Dubai

NANG THIS POST
 
Location /// Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Projected Height /// Three towers: 1969 ft, 2625 ft and 3281 ft

Building higher also means building wider. That is why the 3280-foot 1 Dubai will be built with three towers. "What tends to happen is as these buildings get taller, the base needs to be wider, but it gets to the point that it's just too wide to be a single building and you start to pull things apart or separate them," says Peter Weismantle, director of supertall building technology at Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture. The smallest tower of 1 Dubai will come in at around 1970 feet and the tallest at about 3280. All three emerge from a tripedal base architects call the saddle. A canal will flow between 1 Dubai's three legs, letting boats sail underneath. Further support for the towers comes from the connecting skybridges where tower residents will be able to congregate. Designers envision building the skybridges at the saddle and then using a jacking mechanism to hoist them into place. Clearing the site for the project began in 2008 but has since been put on hold thanks to the state of the world economy. If and when construction begins in earnest, 1 Dubai will take somewhere between seven and 10 years to complete.