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Saudi to build world's new tallest tower
From correspondents in Riyadh
From: AFP August 03, 2011 3:51AM

SAUDI billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has launched a project to build the world's tallest tower at more than 1000 metres in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

The project to built a tower topping Dubai's world's highest building, Burj Khalifa, "will soon see the light after the signing of a $1.2 billion agreement" between Prince Alwaleed's Kingdom Holding Co and construction giant Bin Laden Group, the Saudi tycoon said.

It will take 36 months to build the tower, said the Saudi businessman, a nephew of King Abdullah and one of the kingdom's wealthiest men. He did not say when construction will begin.

Prince Alwaleed said the tower was intended to "send a message of strength" reflecting the OPEC kingpin's economic and political stability.

"Our message is political," he said.

Saudi Arabia has been spared a wave of protests that has rocked the region, leading to the downfall of autocratic rulers in Tunisia and Egypt despite sporadic small protests staged by Shi'ites in the Eastern Province.
The tower, which will be part of a $US20 billion ($18.29 billion) project north of Jeddah, would top Dubai's 828-metre Burj Khalifa, which was opened last year.

It will include a hotel, apartments and offices occupying an area of 500,000 square metres.

crawf wrote:Burj Khalifa in Adelaide...

Pre-fab skyscraper to go up in 90 days
BY: LEO LEWIS From: The Times November 29, 2012 10:52AM

MOST modern economic booms coincide with grandiose ambitions to throw up an enormously high building - preferably the world's tallest - as a monument to a nation's financial might.

And while the completion of that edifice years later traditionally coincides with the downturn of an economy whose bubble has long since burst, a Chinese company is planning to finish the world's tallest building in little more than the time it takes to collate and release a single quarter's growth figures.

The statistics of the proposed tower, which would dominate the skyline of Changsha near the birthplace of Mao Zedong, are a mesmerising collection of extremes.

The plan is to construct an 838m tall, 220-storey building with 104 high-speed lifts, schools with space for 4,600 children, 17 helipads, a hospital and homes for more than 17,000 people - all constructed in a record-breaking 90 days.

The ambitions behind the speed of the Sky City build rest on the use of prefabricated segments that would be bolted together and allow the tower to go up at the rate of five storeys a day. The modules are said to have been under construction for some months.

The confidence of Broad Group, the company behind the project, in this method of construction was boosted by its completion in January of a 30-storey office block in 15 days.

However, engineers warn that the technique may not withstand the forces at play above 600m. Experts quoted in the construction trade media have questioned whether the architects of Sky City have considered if the module-based building provided enough stiffness, and how far the wind would cause it to sway.

When the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building at 828m, was under construction in Dubai, massive research efforts were required just to work out how to pump concrete to such an immense height.

But Broad Group has dismissed these concerns, pointing to its use of state-of-the art safety techniques. It says the building will have a three-hour fire resistance and withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake.

Permission to break ground, however, may be more complicated than bolting the building together. Blueprints have yet to be subjected to an environmental assessment by Hunan University, which will dictate the height of the tower. And according to official records, the land on which the skyscraper is to stand was sold to the company only last week.

Sky-high drama as tallest tower cost hits $1.5 billion
From: AFP July 23, 2013 12:02PM

A CHINESE construction company had boasted it would take just 90 days to build the world's tallest tower, but it hasn't quite worked out that way.

Construction of the 838-metre "Sky City" skyscraper in China has been hit with a series of delays as costs balloon to $1.58 billion, and safety fears persist.

Work on the foundations has just begun, with its constructor Broad Sustainable Buildings estimating the tower will be finished by next April.

Rising from a field in the central Chinese city of Changsha, the tower will be a little above the current record-holder, the 830-metre Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

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