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Saudi Arabia Constructing World's Tallest Building
kkleiner writes "1,000 meters, or 3,280 feet. That's two-thirds of a mile. When the Kingdom Tower is built on the outskirts of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia it will not only become the tallest building in the world, it will shatter the old record. The total cost for the tower is approximately $1.2 billion. It features a Four Seasons hotel, Four Seasons serviced apartments, luxury condominiums, top class office space and the world's highest observatory."
The next time you go at the pump, think about that !
isn't the middle of a city a bad place for an observatory with all the light pollution and whatnot?
That's nearly twice as tall as the Burj Khalifa according to the graphic in TFA 8-(
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I assume they're building it on the site of the old Tower of Babel, as a memorial to those who lost their lives there some 6000 years ago...
This one will be built by the bin Laden group, nice
At least 173 meters (568 feet) taller, sight-seers on the tower’s observation deck could see how long it takes for their spit to hit the top of Burj Khalifa (this is, if they weren’t hundreds of miles apart).
Yes. We got it. Its taller.
When the oil dries up it's going to become a playground for the hyper-rich, at least that's their plan.
If that fails, well it'll make an awesome post-apocalyptic wasteland.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Is it just me or do these super high skyscrapers look out of place when the surrounding buildings are so small? It seems they are more concerned about the record than the overall skyline. I also wonder if western tourist would be well received there.
When I first read that my first thought was that they would have telescopes up there. But all they mean is an observation deck. How disappointing.
More seriously, TFA discusses how this is part of the attempt by Saudi Arabia to move away from having an economy run off of oil. So this will have hotels and offices inside. I'm not sure that this is the best thing to do to get off of such things given how many basic problems Saudi Arabia has and how many fairly cheap things could be done to improve the education and general productivity of most of the population.
One thing that will be an obvious issue for such a large building is the exact layout and behavior of the elevator system. Some modern tall buildings have elevators that don't have simple up and down buttons but rather have a keypad where one punches in what floor one wants to go to and then the system optimizes which elevator to send to you rather than simply sending the next available elevator in that direction. This also allows elevators to travel at faster than the amount they can deaccelerate in a single floor. There's some non-trivial math involved in making such systems, and even making them slightly more efficient can have large scale payoffs simply due to the sheer number of people. As real-estate becomes more expensive and scarce throughout the planet, we're going to need to look more and more at how pre-existing very large buildings have handled these sorts of issues. So I'm happy that we have people like the Saudis doing this now long before we really need it.
From TFA:
The final details of Kingdom Tower’s design are yet to be worked out, but construction is to begin immediately.
We all know how well that impacts budgets and schedules for software projects!
OTOH this could be their plan for increasing non oil (tourism) revenue
If that fails, well it'll make an awesome post-apocalyptic wasteland.
True, but who is going to want to climb that many flights of stairs to have their climactic last-stand against the zombie hordes on the observatory deck?
The enemies of Democracy are
Parts are restricted to non-muslims. Presumably not the parts westerners buy oil but Mekka is not a city known for its openness to visitors.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It's not too far from 2/3. (1.86)/3 is more accurate, if you want to stick with thirds.
5/8 is the fraction I would have used, seeing as anyone who runs track in the U.S. knows that 1600m is about 1 mile.
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Yes. A total lack of concern for the welfare of the people of the world, whom they're reaming on energy prices and threatening to enslave with their idiot religion.
no problem, Gruber can come from a large family..I think it's time for a hot Gruber sister to step up to face McClane as a vengeful-thief-pretending-to-be-terrorist.
"Who the hell... puts an evac station... up three hundred flights of goddamn stairs?" - Coach, Left 4 Dead 2
Building the world's tallest tower is usually followed by a recession. Oh, oh.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
...and that means extravagance should not be bounded, espeicailly in the oil-rich middle east (or Texas).
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You should check out what they are doing to their own subjects, makes their relationship to the rest of the world look downright friendly.
