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RELATED ARTICLES: Tall-tower trend far from over, says Al-Futtaim | Kazakh tent world's tallest tensile structure | How the Burj was built
When Dubai’s Burj Khalifa reached its final height of 828 metres – becoming the tallest building in the world by over 200m – it did so against a background of global financial uncertainty.
As a result, by the time the iconic tower was finished most of its competitors had fallen by the wayside.
Among them were plans for a 1,001m tower in Kuwait and Dubai’s Nakheel Tower, also clocking in at over one kilometre. Another kilometre-high tower, in Saudi Arabia’s coastal hub of Jeddah, is alleged to be ongoing, but information about the project is limited.
But building supertalls is an expensive business, and with financial uncertainty ongoing, it would be no surprise if the Burj holds onto its world’s-tallest crown for some time. At over 800m, the Burj is significantly bigger than the Taipei 101, the current world’s second tallest, and the Shanghai Tower (632m) currently under construction in China’s financial hub.
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“It is likely that the global financial crisis, current problems with rentals and asset values, and the lack of capital generally will mean that building super-tall will be out of fashion,” said Richard Marshall, an engineer at Buro Happold.
Marshall added that if anyone is going to buck that trend, it is likely to be either China or certain areas of the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia.
“With capital and a relatively unconstrained decision making elite, they are more probable locations for the next generation of super-tall buildings,” he said.
Although it will clock in at a good few metres lower than the Burj, Gensler’s Shanghai Tower, in the city’s Lujiazui district, is already proving that point. The tower will overshadow the Shanghai World Financial Centre (492m), currently the third tallest building in the world, by some 150m.
Gensler’s Chris Chan, who designed the tower, admitted that financial considerations are paramount when drawing up a design for a tall building, but he added that in a city where space is seriously constrained in comparison to the population, tall towers become all the more viable.
“Pound for pound a tall building will cost more in terms of construction, but you also have to factor in the amount of land area you are creating,” Chan said, adding that the Shanghai Tower is creating 380,000m2 of space on a tiny footprint.
It is an argument that Eric Kuhne, the designer behind the proposed City of Silk tower in Kuwait, agrees with. “They are hugely expensive, but because the City of Silk was conceived as much as a diplomatic symbol as it was a functional piece of architecture, obviously that mobilises more capital,” he said.
Kuhne’s tower is planned to be the centrepiece of a 250km2 development on the Kuwaiti coast, which will include a new airport, a business district and thousands of units of new housing, offices and commercial units. It is made up of seven 30-storey buildings, separated by four-storey sky-gardens and supported by twisting three towers together. The project was commissioned by the Kuwait government before the financial crisis shook the country, and is currently still in the design phase.
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FEATURED COMMENT
Joan... sorry to say but you know nothing it seems. I worked under Christopher Chan's guidance in 2007 and by then he h