Saudi Arabia, China, Kuwait Pakistan and Azerbiajan competing for the Next Worlds Tallest Building

Kuwait, China and Azerbaijan had already announced their plans for the tallest tower in previous years, now Pakistan has announced new plans.

Kingdom Holding Company that has commenced work on the 1,000-metre high Kingdom Tower in Riyadh, which is set to overtake Burj Khalifa, currently the tallest tower in the world, by 2017.

With a total construction area of over 500,000 square meters, the Kingdom Tower will be a mixed-use building, featuring a Four Seasons Hotel, Four Seasons serviced apartments, office space, luxury condominiums and an observatory at higher level than the world’s current highest observation deck.

The Kingdom Tower complex will contain 59 elevators, including 54 single-deck and five double-deck elevators, along with 12 escalators. Elevators serving the observatory will travel at a rate of 10 meters per second in both directions. Another unique feature of the design is a sky terrace, roughly 30 meters (98 feet) in diameter, at level 157. It is an outdoor amenity space intended for use by the penthouse floor.

The Kingdom Tower was previously known as Mile-High Tower It is a supertall skyscraper proposed for construction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at a preliminary cost of SR4.6 billion (US$1.23 billion). It will be the centerpiece and first phase of a SR75 billion (US$20 billion) proposed development known as Kingdom City that will be located along the Red Sea on the north side of Jeddah. If completed as planned, the tower will reach unprecedented heights, becoming the tallest building in the world, as well as the first structure to reach the one-kilometer mark. The tower was initially planned to be 1.6-kilometre (1 mi) high; however, the geology of the area proved unsuitable for a tower of that height.

Kingdom Tower

China’s Broad Group is waiting for government approval to build the 220-storey Sky City in Changsha, 10 meters taller than the 828-metre Burj Khalifa. The tower will be standing tall in mere three months.

The 838-meter high Sky City is expected to have residences, offices, elementary and secondary schools, kindergarten, old people’s home, healthcare hospital, store, hotel, sports and entertainment centre, 17 helipads and house nearly 30,000 people.

Sky City will use BSB modular technology which features 95 per cent factory prefabrication with a construction pace of five storeys a day.

Plans for 2000 meter 636 Story follow up to Skycity

Pinned up on the office wall of Broad Groups CEO Zhang Yue are plans for a project even more audacious building that is two kilometers high. When asked to estimate the odds of this 636-floor giganto-scraper ever being built, Zhang responds without hesitation, “One hundred percent! Some say that it’s sensationalism to construct such a tall building. That’s not so. Land shortages are already a grave problem. There’s also the very serious transportation issue. We must bring cities together and stretch for the sky in order to save cities and save the Earth. We must eliminate most traffic, traffic that has no value! And we must reduce our dependency on roads and transportation.”

Nextbigfuture has discussed what it would mean to have 600-700 story buildings

Higher density and larger cities would boost the per capita GDP of a city

Sky City Skyscrapers (200-300 stories) and robotic cars (4 times the density of road traffic) will make certain megacities (future New York, Shanghai, Tokyo etc…) one third to one half of the overall world population and they would have 75% more GDP per capita than they do today. There would be rural, regular urban then super-urban. Research shows that doubling population and increased urban density boosts productivity by about 15%.

Azerbaijan Tower

Azerbaijan Tower, which will be part of “Khazar Islands New City, developed by Avesta Concern, will be 1,050 metre high and consist of 186 floors. It will be surrounded by number of artificial islands and a Formula One race track. The tower will rise over a collection of 41 man-made islands connected by 150 bridges off the shores of the capital city, Baku, in the Caspian Sea. The tower alone is expected to cost $2 billion. The full project is likely to be completed between 2020 and 2025.

Kuwait Tower

Burj Mubarak Al Kabir in Kuwair – The Kuwait tower will rise to 1,001 meters has been designed by London-based architect Eric Kuhne. The $7 billion-plus Mubarak al Kabir will have three interlocked towers that support the overall structure. No details have been given on when the tower will be completed.

Unnamed tower, Pakistan

Pakistani construction tycoon Malik Riaz and Abu Dhabi Group have announced plans to build the world’s tallest building. The project is likely to come up on an island some three to four kilometers off the coast of Karachi and into the Arabian Sea. The tower is part of the $45 billion investment plan. No details are yet announced for the tower.

If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks