Skyscrapers in a vertical City – The future living

Will you like to live in a 2 km high building ?

Humans have the desire to build tall structures. 4000 years ago, Great Pyramid of Giza was constructed with a height of 145 mtr in Egypt. There is a Hindu temples constructed in 16^th Century named Ranganatha temple in Tamal Nadu (India) which is 72 mtr tall. The first known building constructed and rated as a Skyscraper was in Chicago in 1882 called ‘Home Life Insurance’ Building which was 55 mtr tall with 12 floors. There was a rush of constructing Skyscrapers in USA during 1925 to 1931 but by 1950 it stopped due to recession and World War. China stared building Skyscrapers in 1970s . Dubai started building Skyscrapers in bulk by 1990s .

Skyscrapers can reach the moon 6 times

Any building which is more than 100mtr tall is considered as skyscraper. There are over 23,000 Skyscrapers in this world. Out of which more than 200 buildings are taller than 300 mtr. If we stack all the Skyscrapers on earth on top of each other it will take you to the moon 6 times. Having Skyscrapers is considered to be a pride for any country to show off his wealth and growth. China and USA have most of the Skyscrapers. Half of the Skyscapers taller than 300 mtr are in China.

China have half of the super tall buildings

Country	Building Taller than 150 mtr	Building Taller than 300 mtr		Country	Building Taller than 150 mtr	Building Taller than 300 mtr
China	3,000	120		Australia	140	2
USA	870	30		Canada	135	1
UAE	330	30		Singapore	95	0
South Korea	280	7		Russia	50	7
Japan	280	1		Saudi	40	5
India	275	1		UK	33	1
Malaysia	270	5		Dubai	250	26

Abraj Al Bait tower in Mecca have the biggest clock – size 43 mtr

Leading countries are competing to have the tallest Skyscrapers. There are buildings as tall as 1.5km in height on Design board which in future will be constructed using highest construction technology.  Dubai is leading the world with the tallest structure called Burj Khalifa. Below is the list of tallest tower in individual country.

India have only one super Tower

Building Name	Country / City	Height in Mtr	Floors		Building Name	Country / City	Height in Mtr	Floors
Burj Khalia	Dubai	828	163		Dist Tower	Tokyo	330	64
Shanghai Tower	China	632	128		108 Tower	Australia	319	100
Abraj Al Bait	Macca	602	120		Sharad	London	310	95
PING Fin Centre	China	600	115		1st Palace	Toronto	298	72
Lotte Tower	S. Korea	542	94		Lakhta	Russia	462	87
Freedom Tower	NewYork	541	94		Tour Mont	Paris	180	59
Taipei Tower	Taiwan	508	101		World-1	Mumbai	280	76

Burj Khalifa – a ‘Khalifa’ of Skyscrapers

Tallest building in the world is situated in Dubai.  The name is Burj Khalifa. Khalifa in Arabic mean leader. The building was constructed as Burj Dubai but at the time of inauguration the name was changed to Burj Khalifa in the honour of UAE president.  This Skyscraper took 6 years to complete from 2004 to 2010 at the cost of $1.5Billion. Burj Khalifa is 828 mtr tall ( 2.5 time taller than Eiffel Tower ) and have 163 floor . The build-up area is 5.7 millionsquare feet. Burj Khalifa Building weighs 500,000 Ton resting on 192 no 50 mtr deep piles. The communication antenna on the top of Burj Khalifa is 143 mtr tall made of 60mm thick 2.1m dia steel pipe weighing 4,000 ton. 330,000 m3 of concrete and 39,000 Ton of Rebar was used to construct the building. There are 57 passengers lift with a super speed of 10 mtr/second. Burj Khalifa Building has glass windows of 103,000 m2 . It take 4 month to clean the glass from outside of whole building using cradles. In peak time 12,000 men worked along with 60 Consultants and 30 building contractors. The tower tilts by 3 mtr on the top at antenna due to wind pressure. Tip of the antenna can be seen as far as 95 km. During cloudy season top 1/3^rd of the building is above cloud level and hence people living in higher floor cannot see the city.

Building is occupied as residence / corporate suits / hotels etc up to Floor 160. It has a high end Armani Hotel, Armani residences and Armani suits. Building has world highest viewer gallery at 125^th floor. Due to condensation at higher level along glass façade, the building crate 40,000 Ltr of water every day which is channelled down to the ground and used for landscape irrigation. Burj Khalifa is famous as world tallest structure for doing fireworks on New Year eve. Dubai till 1979 have only one skyscraper 149 mtr high called ’Trade centre Building’ having 39 storeys. Now Dubai has more than 250 Skyscrapers above 150 mtr tall.  

Europe have less skyscrapers than Dubai

There are famous cities full with Skyscrapers world wide and China is leading them. Few countries those who have limited land eg Hongkong, Singapore, Japan etc opted for taller structures. But other did it for a pride. China has a vast land but love to construct Skyscrapers to show their might, wealth and construction technology.

City	No of Skyscraper		City	No of Skyscaper
Hong Kong	553		Tokyo	167
Shenzhen	360		Chongqing	142
New York	309		Chicago	135
Dubai	250		Guangzhou	187
Shanghai	183		Kuala Lumper	153

Vertical city is the next level of Skyscrapers

There is a race to construct Skyscraper taller than Burj Khalifa. Kingdom Tower in Jeddah ( Saudi Arab )  is 1.0 KM high and is under construction.  Tokyo is planning SkyMile tower with a height of 1,700 mtr and 421 floors. Iraq is planning a tower called ‘The Bride’ with height of 1,152 mtr in Basra. Dubai creek tower is being construction with a height of 1,345 mtr. Riyadh is planning a tower as high as 2 Km. Space companies are planning towers to be hung from the space and floating. There is no limit how much man can go high to build a Skyscrapers, but commercial viability of such towers are always a concern to the developers. Many already built super tall Skyscrapers have very low occupancy and few are almost vacant.  But Architect and Designers are working on Vertical cities now. Saudi is constructing project called ‘LINE’ in the desert which is 170 km long, 200 mtr wide and 500mtr height.  Will you like to live in a rectangular box in a vertical city ?