Saudi Arabia World's tallest by 500' once completed. http://www.weather.com/news/science...t-building-kingdom-tower-about-begin-20140327
^ First time I've agreed with him. There really is no point in doing this, I guess that they feel they will win some non-existent competition
I always welcome the addition of taller and taller skyscrapers. It makes them look petty, but hey I'm not going to complain!
Wouldn't mind Houston getting another 1000-footer. All 300s being built are nice, but stacking them would be better.
I think this is awesome. I wish supertalls would get built like this in the US more. How awesome would it be if Houston had something like this. Hundereds of years in the future, there will be buildings like this all over. Amazing piece of engineering.
3,280' is almost 4 Transco Towers!! Williams will always be Transco to me: the tallest suburban building in the world.
I think China's been building some monster buildings as well. One of them under construction was supposed to be slightly taller than the Burj Khalifa, but nowhere near this thing's height. On a side note, Dubai keeps building office buildings, but I remember reading they had something like a 45% office vacancy rate toward the end of last year.
Wonder about the occupancy of the Houston's high rise condos and lofts. They've built so many (and are still building) in the last 15 years.
This is great. Keep pushing the limit of structural mechanics and one day we'll have the first space elevator.
Crassly enough I think the original WTC is a deterrent to that, and post-crunch I think that kind of commercial investment is too risky and costly for property managers and tenants alike. Hereditary and commercial oligarchies like ME countries don't really have private lawsuits, publicly accountable regulators or competitors to worry about, let alone any real risk of tying up most of their wealth in possibly vacant buildings.