The Tallest Buildings in the World

Forget the kilometer-high Burj Dubai under construction in the Persian Gulf’s fast-growing city-state. A British consortium is building something even wilder, which surely qualifies as the world’s largest bona-fide gadget: The Time Residences tower, a solar powered skyscraper that will use the electricity thus generated to rotate through 360 degrees.

“We didn’t want to build just another building or tower, we wanted to create something unique - a precious place to live - a genuine contender to be one of the great buildings in the world,” said Tav Singh, director of Dubai Property Ring, the Dubai arm of UK-based property investors UK Property Group.

The completed tower will offer 200 expensive apartments for people who want to spend lots of money to screw up their circadian rhythym. Singh said they want to build many more such towers, with one for every time zone.

More..Rotating tower to be solar-powered [Gulf News]

Whatever next for the Arabian city that has an artificial ski slope covered in snow even when the temperature hits 50C? Not to mention the world’s tallest building, some 7,000 metres (2,300 ft) high, rising above palm-shaped artificial archipelagos in the warm waters of the Persian Gulf. Oh, and a growth rate of 16% and a population where foreigners in need of “luxury” homes outnumber locals.

Well, what about the world’s first rotating skyscraper?

Commissioned by the Dubai Property Ring, a firm of UK-based developers, the 30-storey apartment block will use solar energy to power 20 electric motors that will rotate the tower through 360 degrees over the course of a week.

“This will be a fair building,” says Nick Cooper, the British engineer working with MG Bennet and Associates of Rotherham, which will build the mechanism. “Everybody will have the same views for the same amount of time.”

Mr Cooper is not referring to “fair” as in “funfair” - though the building is, it has to be said, the spectacular proposed centrepiece of the giant City of Arabia amusement park, complete with animatronic dinosaurs, which is due to open in 2009.

Time Residences will comprise 200 apartments. Its 80,000-tonne bulk will rest on a series of more or less friction-free polymer bearings. “It moves very slowly,” says Mr Cooper. “It is not a theme park ride.”

Paris has chosen an American architect to build the French capital’s tallest new building since the Eiffel Tower in the 19th Century.
The new curving skyscraper will be the centrepiece of a redevelopment project in the north-west of Paris.
Thom Mayne’s Los Angeles-based company Morphosis beat off rivals as prestigious as the UK’s Norman Foster and France’s Jean Nouvel.
Building regulations have kept tall buildings out of Paris for 30 years.
One notable exception is the Tour Montparnasse which rises 180 metres (590 ft) in the south-west of the capital.
An international jury announced the winner, following a contest organised by French property group Unibail as part of a project to revamp La Defense business district.
The Paris city government opposes plans for a new skyscraper in the district, but the project is backed by French public body EPAD, which is in charge of the district’s wider renovation, AFP news agency reports.

New Paris Skyscraper

Approximately 805 tons of steel are being produced in Luxembourg to create the first 27 "extra-large" steel columns of the Freedom Tower, World Trade Center developer Larry A. Silverstein, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive director Kenneth J. Ringler Jr. and Tishman Construction Corporation chairman Daniel R. Tishman announced July 27. The steel will serve as part of the below-grade structure for the historic Freedom Tower and will be delivered to the World Trade Center site by the end of the year.

Production of the first steel for the Freedom Tower began this week at a plant in Differdange, Luxembourg that specializes in producing the heaviest I-beams available in the world, called "Jumbo Sections." Arcelor, one of the world’s largest steel companies, is making the high-strength, "grade 65" steel columns that are being supplied for this project. Despite being one of the smallest countries in the world, Luxembourg is a heavyweight in terms of steel production. Historically, the presence of rich iron ore reserves in the south and the use of modern techniques makes steel producing and processing a booming sector for the country.

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Skidmore, Owings & Merrill has started construction on a 75-story helix-shaped tower in the Dubai Marina, one of the wealthy Emirate’s prime residential neighborhoods.

The “dancing” skyscraper, to be named Infinity Tower, will rotate 90 degrees as it rises while maintaining a constant floor-plate throughout its height. SOM Managing Partner George Efstathiou, AIA, predicts that the tower’s winding shape will make it the marina’s principal landmark, and perhaps a symbol of Dubai itself. According to Efstathiou, the building will offer its residents views of the waterfront without disrupting the vistas of neighboring buildings.

The 995-foot-high tower will comprise 456 residential units, ranging from studios to full-floor penthouses. It will include a street-level shopping arcade, conference centers, lounges, a child-care center, a health spa, exercise facilities, and an outdoor pool.

One day after resolving issues between a developer and landowners, bulldozers rumbled into a giant pit on Thursday to begin construction of the glittering Freedom Tower skyscraper meant to symbolize New York”s resilience to the September 11 attacks.

Rebuilding at the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan began 4 1/2 years after the Twin Towers were destroyed by suicide hijackers who flew passenger planes into them.

The 1,776-foot (540-meter) tower will be among the tallest in the world.

“We are not going to just build low in the face of a war against terror,” New York Gov. George Pataki said. “We are going to soar to new heights and reclaim New York”s skyline.”

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