Green Float – A carbon negative floating city featuring the world’s tallest building
A team of scientists, engineers and financers in Japan have begun work on a project that will make the Burj Khalifa in Dubai look tiny. The team is aiming to build a tower that is 1km tall and has a vertical farm balanced on a floating concrete lilypad. The team believes that by the year 2025 the necessary technology should be ready to start the building process.
Glass Used Extensively in the Recently Unveiled ‘Burj Khalifa’
The Burj Khalifa, formerly known as the Burj Dubai, was unveiled January 4 and now stands as the world’s tallest building at 2,716.5 feet. Developed by Emaar Properties, glass was a dominant element in the design and construction of the tower.
The Kingdom Tower: Skyscraper for the Next Financial Collapse?
Blair Kamin has an update on the Kingdom Tower, the proposed 3,280-ish-foot skyscraper designed by local starchitect Adrian Gill and planned for completion in 2017 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at an estimated cost of $1.23 billion dollars (cheaper than the Burj Khalifa, a Gill project at SOM, thanks to low labor costs).
Japan’s newest skyscraper uses technology intended to protect against quakes
A Tokyo developer took visitors up the world’s tallest freestanding broadcast structure on Tuesday, a 634-meter (2,080-foot) tower with special technology meant to withstand earthquakes that often strike Japan. The Tokyo Skytree is the world’s second-tallest structure behind the 828-meter (2,717-foot) Burj Khalifa in Dubai, according to owner Tobu Tower Skytree Co.
Architect Q&A: The State of Super-Tall Towers
Adrian Smith, 66, is the senior design partner at Chicago-based Adrian Smith+Gordon Gill Architecture. While at his previous firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Mr. Smith designed the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which at 2,717-feet high is the world’s tallest, along with China’s Nanjing’s Zifeng Tower, Chicago’s Trump International Hotel & Tower and Shanghai’s Jin Mao Tower.
Sand castles in the sky: Architectural Record examines the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and...
This month's Architectural Record takes an in-depth look at the Burj Khalifa, the record-shattering, mixed-use Dubai skyscraper by Chicago architect Adrian Smith and his former colleagues at the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Also featured: CityCenter, the massive Las Vegas project that includes two tilting condominium towers by Chicago's Helmut Jahn and his firm Murphy/Jahn.
Back to basics
Other than a few iconic structures such as Dubai’s Burj Khalifa or Riyadh’s Kingdom Tower, most of the new planned developments in this part of the world are alien to their context. They could as easily exist in Kuala Lumpur or Frankfurt as they could in the Middle East.
Dubai’s Old Town neighbourhood
Old Town forms part of Downtown Burj Dubai, a vast development between Sheikh Zayed Road and Al Khail Road that is home to the sky-piercing Burj Khalifa. Grabbing at the skirt tails of the Burj is The Address hotel, its distinctive spatula-shaped silhouette a landmark in its own right. Next door is the cavernous retail cathedral of Dubai Mall.
Sustainable by design
When the Burj Khalifa opened with a dazzling fireworks display earlier this year, the tower was hailed as a marvel of modern engineering, which it certainly is. However, it is also an excellent example of sustainability at work.
Construction continues at Dubai Pearl
"In the meantime, with construction continuing on site, people can now see the superstructure rising above the bridges and roads that surround the Dubai Pearl site which is located at the base of Palm Jumeirah. Dubai Pearl will begin to have a physical impact so everyone driving past the site will be able to follow its construction from now until completion."
