Construction halted on the hotel — which, even in its incomplete state is the twenty-second largest skyscraper in the world — in 1992, following rumors that the North Korean government ran out of money for the project, or that the building was a victim of faulty engineering, or both. The results spell a massive embarrassment for the North Koreans, though it has inspired a few international devotees: A pair of German architects and self-described “custodians of the pyramid’s diverse manifestations” have set up Ryugyong.org, which they describe as an “experimental collaborative online architecture site” that contains 3-D models of the monster.

Lotte Super Tower 123

The Lotte Super Tower 123, so named because it will have 123 stories, will be built over a transportation hub near the Han River in the Jamsil shopping and entertainment section of Seoul, South Korea. The light-toned glass and metal-accented structure blends a modern aesthetic with historic Korean art forms such as ceramics, porcelain, and calligraphy. “The tower’s uninterrupted curvature and gentle tapered form is reflective of Korean artistry,” said KPF design principal James von Klemperer, FAIA. “The seam that runs from top to bottom of the structure gestures toward the old city center.”

The 1,831-foot-tall building, designed to achieve LEED Silver, will house the corporate headquarters for the Lotte Group, a 66-year-old, $50 billion a year Korean business conglomerate. In addition, the high-rise will serve as a mixed-use vertical community with five distinct zones: retail, office, residential, hotel, and observation. Construction is scheduled to finish in 2014. If completed as planned, it will be the world’s second tallest building behind Adrian Smith’s 2,684-foot-tall Burj Dubai in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

KPF is managing to stay busy during the recession with several large-scale commissions in South Korea. The New York-based practice developed the master plan for the Songdo International Business District, located on 1,500 acres of reclaimed land along Incheon’s waterfront, 40 miles west of Seoul. The $35 billion, 65,000-resident complex calls for offices, homes, shops, schools, and hotels—some of which KPF is designing. The firm’s 100-acre Songdo Central Park opened in August after three years of construction, and the 100-million-square-foot financial district developed by Gale International and Posco E&C, is expected to finish in 2015.

“The Korean construction industry has built supertall buildings around the world—most notably Burj Dubai,” which was built by Samsung Corporation, says Mustafa Abadan, AIA, SOM’s design partner in charge. “This building has become an important symbol for them in terms of bringing that expertise to bear at home.”

The 725,000-square-foot skyscraper—a concrete structure clad in glass and aluminum—appears to swell slightly as it rises, evoking traditional Korean pottery that is slender at the base and flared at the top. Snaking façade details, to be made of either extruded aluminum or stainless steel, soften the building’s corners, which Abadan says breaks up wind forces on the structure while also creating different shading conditions.

The tower is topped by a crown that extends beyond the inhabitable floors, which is meant to accentuate the building’s height, capture light, and help power an array of wind turbines. With a host of other energy-producing and energy-saving features, such as natural ventilation from a powerful stack effect, photovoltaic panels that double as shading elements, and radiant cooling through beams, SOM estimates it will be able to reduce the building’s energy use by up to 65 percent, compared to more conventional towers.

The 133-story skyscraper will offer retail spaces, offices, a hotel, residential units, and an observation deck; it will be the centerpiece of a new business district for media companies. It is one of several new towers planned for Seoul, including the Lotte Super Tower 123 by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, and a Daniel Libeskind-desigend tower in the Yongsan International Business District.

Design (LEED) certification for the building. To obtain that certification, Lin said, Taipei 101 will invest NT$60 million (US$1.8 million) over the next 18-month certification process to undergo hundreds of building modifications.

After the transformation is completed, Taipei 101 is estimated to save NT$20 million in energy costs each year. Lin said that Taipei 101 wants to be an international model of environmental protection and social responsibility.

“Taipei 101′s management team is expecting to make it an icon of green building industry in Taiwan and worldwide,” Lin said. “As the world’s tallest building, Taipei 101 aims to raise people’s awareness about our environment and be a pioneer of international green building certification for existing buildings, ” he added.

In September, an Emaar spokesperson had sent this newspaper a statement that the last of the cranes atop the Burj Dubai would be taken down in a few weeks. The cranes were originally supposed to come down by end of August.

The building, when completed, will meet all four criteria listed by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) – the body that classifies the world’s tallest structures.

