World’s tallest skyscraper under construction in Saudi Arabia

This story originally appeared on The Media Line.

Imagine the size of a football field. Now imagine the length of 11 football fields all lined up end zone to end zone. Pretend, instead of those 11 fields laying horizontally across the ground, that they are vertical, reaching the clouds in the sky. That is the height of the soon-to-be world’s tallest tower. You’ll find this megastructure known as the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

With just over a year into construction, the initial 14 floors have been built. When the building is completed in 2018, it will stand over half a mile tall at an estimated 3,281 feet. That’s over 2.5 Empire State Buildings.

Through the entire building process, a company called Advanced Construction Technology Services is onsite to ensure the quality of the materials required to build such an enormous structure. Khaled Awad, an engineer and the chairman of Advanced Construction Technology Services, says they’re using “mobilized state-of-the-art testing equipment” to control inspection on materials – mostly concrete and steel.

“This project is using over 1.7 million cubic feet of concrete and around 80,000 tons of steel,” Awad told The Media Line. 80,000 tons of steel is the equivalent of about 40,000 average-sized U.S. cars while 1.7 million cubic feet is nearly 200 Olympic-size swimming pools worth of concrete.

Advanced Construction Technology Services also tests the concrete mix to ensure it can be pumped through a system to reach high elevations. Awad says this has been the greatest challenge.

Once the tower is complete, however, the task is not quite finished. Kingdom Tower is part of a much bigger developmental project with waterfront promenades and shopping malls – the $20 billion Kingdom City.

Major construction in Jeddah has become the norm in recent years. The average age of a building is only 2-years-old. In fact, according to The Skyscraper Center, the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s database, the top 5 tallest buildings in Jeddah are all under construction, with the first expected to be completed in 2016.

Should this be a surprise? With an estimated population of 3.5 million, Jeddah is the second largest city in Saudi Arabia just after the capital, Riyadh. It’s also the largest seaport on the Red Sea, and considered the gateway to the two holiest sites in Islam, Mecca and Medina.

It seems only natural for Jeddah to prosper with construction like the Kingdom Tower. But some argue that basic infrastructure, rather than skyscrapers, should be the focus of production. Critics of the Kingdom Tower dispute the city is not ready for a tower of this magnitude when floods in 2009 caused death and destruction because the city didn’t have a basic drainage system.

University of St. Thomas’ Dr. Christopher Michaelson’s article The Competition for the Tallest Skyscraper: Implications for Global Ethics and Economics discusses this in great detail, and when asked for his opinion on the construction of the Kingdom Tower, he told The Media Line: “What I can say is that some other monumental architecture projects throughout history have prioritized power and wealth symbolism over general well-being. For the Kingdom Tower to be successful as more than a symbol of economic power, it will need not only to be tall but also beautiful, sustainable, and useful to the community by, for example, attracting necessary infrastructure and economic and social development.”

It seems that is exactly what the Kingdom Tower is trying to achieve. The megastructure, like 36% of the tallest buildings in Jeddah, will be mixed use, having 200 floors for office space, residential and serviced apartments and a Four Seasons Hotel. It will also host the world’s tallest observation deck, stealing the title of not only the tallest deck but also the tallest tower from the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, constructed by architect Adrian Smith in 2010.

That same Adrian Smith, now at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, is also the one responsible for the Kingdom Tower’s look. Aspects of its design have been conjured to ensure not only beauty but also sustainability. The wings along its sides make the tower aerodynamic, helping to reduce structural loading from high winds. The exterior wall system is meant to minimize energy consumption, and notches along the building create shadows and sun protection, according to the Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture website. No representatives from Smith + Gill were available to speak to The Media Line.

Adrian Smith already holds the crown of the world’s tallest tower with the Burj Khalifa, and soon he will strip the title and recrown himself upon the completion of the Kingdom Tower, though it is unclear exactly how long his reign will last.

Michaelson says if recent history is an indicator, it probably won’t remain the tallest for very long due to the fact that since 1998, a new tallest skyscraper has appeared every 5-10 years. He told The Media Line that just because Kingdom Tower will be the tallest, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be the greatest.

“We celebrate tall because it’s easily measurable, but a more worthwhile aspiration might be to build the best skyscraper, which of course is more difficult to define and to measure.”