Thursday, October 16, 2008

Engineers appointed for world's tallest tower

TALLEST TOWER: WSP Group has been appointed structural engineers for Nakheel's ambitious project.Consultancy firm WSP Group has been appointed structural engineer for Nakheel’s project to build the world’s tallest tower in Dubai, the company announced on Wednesday.

UK-based WSP said it was already working on plans for the more than one-kilometre high structure, which Nakheel unveiled last week as part of the multi-billion dollar Nakheel Harbour and Tower development.

WSP revealed it was also playing a major role in Meraas Development’s $95 billion Jumeira Gardens scheme, Dubai’s first master planned urban regeneration development, also launched last week.

The company said it was an integral part of the Meraas’s program management team supporting the development of the master plan and infrastructure works for the scheme, to be delivered over many years.

Chris Cole, WSP Group chief executive officer, said he expected the firm’s business operations in the Middle East to grow significantly in the next few years.

"Success in winning projects of the calibre of the Nakheel Tower and Jumeira Gardens is a strong endorsement of our strategy to increase our global business and provide our employees with the opportunity to work on major landmark projects around the world.

"We expect to announce our appointment to further high-profile schemes across the Middle East in the very near future,” he said.

Work on-site is already underway for a third high-profile Dubai project, the Dubai World Trade Center District, for which WSP is acting as design consultant.

It is providing structural, mechanical and electrical engineering input, in addition to environmental, infrastructure and transportation guidance for the $1.36 billion first phase of the project.

It follows WSP’s recent appointment to provide a similar range of services on the Dubai Exhibition City development at the Dubai World Central development in Jebel Ali.

In addition, WSP was appointed earlier this year to develop the Green Building Code for Dubai, supporting Dubai’s commitment to introduce strong environmental performance to the design and development of its urban space.

WSP is already working on projects across the region covering Abu Dhabi, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait.

It has increased staff numbers in the Middle East to around 1,000 after experiencing significant growth.

Nakheel Harbour & Tower Photo update

Nakheel Harbour & Tower Photo update, here is some photos taken of the constructon site today.






Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Nakheel Harbour & Tower Renders #1

The tower was designed by Woods Bagot architects and it will be built by Nakheel, the same developer which has built those fancy state-of-the-art man-made islands in Dubai. The skyscraper will be called Nakheel Tower and as a bonus, there will also be built world’s first inner city harbor.

The entire construction area will be of 270 hectares, and when the Nakheel Tower and Harbor will be finished, it will provide enough space for 55,00 inhabitants, workplaces for 45,000 people, and for millions of tourists every year. Although it will be one kilometer-high, the skyscraper will only feature 200 floors, but this could change as the developers don’t want to tell us more about the actual height as rivals could build taller towers.





Saturday, October 11, 2008

DUBAI Supertall Projects & Construction

The definitions for the descriptions in the status:

Completed - Structure ready and no more work going on on the outside of the tower. This doesn't mean it's opened yet though, just structurally complete.
Topped Out - Full height reached including spire
Rising- Between being at ground level and full height
Ground Work - Anything happening before tower reaches ground level. This description is important because lots of towers stall for a while or take a really long time before rising.
Announced & Selling - We're pretty much sure the tower has the final design and construction should start within a year.
Announced - Design officially revealed but no selling of office space or apartments. The design shown most likely final design
Under Design - Tower is known about, including developer, and the design is in the final stages but not yet complete. Design may still change.
Concept- Towers which are probably real projects but not necessarily(I try to exclude insignificant ones or ones most likely to be fake). Design in early stages
On Hold - Tower started construction, then stopped.
Stale Proposal - A tower which didn't start construction and which there has been no news about it for a long time. Most likely a cancelled project.


The List..

Nakheel Harbour & Tower Key Facts

KEY FACTS

• The project will take in excess of 10 years to complete, but completion will be phased, with various stages coming on line much earlier
• The project location is at the intersection of Sheikh Zayed Road and the Arabian Canal, with Waterfront to the west and Deira to the east
• It will cover an area over 270 hectares
• It includes the world’s only inner city harbour
• It includes a tower that will be more than a kilometre high
• Apart from the Nakheel Tower there will also be another 40 towers ranging in height from 20 floors to 90 floors (250 meters to 350 meters)
• Nakheel Harbour & Tower will be home to more than 55,000 people and a work place for more than 45,000 people
• There will be more than 19,000 residential apartments. These will include a diverse mix of housing – from affordable family homes to exclusive villas and penthouses.
• There is more than 950,000 m2 of commercial and retail space
• There will be more than 3,500 hotel rooms. There will be a super luxury 100 room hotel at the top of Nakheel Tower
• There will be approximately 30,000 workers involved in the development of the Nakheel Harbour & Tower

Open space experiences:

• Nakheel Tower public space: to complement the dramatic height and volume of the tower, an expansive, breath-taking crescent-shaped open space “rings” the tower and extends out into the neighbouring districts
• The (Arabian) Canal Promenade: visitors and residents will have access to over 3.9 km around the tower precinct of meandering canal promenade environment and stretching to over 10 km along the entire embankment. As one of the unique features of this development, the canal promenade will connect Sheikh Zayed Road to Emirates Road through a myriad of urban experiences and spectacular views to the Tower
• Internal public space: while every block will be identifiable by a unique common internal open space, a series of distinctive neighbourhoods are planned. Weaving through the precinct blocks will be a chain of interlinked open and public spaces. Residents and visitors will be able to stroll through connected paths, plazas and courtyards stretching over 1800m, while experiencing the uniqueness of every community block
• An eight hectare canal district along the bank of the canal will incorporate a network of waterways. This district will also allow for the most desired vantage points towards the tower. Onlookers will be able to see the uniqueness of an over a kilometre high tower with a bustling marine harbour at its base
• To provide an active connection to the Ibn Battuta district, a ‘living’ bridge is planned over the canal allowing a seamless urban experience. This will be complemented by another iconic pedestrian bridge connections overlooking the Arabian Canal

Nakheel Tower

KEY FACTS

• The Nakheel Tower will be more than a kilometre high
• It will have over 200 floors
• There are approximately 150 lifts
• The design structure of four separate elements allows for structural rigidity while also allowing the wind to pass freely in the spaces between the skybridges reducing the overall wind load
• Total volume of concrete will be 500,000 m3
• All of the reinforcing bars laid end to end could stretch from Dubai to New York (1/4 of the way around the world)
• The tower has 20 kilometres of barrettes – (almost 400 barrettes). Barrettes are a form of pile used to make the foundation. A single foundation barrette has the capacity to support a 50 storey building.
• The building has enough cooling capacity to air-condition over 14,000 modern homes or to service 14 luxury resort Hotels each with 2,000 rooms and all the public areas and amenities
• The building is so tall that it experiences five different microclimatic conditions over its height, each with individual design features
• The temperature in the atmosphere at the top of the building can be as much as 10 degrees cooler than the bottom
• Due to the high speed shuttle lifts one may be able to see the sunset twice from the bottom and again from the top of the building
• The goal is to achieve the highest LEED certification we can for a building this size
• There will be approximately 10,000 car parking spaces in Nakheel Tower
• Nakheel Tower and podium combined will be in excess of 2million m2