CTBUH measures the height of buildings to the structural top, the highest occupied floor, the top of the roof and the tip of the spire, pinnacle, antenna, mast or flag pole.

Emaar said last month that the Burj Dubai tower has accomplished a world record for the highest installation of an aluminium and glass façade. Keeping the tower façade clean will be the next engineering challenge, it said. “To guarantee that every corner of Burj Dubai sparkles, 18 window-washing units are built into the tower,” said the statement.

According to the company’s statement, the skyscraper will be 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) high and will be built in the city of Jeddah off the Red Sea. Dubai’s Emaar Properties real estate company will be in charge of developing the project.

The project, named Kingdom Tower, will spread over 23 million square meters and will include commerce, housing and office areas. It will be built not far from Jeddah’s international airport.

The total cost of the project is estimated at some $27 billion, and the tallest tower in the world will be built in its center.

The tallest tower in the world today is Burj Dubai, which is 800 meters (2,625 feet) hight and is still being built by Emaar.

Stay tuned for some pictures to follow…..

The 5-year project would reduce the tower’s electricity use by 80 percent and save 24 million gallons of water a year, building owners and architects said. Separately, a 50-story, 500-room privately funded luxury hotel with its own green components would be built next to the skyscraper in 3 1/2 to 5 years.

Designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merill, the tower is being built in Kuwait City by Turner Construction with Ahmadiah Contracting and Trading Company and will be the world’s largest sculpted tower once completed.

The supertall will become boring office space when it officially opens at the end of 2010, but it will also feature some cinemas and an IMAX screen.

Topping out is expected later this year.

At least that is the rumour setting the internet ablaze at the moment – an official announcement has yet to be made.

Witnesses in Dubai say the tower has hit well over 800m and will not be going any higher and Wiki claims topping out was achieved 17 January.

Local media reports the skyscraper is being prepped for an 09/09/09 soft opening.

What we do know for sure is that workers are adding an antenna with a blinking light to the tower.

Samsung Engineering and Construction has confirmed its’ workers are on the job.

The Shanghai World Financial Center, which boasts the highest occupied floor in the world, was chosen as the winner for “its revolutionary structural design and inspirational symbolism,” according to the council. Formed out of a square prism intersected by two “cosmic arcs,” the building includes a distinctive, multi-story trapezoidal aperture at its upper floors. The firm’s design was inspired by two Chinese burial symbols: “a square prism essentially representative of the earth, and a heaven symbol—a circular disc with a circular aperture cut through it,” says Bill Pedersen, FAIA, of KPF. “We wanted to do a building that was a genuine expression of the relationship between the earth and the sky,” he explains, “and also that could be connected to the culture within which it is placed.”

Shanghai World Financial Center

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Although, several other projects were announced that claimed to surpass Burj Dubai’s height, analysts now agree that all such projects would require several billions for completion, and hence, they have all been bought to a halt.

The crisis is expected to govern global lives for the next three to five years, and an additional five years at least, would be required for the towers to surpass the 818 meters final height of Burj Dubai, and hence, it is now safe to say that the astonishing landmark, Burj Dubai, would cement its place as the world’s tallest building till 2019.

About four projects have been announced till date to outstrip Dubai. One being the Al Burj Tower by Nakheel in Dubai, the others are the Murjan Tower 1 in Bahrain, Burj Mubarak al-Kabir in Kuwait, and a kilometer high tower for Jeddah by Saudi Arabian Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.

The 50-storey building will be situated in the south-west of the city at the Porte de Versailles.

It has been nicknamed the ‘Delanoë tower’ after the city’s socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoë, who won the fight to bring high-rises back to Paris after convincing the city council in July to make exceptions to the 30-year-old ban.

The ban prohibits buildings of above 37m-high and was inspired by the 210 Tour Montparnasse.

Total investment in the 101-story, 492-meter-high landmark project, located in Pudong’s Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone, amounts to over eight billion Yuan (1.16 billion U.S. dollars).

This building will be the 2nd highest completed building in the world behind the Taipei 101. The Burj Dubai once completed will push this building to 3rd place.

1. The elevators will have the world’s longest travel distance from lowest to highest stop

2. Hot air on the outside will condense due to the large cooling needs of the building. The condensation will be collected and used to water the buildings flora and fauna. 20 Olympic sized swimming pools per year of water.