Zombie hordes? Come on, there needs to be some kind of big bad guy at the top. I'm thinking a cross between the Maledict and DMC4's lightning demon. Players will shit their pants.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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You take a express elevator that stops only at the sky lobby's and then switch over to a local one (some of them have local stacked on top of each other so they don't need lot's of space for all the elevators) other places have banks of elevators that only go to one set of floors.
The keypad system may be better for places where most of the elevators stop on all floors.
Even at 1000 meters, you'd only be able to see about 120 km. The distance you can see over the horizon is roughly proportional to the square root of your height above the surface. To see Somalia from Jeddah, you'd have to build a 100km tall tower. If they built it to 3000m, you might be able to see northern Sudan from the peak.
As to feeding Somalis, assuming about 1 USD / day to feed a person, you could feed all of Somalia for 4 months
No, you'll put your eye out, kid."
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
So will anyone go there? If you like a drink, are female or gay, Christian or atheist is there any way you would go there unless you were forced to do so on business?
And once the oil does run out the reasons for doing so become even more remote.
Building a non-oil-based economy would require social and educational development, which in turn requires leadership, or in other words, insight and hard work by the ruling elites.
However building the tallest phallic symbol just requires throwing money at immigrant workers, and in the long run will accomplish nothing much except an impressive symbol of wasted wealth. But it leaves more playtime for the rulers, and a clear sense of accomplishment ("look at that!")... as opposed to actually empowering their people, which would probably be counter-productive to the rulers anyway, diluting their grip on the region.
Protip:
The causes of famine are politics first, logistics second, and lack of actual food last. It's been this way for a long time. If you have warlords refusing NGOs like UNICEF, then the problem isn't spending money on a building a thousand miles away. There is plenty of food to go around. The problem is getting it there.
--
BMO
If you want an apartment in Dubai, the Burj Kalafia has space available. Rates start at about $20K/year for a hotel-room sized apartment.
Only if it's the world's biggest airplane.
In my opinion, there is something wrong when the west's best engineers and architects are designing structures in countries that train very few of their own engineers and architects. It seems to me an economic distortion that is a result of our oversized reliance on foreign oil. Our best and our brightest are often not working on building our own society. I am skeptical of the long term economic wisdom of our current system.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
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Take heart - there's a theory about skyscrapers that states that when a society starts building really big ones it's only a dozen or so years away from bankruptcy.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Wonder how many people $1.2 billion could feed. Think they'll be able to see Somalia from on top of that tall building. Could someone do the math on that?
Quite a few, especially architects, engineers, construction laborers, logistics companies, and materials suppliers. After construction, a tourist industry and thousands of support staff, maintenance technicians, office managers, and other occupants, and a large supply chain for power, water, sewer, building services, decorators, etc.
Vision with execution is hallucination.
The architect screams "Fuck! This wasn't the deepest well on Earth! It was a tower!"
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
. . . plenty of time to figure out how they are going to fly a plane into it. At that height, they might not need to do it themselves. Remember July 28, 1945 -- http://www.archive.org/details/Pa2107Empire. The risks of standing out in a crowd.
I don't know about the timing, but the idea is sound.
The idea being, if there was anywhere else worth investing the money, nobody would create a hyperexpensive cash sink like that.
I think the failure of humanity in this regard is that we allow it to happen, instead of immediately confiscating the cash and giving it to people who can use it to create demand that, for everyone else, would be worth investing to supply.
Fortunately, thanks to gravity, it only takes 10.1 seconds to travel that km.
"Saudi Arabia Begins Construction of [what will be the] Worldâ(TM)s Tallest Building
"The total cost for the tower is [estimated to be] $1.2 billion. It [will] feature a Four Seasons hotel, Four Seasons serviced apartments, luxury condominiums, top class office space and [what will be] the world's highest observatory."
