CONSTRUCTION & TECHNOLOGY

Vision is a word you hear a lot in the GCC. But just imagine if you will, sitting down in a meeting and deciding to construct the world's tallest building in your city. Not one that is going to be the tallest by a few dozen metres, and relinquish its title to another tower, in another city, within a few years, but the tallest by a massive margin.

A plan to build the tallest building on earth — the $30 billion Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, western Saudi Arabia that will stand one mile high — has reportedly been approved. The Kingdom Tower, designed by American Adrian Smith, will be nearly double the height of the existing tallest building on the planet, the 2,717-foot-tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, also designed by Smith.

Delta Sound has provided sound syncronisation and fireworks for the opening of Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the tallest man-made structure in the world. In a ceremony witnessed by thousands of Dubai residents and millions via television, Delta Sound produced a light and sound display to mark the $1.5bn tower's official opening earlier this month.

Sometimes, the love of going viral on the Internet surpasses everything. So much so, some might even want to drop their phones from the tallest building in the world, you...

Developed by Kobi Karp, a Miami based architectural and interior design firm, the “Miapolis” is a 975-meter high tower planned for Watson Island that if constructed will surpass Dubai’s Burj Khalifa by 183 meters. Accommodating an amusement park, observatory, restaurants, 1.96 million sq ft of shops, over 1000 apartments, 1 million sq ft office space and a 792-room hotel, the 160-story superscraper will create 35,000 permanent jobs and generate $39 million to the City and $2.5 billion to the local economy annually.

Online previews of a new computer game set in Dubai after the city is devastated by a natural disaster are being blocked in the UAE. The battle scenes in Spec Ops: The Line are set against familiar landmarks such as the Burj Khalifa that have been ravaged by powerful sandstorms.

At least one Oregon exporter defied gravity in 2009, getting its products a half mile in the sky above Dubai during a year when the state's foreign sales sank. Workers at Warm Springs Composite Products mixed a patented brew of earth, fiberglass and recycled newspaper to make fire-resistant-rated door parts for the Burj Khalifa, which opened recently as the world's tallest building.

The Burj Khalifa's elevators have the world's longest travel distance from lowest to highest stop. It is the first mega-rise to have elevators with specially programmed, permit-controlled evacuation procedures. At 5,500 kg capacity, the firemen/service elevator is the world's tallest service elevator. 54 lifts have been installed in the tower.

Movenpick Hotels & Resorts' Movenpick Hotel Apartments Downtown Dubai will become its seventh Dubai property when it opens in the second half of 2017.

Four islands already built by Dubai-based Nakheel on Palm Deira project will be used to launch a new mixed-use development. Nakheel will build a 250-room hotel with one the islands being home to one of the world’s largest aquariums.