Thursday, December 08, 2005

A building a kilometre high?

According to the NBZ herald today, a new building is being proposed within a multi-billion dollar Arabian city, the 250-storey tower would form the centrepiece of a development that the Kuwati government hopes will establish it as a serious global player. Maybe Osama will leave this one alone?

London-based architect Eric Kuhne & Associates is in talks with Kuwaiti government officials over the project, according to a report published in the Architects' Journal.

The 1,001m tower will form the centrepiece of the Madinat al Hareer, or "City of Silk", that would house 700,000 people. I have not been up the skytower, so if I am ever in Kuwait when this is finished, you wont catch me up it.

Kuhne claims constructing the city and its infrastructure - including four ports - would cost $150bn (NZ$214bn) and take 25 years.

The next highest building in the world is the Burj Dubai, the landmark tower in the Middle Eastern tourist hotspot designed by US architect Skidmore Owings and Merrill.

Still under construction, its height is likely to be between 700 and 800m when it is completed in 2008.

The tallest completed building is Taipei 101, in Taiwan, which measures 509m, so the proposed new building will nearly be twice the height..... CRAZY.

More well known man made giants include the Empire State Building, which was the tallest structure in the world for 41 years, and almost 75 years after it was built it remains the world's ninth highest skyscraper at 443m. I nearly went up the Empire State Building when I was in NY in July, but changed my mind...

The Eiffel Tower in Paris measures 320m. The line up was too large when I was in Paris to go up this one....

At 328 metres Sky Tower in Auckland is the tallest tower in the Southern Hemisphere, offering breath-taking views for more than 80 kilometres in every direction. Never wanted to go up that after my issue with the Space Needle below.

I have been up the CN tower in Toronto, which is 553 meters tall.... I had a problem when I went up the Space Needle in Seattle with my buddy Riaz Khan. The building which is only 162 meters high started wobbling, and I had to crawl on my hands and knees to the bar where I promptly ordered a Jack and Coke before getting back to terra firma.

What is the point of building a building 1 kilometre high?


CN Tower 553 metres high

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You wait until someone shorts the fuse for their power grids. Half a kilometre walk is bad enough to share with thousands of people on the same sidewalk, but down the stairs? I get dizzy enough during fire drills coming down from the 11th floor! Must just be the phallic projectile syndrome. HAVE THEY EVER THOUGHT OF HOW MUCH THE BODY CORP ON THAT THING WOULD BE??? (ha ha ha )

Rob Good said...

I agree with Dad, and as for getting dizzy from the 11th floor Tony, I am thinking you should ask for an office on the ground level.

Andrew said...

These trophy towers aren't the same since Sept 11. Perhaps Arabs don't see it the same way.

Anonymous said...

We just moved to the 3rd floor. But although unprecedented and hopefully forever a rare occurrence, that Kiwi woman who rushed down the tower during 9/11 from the 57th storey, and have the building collapse 10 minutes after she got out, gets you thinking. Also climbing up and down a few flights of stairs during the Auckland power crisis (and no power to pump water up buildings)ceases to be fun after a while. All well and good now while they're oil-rich, but Auckland's was brought about by factors that included money for updating the grids, and NZ is by no means a terribly poor country. Once their oil runs out and they have to import water by the barrel...

Rob Good said...

It is a bit over the top is it not....

Stephanie said...

too much fucking money, not enough fucking sense.

I've been up seoul tower. Although not as tall as the others, it's on top of a mountain so you get some bloody nice views on the rear occasions where the smog clears.