Archinect - News

Thailand is in talks to build the world's tallest tower

2024-04-30T11:42:00-04:00

A group of investors led by a Dubai-based real estate developer is in talks to build a mixed-use tower in Thailand that may vie for the title of the world’s tallest building, according to Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin.

Thailand's prime minister met with a group of Middle Eastern and Chinese companies to discuss the plan. Among the groups consulted was Emaar, developers of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the world's tallest tower.

Screenshot of the X/Tweet by PR Thai Government @prdthailand announcing the plan

As of 2024, the tallest building in Thailand is the Magnolias Waterfront Residences Iconsiam in Bangkok, measuring 70 stories and 1,043 feet tall. Meanwhile, it was reported last month by the UK's Architect's Journal that Foster + Partners was designing another scheme which would become the world's tallest building: a 1.2-mile-high skyscraper in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Dubai floats plan for new 400-gate airport terminal, the world's largest

2024-04-29T15:57:00-04:00

A design for what will become the world’s new largest-capacity airport terminal has been announced for Dubai by the Emirati leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Al Jazeera and other international outlets are reporting on the planned $35 billion development, which will take shape at the existing Al Maktoum International Airport with 400 total gates, five parallel runways, and a capacity for 260 million annual travelers — five times the size of Dubai's current international airport, according to the announcement.

Image: Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum via X

Sheikh Mohammed also said there is a plan for a one-million-person satellite city to be developed alongside the new terminal, joined by a logistics hub for international carriers. Yahoo! Finance reported the vision will be realized "within ten years."

Speaking via his X account, the nation's ruler said, "We are building a new project for future generations, ensuring continuous and stable development for our children...

Plans for world’s tallest residential tower unveiled in Dubai

2024-04-27T08:00:00-04:00

Hospitality brand Six Senses has unveiled plans for a new residential tower in Dubai Marina, set to be the world’s tallest. Sprouting up in Dubai Marina, the Six Senses Residences will be the second Dubai location to come from Six Senses, joining the nearly-opened Six Senses The Palm Jumeirah hotel. The tower is said to boast an impressive 122 floors, when it is eventually completed in 2028.

The height of the new Six Senses Residences Dubai Marina tower is equal to the under-construction Burj Azizi tower nearby, a $1.5 billion commercial project that was announced to have broken ground in January and will be completed the same year.

Image credit: Select Group

They will become two of the world’s six 120+ story structures. Reported amenities include a 109th-floor lap pool and cryotherapy chambers, crystal sound healing room, movie theater, and spa.

Image credit: Select Group

Despite the size, only 251 high-end residences are included. The current record-holder for tallest residential building, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture's Central Park Tower in New York City, has 179 units over 131 floors.

Image credit: Select Group

WSP Middle East and Woods Bagot are reportedly in charge of the architectural design.

Record-setting 50-story mass timber skyscraper approved in Perth

2023-10-05T17:55:00-04:00

Australian architecture firm Elenberg Fraser is moving forward with a new $350 million AUD ($223 million USD) high-rise tower in Perth on the country's west coast that could set the record as the world’s tallest mass timber structure once completed.

Plans for the new 627-foot C6 Tower were approved last week by the city’s Metro Inner-South Joint Development Assessment Panel (JDAP) for client Grange Development.

The firm’s newly-formed research arm Fraser & Partners will be leading the project and says their hybrid steel frame and wood design will utilize a total of 9,678 cubic yards of locally sourced timber in its construction. At 50 stories, it is more than twice the size of the Milwaukee Ascent Tower and another 11 stories taller than SHoP’s forthcoming 39-stroy Atlassian Headquarters in Sydney. Grange says it will be the first carbon-negative construction in the history of Western Australia, though some academics caution this is misleading under current IPCC guidelines.

Image c...

Title of world's highest outdoor pool goes to new supertall tower in Nanning, China

2022-11-10T13:08:00-05:00

Goettsch Partners has completed work on a new 1,322-foot-tall tower in Nanning, China, topped by a special feature they say sets the record for the world’s highest outdoor swimming pool.

The new Guangxi China Resources Tower is a mixed-use design that incorporates a 336-room hotel, office spaces, and retail into its over 2.93-million-square-foot supertall structure, which now stands as the 18th tallest building in China and the 37th tallest in the world.

Image: © Arch-Exist

GP CEO James Zheng called his team’s design a “symbol of rising prosperity for the city.” At 1,060 feet above grade, the swimming pool feature, located inside the 71st-floor terrace of the hotel, is higher than the iconic infinity pool located on the 57th floor of Moshe Safdie’s Marina Bay Sands, which was previously considered to be the world-record holder.

