The spotlight of late has once again fallen on Dubai’s ambitious architectural revolution. It is no surprises that amid the announcements of projects such as the Floating Tower, that it has been revealed that Dubai is on course to have more Supertalls (towers of over 100 habitable floors) than any other city on planet earth!
As you can see from the graphic, (supplied courtesy of Gulf News), there are six towers that will hover above 100 floors, Burj Dubai (130 Floors), Marina 101 (101 floors), Al Burj (180 floors?), Burj Al Alam (108 floors), Princess Tower (107 floors) and Pentominium (120 storeys) will complete the six.
BUT, Dubai is not all about the biggest and the largest. Dubai is becoming iconic as you can see from the recent announcement of the Oval, which only boasts 19 floors, however, it is set to become just as iconic as Dubai’s big booming towers!
Crystal World Structures and Buildings | |
Shown below are crystal sculptures of famous sites around the World. Click on the image to see a larger view. | |
 Arc De Triomphe, France J63S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 3/4" H |  Big Ben Tower, England J12S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2 3/4" H |
 Buckingham Palace, Britain J53S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 1/2" H |  Buddy Temple, India J61S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2 1/4" H |
 Angkor Wat, Cambodia J58S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 1/4" H |  Clock Tower of Kremlin, Russia J17S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2" H |
 Cologne Cathederal, Germany J74S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2 1/4" H |  Eiffel Tower, Paris J09S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 3 1/4" H |
 Town Hall of Florence, Italy J56S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2 1/2" H |  Golden Temple, Japan J60S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 3/4" H |
 Hemeji Castle, Japan J59S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 3/4" H |  Pisa Cathedral, Italy J65S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 1/2" H |
 St. Basil's Cathedral, Russia J73S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2 1/4" H |  Taj Mahal, India J19S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 3/4" H |
 Notre Dame, Paris J66S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 3/4" H |  Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy J10S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2 1/2" H |
 Potong Gate, Korea J52S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 1/2" H |  Pyramids, Egypt J67S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 1/2" H |
 Shwe Dagon Pagoda, Burma J62S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2" H |  St. Mark's Square, Italy J54S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2 1/2" H |
 St. Sophia Church, Turkey J64S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 1/2" H |  Sydney Opera House, Australia J14S |
 Temple Of Heaven, China J08S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2" H |  The Grand Palace, Thailand J57S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2" H |
 The Parliament, Brazil J18S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 1 3/4" H |  Twin Towers, Malaysia J72S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 3 1/4" H |
 Windmills, Holland J55S - 2 1/2" W x 2 3/4" D x 2 1/4" H |  Leaning Tower, Italy J10B - 2 1/2" Base Round 4 1/2" H |
| |  Big Ben Tower, England J12B - 3 1/2" W x 2" D x 4 1/2" H |
 Taj Mahal, India, Large J19B - 3" W x 3" D x 4 1/2" H |  J348 Olympic Stadium Montreal, Canada Base 4" x 3 1/2" x 2" H |
Many of you must know about the incredible development in Dubai in the past several years. These Images from the NASA Earth Observatory taken from 1973 to October of this year show the artificial landmasses off the coast as clear as macaroni glued on construction paper. The developer responsible for this, Nakheel, has an interactive map of future developments.
High rises have been sprouting all across the region like weeds in a sandbox.
Some of the newest concepts may well be a group of the most definitive examples of gigantism I have seen in the skyscraper world. The Dubai Towers-Dubai (creative name for creative architecture), by Sama Dubai, is one of the most recently unveiled designs.
Of course, the biggest news is that Dubai is soon to be home to several buildings that will not only be the tallest skyscrapers in the world, but will surpass the current record holder for tallest structure in the world, the KVLY-TV mast, without batting an eye. The Al Burj, also being developed by Nakheel, will be anywhere between 750 and 1000 meters high.
It’s competitor, The Burj Dubai, yet another SOM tower for the people, has already undergone construction and will be between 705 and 950 meters, the tallest structure in the world, at least until the Al Burj is built. These towers will beat out the KVLY-TV mast by half, if they reach their maximum projected heights.
More of these needles will most definitely continue to shoot out of the Middle Eastern sand in the future, as I have seen one such “top secret” design myself when I visited Pickard Chilton earlier this fall. Jon Pickard said, “I’d love to tell you how tall it is, but then I’d have to kill you.” Unfortunately, I did not bring my ninja-cam to take photos of the model.
Before you all get penis envy from looking at all these phalluses sparkling in the desert sun, take a look at the cost of building such gigantic wonders, and check out this slide show. Good thing “the richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth.”
Apparently, Gillette’s [yes, THAT ‘A Best A Man Can Get’ Gillette] visions of the future weren’t simply clean-shaven faces. He had a pretty large scale plan for the design and layout of ‘Metropolis‘ [no, not THAT Metropolis], a city near Niagara Falls. Meant to house something like 60 million people in 24,000 apartment buildings, the city looks pretty Corbusian to me…
Wow. If architecture in China couldn’t get anymore incredible, then we surmise it can only get friendlier for the environment. The Pearl River Tower in Guangzhou by architecture super sell-outs SOM, is the newest project by the firm dealing with advanced sustainable thinking towards design.
Here’s the deal. The project boasts 69 stories of masterful sustainable design, including turbines that turn wind into energy, a solar collector for harboring even more energy, and a ridiculous water collection system, part of which is heated by the sun for hot water. Along with these major sustainable goodies, the building also has cool water running under each one of the floors. The building does it’s own version of KITT’s super-pursuit mode when the inside air becomes too warm, and uses a method of convection best described in this article found at Metropolis Magazine to remedy it.
Comprised mainly of glass and steel, the major structural system is seen on the ends of the building in the form of an elongated and simplified DNA strand. Along with garnering energy for the building, the two openings in the larger faces of the facade (where the turbines and mechanical floors are located) draw natural air into the building and minimize wind loads that cause not so ninjaish things like this to happen.
Scheduled to be completed by fall of 2009, Pearl River Tower is ‘designed to produce more energy than it consumes’ and will surely set a standard for other skyscraper designs in the future. So where’s the terrible part?
