tagged w/ Skyscrapers
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Prince Charles famously doesn't care for skyscrapers. He sees them as a vain attempt to assert masculinity, like a rock star with a cucumber down his trousers – or, as he puts it: "Trying to make them ever taller than the other person's building is surely taking the commercial macho into the realms of adolescent lunacy".
Phallic icons or not, we're about to move into a new era of mega-tall buildings that will put structures like Chicago's Sears Tower, at 442 metres (1,450 feet) tall, and Taiwan's Taipei 101, at 508m, in the shade.
George Efstathiou, a managing partner at the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, declares that "the age of the super-skyscrapers is starting again". Considering the scale of the structures on the way, he could well be right.
The structure set to beat them all was announced at the end of March. The Mile High Tower, to be built in a "mini city" near the Red Sea port of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, will be about 1,600 metres tall – seven times the height of the Canary Wharf tower in London Docklands, or four Empire State buildings on top of each other. Prince Charles famously doesn't care for skyscrapers. He sees them as a vain... more
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Merge9
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added this
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3 years ago
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Mukesh Ambani, head of petrochemical giant Reliance Industries, has commissioned architecture firms Perkins & Will and Hirsch Bedner Associates to build a 27-story mansion that include helipads, parking lots, guest apartments, a cinema, a ballroom, numerous powder rooms, gardens, a gym, and of course the Ambani residence in downtown Mumbai.
Nearly costing $2 billion dollars, the Ambani residence, called an Antilla, is based on the Indian tradition of Vaastu, a tradition much like Feng Shui. At the request of Ambani's wife, no two floors are alike in either plans or materials. Designers had to work with different materials and plan for consistency without repetition.
The Ambanis currently reside in their 22-story Mumbai tower and will be moving into their custom home as soon as it is finished in January. Mukesh Ambani, head of petrochemical giant Reliance Industries, has commissioned... more
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The agonies people are prepared to inflict upon themselves in the name of fitness and fun are often baffling, but "tower running" takes endurance to a whole new dimension. It is a sport of few rules: you run up a skyscraper's stairwell, you collapse and the fastest time wins. Despite the fact that it sounds about as enjoyable as gargling with magma, it is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world. In America, there are countless competitions, with the three majors being the US Bank Tower in LA, the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Empire State Building in New York. There are races, too, all over Europe, Asia and South America, though none yet of any significance in Britain.
The elite athletes who pioneer this new craze are, unsurpisingly, a rum bunch. There's 55-year-old Kurt Hess, who holds the world record for altitude climbed in 24 hours (30,000m) and who trains for 12 hours a day at weekends. There's Ed McCall, a successful broker, who liked running up stairs so much he introduced his teenage sons to it: the three now combine school and work with travelling to races all over the world. And there's Tim Van Orden, who feels compelled to break records in a host of athletic endeavours, and to show the world (via his website runningraw.com) that all of this can be done on a raw vegan diet.
Their motives for taking up the sport may differ, but tower runners all talk of one universally shared experience - the pain. "It's not all that pleasant," says Ed McCall. His son, Colin, adds: "After my first race, I puked in a garbage can. Everyone high-fived me." "Think about the most painful thing you've ever done, then multiply by 10," says his elder brother Colin.
Most tower runners seem to have found the sport by accident. "I was a mountain runner training for the US team back in the fall of 2006," says Van Orden. "At the time, mountain running was the most gruelling sport I could find. But I injured my knee, and thought I was going to be out for a few months, until I discovered that I could climb stairs without aggravating it. A friend had mentioned that they held a stair climb race in the US Bank Tower in downtown LA and suggested that I give it a try. Somehow I managed to get third place overall. I had never experienced so much pain in my life - but I was hooked." Not everyone achieves such success in their first event. Tower runners love to relate stories of elite marathon runners who assume they'll cruise to the top, only to drop out in a crumpled heap on the 43rd floor.
One "flat" athlete who has succeeded at more vertical pursuits is Austrian Andrea Mayr. As well as being the Austrian record holder for the women's 3,000m steeplechase, Mayr is a multiple winner of the Empire State Run Up and the Taipei 101, the sport's most prestigious events, and sees it as useful endurance training on a road that she hopes will take her to Beijing this summer. Even she - a seasoned athlete - complains of the pain of tower running: "After the first half your legs get tired, and at the end the muscles really burn. It's really, really tough."The agonies people are prepared to inflict upon themselves in the name of fitness and... more
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Move over Burj Dubai, and make room for a new generation of supertowers! Dubai, formerly known as the modest "city of merchants," has been laying out a new foundation for urban growth with gleaming new high-rises climbing vertically from the desert port. The Burj Dubai which opens in June 2009 will be the world's tallest skyscraper topping with 160 habitable floors. The mixed use residential and commercial tower will also unveil Armani's debut hotel. See the Burj Dubai site for further info here > http://www.burjdubai.com.
Meanwhile, eleven newer projects are planned in Dubai that will make up a new class of supertowers, rising upwards with more than 100 habitable floors each, including EP Site 09 (pictured). Find out more in this Gulf News article contributed by Business Editor Saifur Rahman (04 May 2008).Move over Burj Dubai, and make room for a new generation of supertowers! Dubai,... more
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"Where should we have lunch today, High Lord Sloan?""How about Crossbeam Cafe?""No, I had that yesterday""Maybe the Floating Park Deli? That's not too heavy.""Actually I think I'll just hydrowave some electro-sprouts and eat at my telepathy beacon.""OK, we still on for Tron after work?""Wouldn't miss it for the world!""Where should we have lunch today, High Lord Sloan?""How about... more
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There's time-lapse photography... and then there's TIME-LAPSE PHOTOGRAPHY. Check out this compressed film of Tokyo's skyline (!) over 35 years (!!) -- it looks alien, almost insectile.There's time-lapse photography... and then there's TIME-LAPSE PHOTOGRAPHY.... more
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sloan
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added this
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4 years ago
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1200+ feet... maybe it's my underdeveloped aesthetic sense or perhaps the small image doesn't do it justice, but the Rogers Stirk Harbour design makes Sutro Tower look attractive in comparison...1200+ feet... maybe it's my underdeveloped aesthetic sense or perhaps the small... more
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klenga
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added this
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4 years ago
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