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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a 1km tower in Dubai

Monday, October 06, 2008

Catherine Deshayes

Dubai developer Nakheel has unveiled plans to build a tower that could stand as high as one kilometre, thrashing the city's own world record. The tower will form part of a new town in the Jebel Area of Dubai...

The world's fastest growing city doesn't do things by halves, so it's not surprising that Dubai wants to beat its own world record for the tallest building in the world.

The proposed tower's exact height is being kept a secret, but the developers have promised that it will be taller than more than three of New York's Chrysler Buildings stacked end-to-end.

Dubai, known as the jewel of the Emirates, is planning a £21.7 billion 270-hectare new town, which will be called New Dubai, and should be constructed by 2018. The tower will be the town's centerpiece.

Highlighting Dubai's frantic pace, the new tower, which will have more than 200 floors, will dwarf the current record holder, the Burj Dubai, which hasn't even been completed yet.

Builder Emaar, who is behind the Burj Dubai, has kept the final height of the silvery steel-and-glass tower a closely guarded secret, saying only that it stood at a new record height of 2257 feet at the start of last month. It's due to be finished next September.

State-owned builder Nakheel will construct the new tower - the Nakheel Harbour and Tower - which has been designed by US Architect Woods Bagot.

The tower's design has been based on Islamic design inspired by the gardens of Alhambra in Spain, the harbour of Alexandria in Egypt, the promenade of Tangier in Morocco and the bridges of Esfahan in Iran.

The project will also include the world's first inner city harbour, and will be made up of four towers within one single structure, surrounded by 40 other towers ranging in height from 20 to 90 floors.

The tower will provide five different micro climatic conditions from top to bottom and house around 3,400 hotel rooms, including one super-luxury 100-room hotel at the very top.

The project will also offer 19,000 residential units to accommodate an estimated population of 55,000 people. A further 45,000 people are expected to work in the area.

It will also have 250,000 square metres of hotel and hospitality space and 950,000 square metres of retail space.

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, President of Nakheel's holding company, Dubai World, said that the project would be ‘one of a kind.'

Foundation work has already begun on the tower, which will be located between two of the city's artificial palm-shaped islands, which Nakheel also built.

Cityscape Dubai 2008, the world's largest property event, kicks off today, October 7^th, in Dubai, and expects to attract 60,000 visitors from 150 countries and will include 1,500 exhibitors.

Dubai has been spending mind boggling sums of money on construction and cranes are never absent from the skyline. This latest project is one more example of the city's drive to be recognized as the biggest and the best in the world.

Picture by formicaFre

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