3. There are 1,210 fire extinguishers on the site.

4. At the peak cooling times, the tower will require approximately 10,000 tonnes of cooling per hour.

5. The tower’s observation deck will be located 442 metres above ground, the highest publicly accessible observation deck in the world.

6. Condensation on the building will be collected and drained down to a holding tank located in the basement from where it will be pumped into the site irrigation system for use on the tower’s landscaped gardens. This system will provide about 15 million gallons of supplemental water per year, equivalent to nearly 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

7. The amount of steel rebar used for the tower is 31,400 metric tons – laid end to end this would extend over a quarter of the way around the world.

8. Dubai has set a new world record for vertical concrete pumping for a building, by pumping to over 460 metres. The previous record was held by Taipei 101 for pumping concrete up to a height of 448 metres.

9. Burj Dubai will also break the world record for altitude transportation of concrete before construction is complete.

10. The total area of cladding used to cover the Burj Dubai will be equivalent to 17 football fields.

11. The concrete used for the Burj Dubai is equivalent to: a solid cube of concrete 61 metres on a side, a sidewalk 1,900 kilometres long, the weight of 100,000 elephants.

12. The tower’s peak electricity demand is estimated at 36MVA, equivalent to roughly 360,000 100-watt light bulbs.

13. There will be 200 metres of dancing fountains at the foot of the Burj Dubai.

14. The Burj Dubai will feature the world’s first Armani Hotel.

15. Burj Dubai derives its design inspiration from the desert flower, Hymenocalis, and incorporates patterning systems that are embodied in Islamic architecture.

16. 54 lifts are to be installed in the tower.

17. The Burj Dubai spire will be visible from as far away as 95 kms.

18. At 5,500 kg capacity, the firemen/service elevator will be the world’s tallest service elevator.

19. First mega-rise to have elevators with specially programmed, permit-controlled evacuation procedures. (I wonder how they work? Weren’t we supposed Not to use evaluators in case of an emergency)

20. Highest publicly accessible observation tower at 442 meters. ( Go up and watch miles and miles of desert as well as ocean I guess!)

21. The curtain wall of Burj Dubai will be equivalent to 17 football fields.

22. The total glass requirement is 142K sq/m

23. The car park has approx. 3,000 parking places in four levels and a total area of just under 89,000 m2.

24. The car park ventilation system must comply with the USstandards Ashrae and AMCA for air quality and fan requirements and must in case of fire be suitable for operating at 300°C for not less than 60 minutes.
25. The double deck cabin elevators are the fatest in the world and also the one to travel the longest from a lower to higher point. The speed of the cabin is 18 m/sec (40 mph).

26. It also has the worlds first programmed and controlled evacuation in the world.

27. It can withstand the worst storm to hit dubai in a 100 years

28. It has 15,000 sq ft of fitness facilities.

29. A cigar Club
30. Connected to the largest mall in the world.

And for the environmentally inclined person:

1. Power requirement is 36 KVA is equivalent of 36K lights bulbs of 100 watts each operating at the same time.

2. The cooling requirement is 10K tonnes of melting ice every day.

3. 15 Million gallons of supplemental water are collected and drained every day

And lastly, 33,236 Men in Blue work at the site on a regular basis.

The Burj Dubai tower currently stands over 1,700 feet tall. The state-owned developer Emaar Properties said completion would be postponed until sometime in 2009. It did not give specifics, but the newspaper Gulf News and the online news site ArabianBusiness.com said the delay would be four months.

“The company would rather opt for a nominal delay in total quality execution of the Burj Dubai … than compromise on any aspect of quality,” Emaar, one of the main builders in this Gulf boomtown, said in a press release without elaborating.

Emaar did not give the reason for the delay.

The final height of Burj Dubai is a closely guarded secret. Emaar’s representatives previously said the tower will stop somewhere above 2,275 feet.

Last summer, the company said the skyscraper had reached 1,680 feet, surpassing Taiwan’s Taipei 101 which has dominated the global skyline at 1,667 feet since 2004.

When completed, the Burj Dubai will have more than 160 floors, 56 elevators, luxury apartments, boutiques, swimming pools, spas, exclusive corporate suites, Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani’s first hotel, and a 124th floor observation platform.

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