Dubai City Tower: Greatest Mega Project That May Never Be Built

Dubai City Tower, which was being planned by Meraas Development of Dubai as part of their Jumeirah Gardens project, has been put on hold for now but if they ever do get this tower built it will be the greatest Mega Project ever developed. The tower, at 1.5 miles in height, would be over 3 times the height of Burj Dubai! It would be so massive that it would contain an entire city within its structure... a Vertical City!

The following is from the designers of Dubai City Tower:

'Our design for the Dubai City Tower is 400 habitable stories high topped by a 400m tall energy producing spire. Each floor to floor height is 5m making the overall height of the building 2400m (1.5miles). We are proposing that the tower be sited along the Gulf sea where part of the building could push into the ocean creating a marina and destination for cruise ships and tourism. The overall mass of the tower is broken down into 6 independent buildings, three rotating clockwise and three counter-clockwise about a central core. Sixty-five percent of the total building floor area is located in the first 100 stories maximizing leasing potential while easing the strain of servicing a 400 story tower. A six story base sits at the foot of the tower housing a convention center, retail, event space and parking. Two stories of VIP self parking exists above ground and fifteen stories of robotic parking are housed below ground. The overall tower is organized into four 100 story "neighborhoods" connected via a vertical bullet train that quickly distributes people between sky plazas that separate the different vertical neighborhoods.

'The sky plaza becomes a new town center at every 100 stories filled with the character of a city offering a diversity of experiences from shopping to leisure. Functionally, zones act to separate building and transportation systems into smaller more manageable units more typical to the design constraints of today. Here the vertical bullet train delivers passengers / tenants every 10 minutes. From this hub people then switch to more standard elevators to be distributed to their offices, hotels or homes. VIP helicopter pads are also located at each of the plaza levels allowing for quicker and more discreet access.

'The lower levels of each sky plaza serve to separate the tower's building system between neighborhoods. Each 100 story block serves as an independent unit with separate plumbing, electric and waste system all linked through a central core. Here chilled water created by thermal exchange and electricity created by strategically placed photovoltaic cells and turbines located in the spire are captured and delivered to occupants of the building. In addition, water purification and trash composing take place within this zone in a biosphere like garden that becomes a vertical park for recreation, oxygen creation and natural relief. Every effort has been made to make each neighborhood as self reliant as possible. Wind energy generated by turbines located in the spire combined with photovoltaic cells strategically laminated into each building's skin offset the tower's draw from the local power grid. Recycling efforts at each 100 story sky plaza and integrated desalination plants reduce the tower's impact on the surrounding infrastructure ushering in a new era of smart building design sensitive to both the building's occupants and the tower's local environment.

'The Dubai City Tower pushes every edge of building design. For centuries man has pushed construction towards the heavens. The sheer scale of the project will focus the world's eye towards the city of Dubai and it will be the tower's design and image that will preserve Dubai City Tower's grandeur into the future.'

Wow!! The designers of this Mega Project really thought BIG! However with the real estate market the way it is in Dubai I think it will be a miracle if Dubai City Tower ever gets built.

The following link takes you to the Meraas Development website:

http://www.meraasdevelopment.ae/

This link takes you to a few artistic renditions of Dubai City Tower:

www.liquididea.com/2008/10/18/DubaiCityTower.jpg