According to the Council on Tall Building and Urban Habitat’s (CTBUH) Height Criteria, the buildings over 985 feet in height can be called ‘skyscrapers.’ There are many skyscrapers around the world. But the interesting thing is that most of the world’s skyscrapers are made by adding useless vanity floors!
At present, the world’s tallest building is Burj Khalifa. It is located in Dubai and its height is 2,717 feet (828 meter).
But Burj Khalifa will surely lose the title of being ‘the world’s tallest building’ as a Chinese firm has already got a nod to build the world’s tallest building ‘Skycity’ in 90 days.
The newest to be built ‘the world’s tallest building’ Skycity in China will be a 220 storied building. The building will have 1 million square meters of residential, commercial and retail space, 104 elevators, and capacity for 70,000-120,000 people. Skycity will be 33 feet (10 meter) higher than Burj Khalifa.
But more interesting thing is Skycity will also lose the title of being ‘the world’s tallest building’ as Saudi Arabia has planned to build a tower named Kingdom Tower in Jeddah which will be 3,281 feet (1000 meter) in height. On the other side, Azerbaijani businessman Haji Ibrahim Nehramli, president of Avesta Group of Companies has announced that he plans to build the world’s proposed tallest building Azerbaijan Tower which will be even higher than Kingdom Tower, a building which will be 3,445 ft (1,050 m) in height. Its construction will start in 2016 and it is expected that it’ll be finished within 2019.
So, it is clear that in future we will hear some other companies or person announcing to build the world’s tallest building. But the interesting matter is this CTBUH has discovered that many of these luxury buildings in places such as Dubai and China use unused space on top of their designs to bolster their height. In other words, these skyscrapers are made or to be made by adding useless vanity floors.
The skyscraper with the greatest vanity height has been found is the iconic Burj Al Arab in Dubai. It is architecturally 1,055 feet tall, yet the top 405 feet is ‘useless’ and without this unused space, the skyscraper wouldn’t qualify as super tall. That’s not all. CTBUH has also discovered that in Dubai alone, 19 per cent of space at the top of the cities’ skyscrapers remain unused. They are useless vanity floors. After these, CTBUH started investigating about the architectural design and its appropriate implementation of other skyscrapers across the world.
CTBUH has listed the 10 worst offenders, with unused space ranging from 27 per cent up to 39 per cent, with five of them in Dubai. The ratio of the living space in Burj Al Arab luxury hotel, compared to the useless space, is 39 per cent. On the other hand, Bank of America Tower in New York, the second vainest building has 36 per cent unused space. The world’s tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, has 29 per cent unused space, which consists of 800 feet of its 2,716 feet height.
According to CTBUH, 61 percent of the world’s tallest buildings – 44 out of 72 – would not be classed as super tall if the unused space is removed. The CTBUH also claims that if a building’s unused space is more than half its total height, then it is technically classed as a ‘non-building’.
Source: Daily Mail
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