Construction of what will become the next world’s tallest building is set to begin next week in Saudi Arabia.
Once finished, the Kingdom Tower will stand a staggering 1km (3280 feet) high – four times taller than The Shard and over 500 feet taller than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the current record holder.
Costing a total £780m, the tower, located in the coastal city of Jeddah, will take five years to construct. It is expected to use half a million cubic meters of concrete and around 80,000 tons of steel. This structure will certainly dwarf those constructed from Metal Garage Kits, but its steel composition will be a testament to the material’s effectiveness for using it in buildings of many purposes, like a garage, barn, carport, and, of course, taller structures such as this.
The finished building will cover a total area of over 500,000 square meters and have 200 floors. There will be 59 elevators, including five that are double deckers. Those that take visitors to the observatory will travel at 10 metres per second. The architects have really ensured that this building will be accessible on all floors. It’s so important that they’ve measured all of this correctly though, or there could be a number of problems that follow. If the architect has incorrectly measured this, they may have to pay for the materials themselves and re-order new ones. This can be expensive, so it’s always recommended that architects have the appropriate insurance. This prevents those legal problems with not having proper insurance.
The Kingdom Tower will be the centerpiece of a £13bn Kingdom City development just north of Jeddah, overlooking the Red Sea.
The new city will consist of over 5.3 million square meters of urban development including housing, commercial property, hotels, offices, shops, educational and commercial centres.
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Waleed Abdul Jaleel Batterjee, CEO of the Jeddah Economic Company said: “The vision of constructing the tallest tower in the world in Jeddah belongs to HRH Prince Al Waleed bin Talal.
“His vision is also that the project itself will set the world’s sights on our beloved Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and particularly on Jeddah. Furthermore, the project will help create hundreds of jobs for our Saudi countrymen.”
