Why would anyone get the impression that all we need in the Middle East is higher towers? In a region whose tomorrow is at stake every second of today, there are more constructive ways to use the money, creativity, and energy we have. Toppling Burj Khalifa as the highest tower in the world after only 18 months of its opening is not a good enough reason.
Architecture does not fall under “ the bigger, the better” category, architecture is about meeting human comfort in terms of design and function, its about the beauty of volumes and how they serve their role in the best way possible. It was never about requiring half a day to reach your destination going up the elevator, or standing out in an environment that is so incoherent from the actual structure.
Another thing that would make you wonder, why would they choose a name indicating the type of regime at such a critical political period “ Kingdom Tower” ?
The video at the bottom of the post is a more graphic approach of how odd it will look in its surrounding.
So far the press release for the project has not been officially out, but information on the project has been circulating a few sites:
“Kingdom Tower” will be one mile high. It will contain almost 12 million cubic feet of space. It will be part of a larger urban development built to house about 80,000 people, at a cost of almost 30 billion dollars.
In terms of scale, it is estimated that a lift journey to the uppermost level of this 275-floor structure will take 12 minutes, with the Burj Khalifa’s 828m shrinking in the wake of the Kingdom Tower’s 1,609m height. Similarly, the highly celebrated Kingkey Tower in Shenzhen is only destined to reach 441m, while Guangzhou’s Canton Tower stands at 610m high. Should this lofty new building been seen through to realisation, it will overshadow every other ‘tall’ tower in the world and push the boundaries of architectural design in a way many never thought possible.
Source: Singularity Hub and Wan
Going this height cannot be justified for a development in Saudia Arabia- they have the land! They can do better if they invest for horizontal cities where people can walk and interact- you hardly find it in the GCC. I believe that including a housing project at the tower would be a big failure.
Thank you! exactly my thoughts, while people are going to horizontal scrapers (like Vanke Headquarters i posted about before) , more greenery, efficient architecture, the GCC is going in the opposite direction with no future vision whatsoever! It will just be an empty tower costing too much for maintenance.
Unfortunately, the modern architecture is not about those wonderful things you’ve listed. It’s all about money. And as long as “bigger” is financially better they will keep building Babylon towers. But as we all know sooner or later Babylon falls…
Tower with the tallest height than Burj Khalifa is like a dream. If it will construct I would go there as I visited the Burj Khalifa by using CITYCARD DUBAI.