That said, I predict financial failure IF it ever gets built because (news flash) almost no one wants to visit Saudi Arabia and those who want to won't be able to afford staying in that building.
This is what Arab nations do for fun, apparently: build ever taller and more opulent structures. Woo.
I'm no expert on middle east politics, but there seems to be some amount of conflict over there. Saudi Arabia seems to be among the friendlier countries, but there's no guarantee that they won't be attacked by some radicals who think the Saudis aren't Muslim enough or something. Or maybe the Saudis will piss off the Israelis. However you spin it, this building could conceivable make a nice big target for some terrorists.
So who would want to work there?
That's actually my biggest concern about these super tall structures. It seems like the more occupants you place in a single structure, the more you risk accidents that cause a need for evacuation (fire most obviously, but also such things as flooding from burst pipes or carelessness). If a far more efficient system of elevators isn't put together than what I normally see used, I'd worry about the safety of such buildings. I know we've got a pretty basic 22 story apartment building (former hotel) here in town that I occasionally get called out to for computer service calls, and quite a few older people in relatively poor health have moved in there. It only has 2 regular passenger elevators (and I believe a 3rd. freight elevator on an opposite wall), and at least one of the two primary elevators is often shut down for maintenance or repairs. You can expect to spend a good 4-5 minutes getting from an upper floor apartment to the lobby, in most cases, with all the people constantly going in and out. It already seems to me like it pushes the boundaries of "safe", as "run of the mill" as it is in height.
Plus, despite all the talk about real-estate becoming so scare we need these structures? I'm not sure there aren't diminishing returns past a certain number of floors. How much extra money does it cost to construct buildings like this to withstand high winds and to run utilities that far up and down to each room that needs them? Wouldn't you be better off building all of the buildings in the area with, say, 15 or 20 floors, vs. trying to have a few mega-structures like this?
someone's trying to take a peek at all the virgins they were promised...
Of course, there is a high coloration between building bib buildings and economic crash. Think of it as the last gasp of optimism. Think Empire State building, World Trade Center, Malaysia 10 years ago, Dubai a few years ago
And then they'd go back to starving again.
I heard it said once, and it seems true for the most part when describing populations: People don't starve, people are starved.
They are starved by communism (forced farm collectivation), a kleptocracy that keeps everything to the dictator and his supporters, wars that displace people and ruin crops, or they are purposely starved as part of a program by the rulers to suppress a certain demographic.
Donations of food will only temporarily alleviate the problem. A bomb dropped on the dictator's palace might be money better spent.
Now someone needs to make one with a volume of 3*3*3 KM
And, as a counterpoint, the Rockefeller Center, which was started during the great depression and has been an example for people making large capital investments ever since. If you build during a recession, you get lots of cheap labour and then have a big building that you can rent out when the economy recovers. Looking at the wikipedia example, it seems that it works very well if you cherry pick your examples, but it's just as easy to cherry pick counterexamples (recessions with no skyscrapers, skyscrapers not followed by recessions).
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"Among investors is the Binladen Group, the Saudi construction giant owned by the family of Osama bin Laden."
True, and the artist's rendition of the observation deck, a big round platform sticking out the side of the building, just screams "boss fight arena!"
Inside, just before you head out onto the deck, there should be a little atrium where you can find crates full of ammunition.
The enemies of Democracy are
saudi arabians = bin Laden group? americans = ___ : you fill in the blank (pun not intended but that works too)
Except for China. Anyone could come up with a good long list of shit they could improve, but instead they build entire cities that damn near nobody can afford to live in just to make their annual GDP growth percentages look good.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
The problem is getting it there
And the difficulty increases as the accuracy of 'there' increases. It's trivial to get food to, say, Africa. It's fairly easy to get food to a specific country. Getting it to a famine site within the country is harder. Getting it to a famine site and distributing it to the people who are actually starving, rather than the ones with guns is really difficult.
