Burj Dubai now officially the tallest building in the world.

Yeah, formatting no help.

― SeekAltRoute, Sunday, 22 July 2007 10:53 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6910536.stm

I'll be in Dubai for one day in August, so I guess I'll see it from an air-conditioned room somewhere (if I step outside I'll probably collapse).

― Madchen, Sunday, 22 July 2007 11:27 (2 years ago) Permalink

what a hideous thing.

― jed_, Sunday, 22 July 2007 11:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

I do like that there's no pussyfooting around this time when it comes to height... none of this 1,776 ft vs. 1,700 feet. Fuck it. Let's go from 670 Meters to 800 METERS

― Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved, Sunday, 22 July 2007 16:07 (2 years ago) Permalink

I can't imagine wanting to set foot in that thing. I don't usualy have a fear of heights but WTF IT IS HALF A MILE TALL.

― HI DERE, Sunday, 22 July 2007 16:11 (2 years ago) Permalink

"It's a human achievement without equal."

proof that the pyramids were built by aliens!

― wanko ergo sum, Sunday, 22 July 2007 16:22 (2 years ago) Permalink

TS: The polio vaccine vs A really fucking tall building

― HI DERE, Sunday, 22 July 2007 16:28 (2 years ago) Permalink

TS: Irrigation vs A really fucking tall building

― HI DERE, Sunday, 22 July 2007 16:29 (2 years ago) Permalink

TS: Written language vs A really fucking tall building

(etc etc etc)

― HI DERE, Sunday, 22 July 2007 16:29 (2 years ago) Permalink

dubai is hilarious to me.

― El Tomboto, Sunday, 22 July 2007 17:16 (2 years ago) Permalink

I like that there is a Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat and they had something called the International Height Criteria Meeting.

― Ned Trifle II, Sunday, 22 July 2007 17:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

it's fascintaing to see a new metropolis flowering so gracefully and organically

― wanko ergo sum, Sunday, 22 July 2007 17:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

love it

― lxy, Sunday, 22 July 2007 18:11 (2 years ago) Permalink

Someone needs to pop one of these on the top of the spire:

― Z S, Sunday, 22 July 2007 18:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

I think all the buildings nearest in height should stack extra shit on top until they've eclipsed this one, then Dubai will respond in kind and so forth until one of the buildings reaches heaven/collapses and destroys its city, like a large scale one potato, two potato game.

― m bison, Sunday, 22 July 2007 18:22 (2 years ago) Permalink

also

Council on Tall Buildings

I want in this club.

― m bison, Sunday, 22 July 2007 18:25 (2 years ago) Permalink

― Z S, Sunday, 22 July 2007 18:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

― jergïns, Sunday, 22 July 2007 18:46 (2 years ago) Permalink

― Tape Store, Sunday, 22 July 2007 18:46 (2 years ago) Permalink

video about the burj dubai surpassing taipei 101, and then some speculation about the al burj, down the street, passing this one up at some point, renderings included

― jergïns, Sunday, 22 July 2007 18:50 (2 years ago) Permalink

I was looking at a job in dubai!

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Sunday, 22 July 2007 19:33 (2 years ago) Permalink

Don't do it dude.

― Ed, Sunday, 22 July 2007 19:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

thx 4 ur help thousands of underpaid immigrant laborers who werent allowed to unionize (lol), run along now

― iiiijjjj, Sunday, 22 July 2007 21:08 (2 years ago) Permalink

i think it might be an interesting place to work for a while, provided you realize that you will hate it the whole time

like, the sort of experience you may want to have had, but not to actually have

― river wolf, Sunday, 22 July 2007 21:16 (2 years ago) Permalink

Everytime I read about something like this...

― Pleasant Plains, Sunday, 22 July 2007 21:53 (2 years ago) Permalink

i would love to just go to Dubai and Abu Dhabi for six months, take pictures of all the astounding architecture, and then leave forever.

― the table is the table, Sunday, 22 July 2007 22:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

table otm. except maybe just a few weeks, in the winter.

