why do they keep building tall buildings when it's a well known fact that an office furnishings fire can collapse the whole thing?
Building collapses due to minor office furnishings fires only happen when those furnishings include defense department records. For some reason these seem to exert tremendous force on load bearing beams and columns.
not quite double post -
let the house of saud figure that one out now.
magic box cutters can be a real bitch. seriously, how do you defend magic muslim box cutters? /s
let the house of saud figure that one out now.
In the end... "size doesn't matter"
“Why does man have to go one better than everyone else every time?”
Maybe THIS is why.
Are they still trying to develop a space elevator?
My dick's bigger then your dick.
Shouldnt they be going for the worlds longest building?
http://energy.gov/articles/photo-week-longest-building-world
Just a bigger target for Al Queda...
It will just something for these guys to climb...
Someone has to change the light at the top.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INbKYq0G9nU