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I never quite understood the claims that Somalia has no government. Isn't "warlord" just another term for "government, run as dictatorship, controlling a small area, without membership in the United Nations"? The only difference between Saudi Arabia and a Somali warlord is a matter of scale and the fact that the Saudis have more money.
1KM is more than enough for a parachute to open, so you may find that that's a route that people on the top floors actually take when they're in a hurry. Going up may take quite a bit longer though.
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Knock off each up-and-coming warlord before he can consolidate his power. In the perpetual confusion at the top, the people at the bottom will be able to organize themselves and begin providing food.
It costs about $30,000 total to deliver a smart bomb. Not a bad deal, much cheaper than just giving food.
In work time sheets, I prefer to call 45 minutes an hour.
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The contract to construct the building was signed with The Bin Laden Group, a Saudi Arabian construction firm.
hierophanta = _______ : fill in the blank...
Train the locals to kill the warlords, and help them do it.
This was really a somewhat factual joke. But sending food is pointless, since it doesn't help in the long run, and can even serve to help prop up the dictator or warlord who is the source of the starvation. Either he confiscates the food to prop up the regime, the food going to the people allows him to confiscate more local food to prop up the regime, or the people finally being fed can alleviate the dissatisfaction that could cause them to revolt.
In reality, both would be required. Train them and give them food and supplies to be strong enough to take out the warlord.
I can't think of an instance where just sending food ended long-term famine either. They will remain poor and starving until their political situation improves, and in these places that is not likely to happen through peaceful means.
Does tallest building really impress anyone anymore? How about doing something interesting with that money like doing something in space or starting new research laboratories. Skyscrapers are boring.
I've mostly heard people say Somalia doesn't have an effective government. I don't keep up on it much, but there are competing factions and at least one president that some people recognize. Depending on how you define terms, total anarchy could be government. Somalia has way more than that.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Your religion is mostly likely capitalism, practiced more virulently than any other religion in history.
With the exception of grammar-nazism
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
I guess that means that it will be safe from Al Qaeda.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's why their model is no good.
It's less amenable to robber-barons, but their surreal attitude towards pricing makes it less amenable to everyone.
America needs less laissez-faire, but not that much less.
Wouldn't you be better off building all of the buildings in the area with, say, 15 or 20 floors, vs. trying to have a few mega-structures like this?
Yes, of course you would, if practicality and usefulness was your goal. But of course this building isn't about those things, it's about showing the world that the Saudis have the world's biggest, um, buildings.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The money will go to the Bin Laden group, the building will actually be built by lots of underpaid, ill-treated slave-like migrants. Saudis aren't big on doing actual work themselves. The design won't be Saudi either, I bet.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Correct.
saudi arabians = bin Laden group?
When the group of Saudis are in fact the family of Osama bin Laden, and use the official name "Binladen Group" for conducting business, then yes, that is true. The Bin Laden Group is a company that is a major investor in the tower and likly to do a large portion of the work constructing it. So yes, the Saudis in question have direct ties to Osama bin Laden. Perhaps you should read a little more next time before demonstrating that you are an ignorant ass in public (as so many ignorant asses are wont to do, perhaps that's one of the features that makes their ignorance more than just run of the mill ignorance and instead up to the "ignorant ass" level of ignorance. But thanks for reminding us of that.
Learn to love Alaska
Government != responsible government...
Well as one of those hyper-rich myself, I can't wait to buy a whole floor of the place so I can enjoy the many benefits of the Kingdom:
- Amazing views. Of sand. Lots and lots of sand. Then again, at the height my floor will be I will probably only see the curvature of the earth, but still...
- And that's about it...
Seriously, what is it with these insane projects? They seem to think that if they build outrageous, futuristic super-luxury developments all of the world's super-rich will suddenly flock to them. Maybe they should phone Dubai and ask how their palm thingy is doing, or that world islands bit of silliness is playing out.
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
Things like this and the island paradises they keep building is the real reason why gas is so high priced.
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.