― jergïns, Sunday, 22 July 2007 23:48 (2 years ago) Permalink

i think it might be an interesting place to work for a while, provided you realize that you will hate it the whole time

like, the sort of experience you may want to have had, but not to actually have

I tried to get my ex to take me to Dubai(Her family lived there for a few years while her father worked as a pilot for some rich guy), but she flat out refused.
Told me there was no way in hell she was going back there. The stories she told me were fucked up, but I would still like to go someday(My mom and sister went to visit the shopping festival and meet some people, but I was sick for three weeks straight so I had to skip it....... argh)

And the pictures...

― MRZBW, Monday, 23 July 2007 01:40 (2 years ago) Permalink

Yeah srsly Jon don't work in Dubai. We have an office there. Its hot, dry, you cant drink booze.

Mind you they do have that giant indoor tunnel thing you can ski in. Thats pretty awesome in a desert.

And those islands in the shape of countries of the world they built. You have to love crazy people with too much money.

― Trayce, Monday, 23 July 2007 03:28 (2 years ago) Permalink

You have to love crazy people with too much money.

Dear Trayce,

It gets old.

Signed,
An American

― Pleasant Plains, Monday, 23 July 2007 04:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/03/petroleum-prices-and-gcc-spending.html

O RLY

http://blog.wired.com/cars/electric_vehicles/index.html

FUK U

― El Tomboto, Sunday, 23 March 2008 22:37 (1 year ago) Permalink

fingers xd

― El Tomboto, Sunday, 23 March 2008 22:37 (1 year ago) Permalink

this may be better even than the world the palm the underwater hotel indoor skiing and the solid gold hotel !!!

-----------------------------

Dubai 'shape-shifting skyscraper' unveiled

(CNN) -- Ambitious plans to build a revolutionary 420-meter shape-shifting skyscraper in Dubai have been unveiled by architects.
Each floor of the tower would rotate independently, architects claim, creating an ever-shifting shape.

Each floor of the tower would rotate independently, architects claim, creating an ever-shifting shape.

The 80-story Dynamic Tower, described as the "world's first building in motion," will also be the first skyscraper constructed from prefabricated units, according to a press statement released by New York-based architect David Fisher's Dynamic Group.

Each floor would be capable of rotating independently, powered by wind turbines fitted between each floor.

"You can adjust the shape the way you like every given moment," Fisher said. "It's not a piece of architecture somebody designed today and that's it. It remains forever. It's designed by life, shaped by time." Video Watch how the tower would spin and twist »

Apartments will sell for about $3,000 per square foot, making each unit range in price from about $4 million to $40 million. Work on the tower is to be completed by 2010, according to Dynamic's Web site.

Fisher said that plans to build a second rotating skyscraper in Moscow were at an advanced stage and that the group intended to build a third tower in New York. He said developers and public officials in Canada, Europe and South Korea had also expressed interest in the project.
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But some have expressed skepticism. Fisher has never built a skyscraper before. He says he has teamed up with reputed architects and engineers in the United Kingdom and India.

Although he has received a development license for construction in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, he has not disclosed the site of the building. The Moscow mayor's office said that it was looking into the project and that a decision had not been made.

Fisher has called prefabricated construction techniques the "future of architecture" and says they will radically transform 4,000-year-old "brick-on-brick" building methods.

By using preconstructed parts, Fisher said each story could be built in just seven days, resulting in environmentally cleaner building methods.

He said that just 600 people on an assembly site and 80 technicians on the construction site would be needed to build the tower, compared with about 2,000 workers for a traditional project of a comparable scale.

"It is unbelievable that real estate and construction, which is the leading sector of the world economy, is also the most primitive," Fisher is quoted as saying on Dynamic's Web site.
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"Most workers throughout the world still regularly use trowels that was first used by the Egyptians and then by the Romans. Buildings should not be different than any other product, and from now on they will be manufactured in a production facility."

Dubai is experiencing a construction boom, with the Burj tower set to claim the title of the world's tallest building when it is completed in 2009. It is already home to the world's largest mall, and despite being in the Middle East, it boasts the largest indoor snow park in the world.

― jhøshea, Thursday, 26 June 2008 12:33 (1 year ago) Permalink

video > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/25/dubais-moving-skyscraper_n_109274.html

― jhøshea, Thursday, 26 June 2008 12:39 (1 year ago) Permalink

Rotating skyscraper! A new high water mark for architectural fannydangle

― Ed, Thursday, 26 June 2008 12:59 (1 year ago) Permalink

o i dont click on thread w/fannydangle in the title

― jhøshea, Thursday, 26 June 2008 13:21 (1 year ago) Permalink

How long until one of these is somewhat underengineered or assembled with mediocre parts/labor and there's a disaster?

― mh, Thursday, 26 June 2008 14:03 (1 year ago) Permalink

Not likely - there's a higher chance of collapse on smaller projects as there's not as much attention focused on them. I'd have some concerns about the rotating skyscraper if I thought it was actually going to happen.

― I DIED, Thursday, 26 June 2008 14:08 (1 year ago) Permalink

True, it's not like they're constructing these in the absence of supervision, either.

I was theorizing with a friend the other day that this is just a scheme to see who can get more free elevators. Companies will usually provide free elevator work to the tallest buildings as a promotional tool, and the larger the building the more elevators there are.

― mh, Thursday, 26 June 2008 14:12 (1 year ago) Permalink

o i dont click on thread w/fannydangle in the title
LOLLL

― rrrobyn, Thursday, 26 June 2008 14:40 (1 year ago) Permalink

Sun, sea and sewage!

A noxious tide of toilet paper, raw sewage and chemical waste has transformed Dubai’s most prestigious stretch of shoreline into a foul-smelling health hazard.

A stretch of the exclusive Jumeirah Beach — a magnet for Western tourists and home to a string of hotels — has been closed. “It’s a cesspool. Our tests show too many E. coli to count. It’s like swimming in a toilet,” said Keith Mutch, the manager of the Offshore Sailing Club, which has posted warnings and been forced to cancel regattas.The pollution is a blow to Dubai’s reputation as an international holiday destination offering almost guaranteed sunshine and clear seas.

The debate over who is to blame is also turning toxic, pitting the city’s wealthy expatriates against local authorities, who have been criticised for failing to stop lorry drivers dumping human and industrial waste into the ocean.

The row also illustrates how Dubai’s rapid development threatens to outpace the Emirates’ ability to enforce environmental standards, angering the foreigners that the boom town seeks to attract. Mr Mutch first detected trouble during a walk on the beach last summer. “The stench was unbearable and the water was a muddy brown. There was toilet paper in the sand,” he recalled.

He traced the sludge to a storm drain, buried behind a pile of rocks near the dock. It was spewing effluent into the sea. He followed the drain several kilometres inland to the Al Quoz industrial area, which houses the cement, paint and furniture factories that have helped to fuel the city’s rapid growth.

There he discovered that dozens of sewage lorries carrying human waste from Dubai’s 1.3 million inhabitants emptied their tanks into storm drains such as the one leading to the sailing club. The drains, all connected, were built to carry excess water that falls during Dubai’s short rainy season.

According to some truckers — mostly poor workers from southern Asia – illegal dumping of waste is a purely financial decision.

In interviews, several said that they were paid by the truckload to collect waste from the city’s septic tanks and transport it to the only sewage treatment plant in the area.

This involved a long drive into the desert with lengthy queues at the end — so they opted to dump their loads in the storm drains.“We are paid so poorly, we have no other choice,” said one driver, who insisted on remaining anonymous.

Mr Mutch spent several nights documenting the illegal dumping. He sent letters and photographs to the municipality and departments of tourism, health and environment.“At first I was ignored,” he said — but when the local press took up the story the city took action, imposing fines of up to $25,000 and threatening to confiscate tankers and deport drivers. City authorities have since promised to build another sewage pit as a “medium-term solution”, while insisting that the latest test results show water samples to be within safe standards.

Mr Mutch, however, disagrees, citing independent tests commissioned by the sailing club showing that the water is still badly contaminated with bacteria, human faeces and chemicals.

“The water is still not safe. It’s a bleak situation and we don’t know what else we can do,” he said.

― Chris Barrus (Elvis Telecom), Thursday, 29 January 2009 02:40 (9 months ago) Permalink

Fascinating article, "The Dark Side of Dubai."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

― thirdalternative, Wednesday, 8 April 2009 18:19 (7 months ago) Permalink

Countdown until every Ballard-knockoff author writes a book set in collapsing Dubai in 5... 4... 3...

