Tallest Building

Chinese construction company Broad Group has announced ambitious plans to construct the world's tallest skyscraper in an implausibly swift 90 days. If the target is met, the 838-meter (2,750-ft) "Sky City One" will take only a twentieth of the time that the Burj Khalifa, the world's current tallest building, took to build, and standing 10 meters (33 feet) taller upon completion. The secret to the rapid construction is prefabrication. Around 95 percent of the building will have been put together in modular form before work commences on site.  Read More

The Burj Khalifa, which has held the title of world’s tallest building with a height of 2,717 ft (828 m) since its completion in 2010, may have its crown stolen by a new 3,445 ft (1,050 m) high building proposed for construction in Azerbaijan.  Read More

Chicago-based firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill (AS+GG) has officially been announced as the design architects for the Kingdom Tower that is to be built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Initially planned to stand one mile (1.6 km) high and be called the Mile-High Tower, the building was scaled down after soil testing in the area in 2008 cast doubt over whether the location could support a building of that height. Now the building will stand over 0.62 miles (one kilometer) tall, which will still allow it to overshadow the 2,717 ft. (828 m) Burj Khalifa to claim the title of the world’s tallest building.  Read More

The world’s tallest building opened yesterday, with a number of surprises including a new name. The 828-meter Burj Khalifa after UAE President Khalifa Bin Zayed, now holds a raft of world records including the world’s highest occupied floor (160th floor), the world's highest observation deck (124th floor), the world's highest mosque (158th floor), the world's highest swimming pool (76th floor), and the world’s tallest service lift. The tower is so tall it can be seen 95 km away, and breaks the previous record by 63% - quite some feat - check the CTBUH Top 100 Tallest Buildings database and the World’s tallest structures list for all the numbers.  Read More

If a gob-smacking view is your thing - and heck, it's mine - you could do worse than check in at the Park Hyatt, Shanghai, which has just taken the mantle of the world's highest hotel. See that nice pagoda-shaped building you're looking down on out the window? Yeah, that's the Jin Mao Tower, and it's about 40 meters taller than the Empire State Building in NYC. The Park Hyatt Shanghai occupies floors 79 to 93 of the Shanghai World Financial Center, the tallest tower in China at a massive 492 meters - and it's shaped like a giant bottle opener. Rack rates start at around US$320 per night, and ramp up to nearly US$13K for the stunning Chairman Suite.  Read More

It looks like Dubai is running out of countries to compete with in the architectural stakes, so they’ve started outdoing themselves. State-owned builder Nakheel has unveiled plans to build what would be the world’s tallest building before the Gulf city state’s previous claimant to the title, the Burj Dubai Tower, has even finished construction. Nakheel plans to build a tower measuring over 1 kilometer (0.62 miles), high in an area between two of the city’s artificial palm shaped islands which the company also created. Nakheel has not revealed the exact height or cost of the tower but said it would have “more than 200 floors” and be part of “a multi-billion pound development”, which includes a man made inland harbor and 40 additional towers ranging from 20 to 90 floors high.  Read More

December 31, 2007 U.K. architectural firm Foster + Partners has announced that preliminary planning permission has been granted for the world’s largest single building - the Crystal Island project in Moscow.  Read More

July 31, 2007 The enormous and still skyrocketing wealth centralized in Dubai has seen some absolutely outrageous construction projects taking off. From the world’s tallest building and a ski slope in the desert to custom-built islands and rotating skyscrapers, the international commerce hub seems to have ingenious developers fighting each other over who can make the biggest show of material excess. The latest jewel in Dubai’s extravagant crown will be a 516-metre tall apartment building, more than twice as high as the previous biggest residential building and with no expense spared on pure luxury. Even its name, the Pentominium, drips with treacle-thick exclusivity. Some floors will be uniquely suspended in mid-air, giving the impression that you’re living in a floating penthouse in the sky, with residents having access to a fleet of luxury automobiles and yachts for transport and entertainment. The ancient Egyptians defined their era with the impossible pyramids of Giza – could the fantastical architecture of Dubai be the defining monument of our era?  Read More

December 17, 2006 Santiago Calatrava is known for his ability to create public landmarks on a grand scale. The world renowned Spanish architect and engineer has one of the most impressive bodies of work ever assembled including the Athens Olympic Sports Complex, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center Transport Hub, plus dozens of the most beautiful buildings in major cities around the world - airports, opera houses, bridges, train stations. Now Shelbourne Development Group has filed a final design for the Chicago Spire, with the City of Chicago. The Calatrava-designed Chicago Spire is 2,000-foot tall tower which will become the tallest residential building in the world if approved. It’s Calatrava’s second remarkable residential building.  Read More