― Chris Barrus (Elvis Telecom), Wednesday, 8 April 2009 20:15 (7 months ago) Permalink

they couldn't even compete with this

The work is "the worst in the world," he says. "You have to carry 50kg bricks and blocks of cement in the worst heat imaginable ... This heat – it is like nothing else. You sweat so much you can't pee, not for days or weeks. It's like all the liquid comes out through your skin and you stink. You become dizzy and sick but you aren't allowed to stop, except for an hour in the afternoon. You know if you drop anything or slip, you could die.

When I ask the British expats how they feel to not be in a democracy, their reaction is always the same. First, they look bemused. Then they look affronted. "It's the Arab way!" an Essex boy shouts at me in response, as he tries to put a pair of comedy antlers on his head while pouring some beer into the mouth of his friend, who is lying on his back on the floor, gurning.

Here, off the coast of Dubai, developers have been rebuilding the world. They have constructed artificial islands in the shape of all planet Earth's land masses, and they plan to sell each continent off to be built on. There were rumours that the Beckhams would bid for Britain. But the people who work at the nearby coast say they haven't seen anybody there for months now. "The World is over," a South African suggests.

― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 8 April 2009 22:06 (7 months ago) Permalink

There was an article on exactly this same thing in the Guardian last year.

― "Hey, We're Clubbing!" (Police Squad) (jim), Wednesday, 8 April 2009 22:13 (7 months ago) Permalink

Perhaps Dubai disturbed me so much, I am thinking, because here, the entire global supply chain is condensed. Many of my goods are made by semi-enslaved populations desperate for a chance 2,000 miles away; is the only difference that here, they are merely two miles away, and you sometimes get to glimpse their faces? Dubai is Market Fundamentalist Globalisation in One City.

right down to their garbage showing up on their own beaches instead of the pacific trash vortex! I'm glad he ended with this paragraph, it could have been stressed earlier.

― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 8 April 2009 22:22 (7 months ago) Permalink

dubai sounds like a dictator's version of vegas. the original sucks bad enough : (

― fucken cumlord (omar little), Wednesday, 8 April 2009 23:01 (7 months ago) Permalink

Good article, but small warning: some of it can't be correct. Consulates aren't restricted in issuing passports, and exist only to protect their own nationals - why would they refuse to issue new ones to their citizens being held as slaves? The only conceivable reason would be if the slaves were part of a massive counterfeiting ring, which doesn't seem worth it for Bangladeshi documents. Nevertheless, if even half of the rest of it is right, that's disgusting.

― Ismael Klata, Saturday, 11 April 2009 20:43 (7 months ago) Permalink

Subtext: 'it was all right until they started bothering me too!'

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 10 August 2009 19:57 (3 months ago) Permalink

First sentence in that article is amazing

Herve Jaubert, a French spy who left espionage to make leisure submarines for the wealthy, was riding high.

― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 10 August 2009 21:07 (3 months ago) Permalink

I know! He says he's writing a book.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 10 August 2009 21:12 (3 months ago) Permalink

Credit crunch signals end of The World for Dubai’s multi-billion dollar property deal

(again the first sentence is amazing)

England is deserted, Australia and New Zealand have merged, and the man who bought Ireland has killed himself.

They were designed to make Dubai the envy of the world: a series of paradise islands inhabited by celebrities and the super-rich reclaimed from the azure waters of the Arabian Gulf and shaped like a map of the Earth. It was called The World.

As millions of tonnes of rock were dumped into the sea for the foundations, timely leaks suggested that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were to buy Ethiopia, Sir Richard Branson was tipped to occupy England, while Rod Stewart would border him in Scotland.

Instead it has become the world’s most expensive shipping hazard, guarded by private security in fast boats and ringed by warning buoys to keep the curious away. A development that was meant to send Dubai’s star into the firmament of First World cities has been left to the mercy of the waves and the baking winds.

Mile after mile of breakwater built from boulders brought hundreds of miles by ship has been laid, but inside its man-made lagoon, work has completely stopped. The expected map of the world of 300 islands is instead a disjointed and desolate collection of sandy blots — a monumental folly just out of sight of Dubai’s shore.

― Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 07:55 (1 month ago) Permalink

― James Mitchell, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 08:59 (1 month ago) Permalink

new caprica

― history mayne, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 09:03 (1 month ago) Permalink