Image: © Arch-Exist

Its tapering form presents clear delineations between the lower-level office program and the hotel amenity above. The t...

CTBUH certifies Ascent as the world's tallest mass timber hybrid building

2022-08-02T17:47:00-04:00

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has officially declared the recently-opened Ascent tower by Korb + Associates Architects the world’s tallest timber-concrete hybrid building.

The 25-story, 86.6-meter (284-foot) structure in Milwaukee takes the distinguished title in two of the mass timber categories: It is both the tallest timber building overall and the tallest concrete-timber hybrid building. The previous world’s tallest timber building was Mjøstårnet in Brumunddal, Norway, certified by CTBUH in 2019, which stood at roughly 280 feet. Previously holding the record of tallest concrete-timber hybrid building was the approximately 276-foot HoHo building in Vienna, Austria.

Previously on Archinect: World's tallest mass timber tower opens in Milwaukee

“Ascent is a very exciting project,” said CTBUH Director of Research and Thought Leadership Daniel Safarik. “It is helping advance the conversation about how we build more sustainable and healthy cities, especially ...

World's tallest mass timber tower opens in Milwaukee

2022-07-14T17:47:00-04:00

A historic milestone in the use of mass timber as a construction material is about to be passed as Korb + Associates Architects’ aptly-named Ascent tower is finally set to open tomorrow, July 15, in Milwaukee.

Standing 25 stories and a total of 86.6 meters (284 feet), the tower is now officially the world record holder for the largest mass timber structure in the world, surpassing Norway’s Mjøsa Tower by a scant 1.2 meters (or roughly 4 feet). It cost $80 million to construct and will provide Milwaukee’s East Town neighborhood with a total of 259 apartment units built in partnership with structural engineers Thornton Tomasetti.

Ascent is now Milwaukee’s second mass timber residential development after the nearby Timber Lofts and will soon be joined by a 15-story design called The Edison, which is set to open next year.

Image courtesy Thornton Tomasetti

2022 has already been an exciting year for the use of the highly sustainable material in architectu...

World's tallest (mostly) Lego tower built in memory of eight-year-old cancer victim

2018-01-02T18:50:00-05:00

Plastic building blocks are once again reaching for the sky. This time, it was the city of Tel Aviv that made an attempt to build the tallest Lego tower — or, officially, the tallest structure built with interlocking plastic bricks, not all of them made by the Danish toy giant. [...] a joint effort between Tel Aviv City Hall and Young Engineers, an organization that promotes learning with toy bricks. The tower is intended to honor a child who died from cancer.

"Omer Tower" was built in memory of Omer Sayag, himself an avid fan of the colorful plastic blocks, who lost his battle with cancer in 2014 at the age of 8.

Clocking in at a height of 35.85 meters (117 feet and 7 inches), the structure on Tel Aviv's Rabin Square beat previous world records including the most recent one in Milan in 2015.

Amazing LEGO Creation Breaks World Record in Budapest

2014-05-30T20:50:00-04:00

A new world record was broken just this week in Hungary, Budapest when LEGO architects placed the finishing Rubik's Cube ornament on the top of the massive Lego skyscraper. Reaching 34.76 meters (114 feet), the tower was officially registered with the Guinness book of World Records as well as the LEGO Store in Budapest on May 25.

Downtown LA to set record for world's largest concrete pour

2014-02-14T15:31:00-05:00

The latest addition to the Los Angeles skyline — the New Wilshire Grand, the tallest structure to be built west of the Mississippi — takes a major step forward Saturday when more than 2,000 truckloads of concrete are driven through downtown for what is being billed as the world's largest continuous concrete pour. The slurry-fest begins at 5 p.m. and is expected to last nearly 20 hours.

Delaware Students Have Just Built World's Tallest Lego Tower

2013-08-23T14:24:00-04:00

[...] after months of blood, sweat and tears a team of students from Wilmington, Delaware, broke the Guinness World Record and built the world's tallest Lego tower. For the students, this victory was personal. They struck a powerful blow to their Lego arch-rivals, previous record-holder, the city of Prague. The American Lego tower stands over 112 feet tall, and is made of more than 500,000 bricks!

Previous happy Lego tower world record breakers:

Get started with your own (architecturally sophisticated) tower here.

Faulty tower: Glasgow's £10m white elephant

2013-06-03T11:43:00-04:00

When it was built, it held the Guinness World Record for the "tallest fully-rotating tower" - although to be fair, there was not much competition for that particular accolade. The 127m-tall (416 ft) steel and glass tower, the highest building in Scotland, was the only structure in the world able to rotate fully through 360 degrees from base to top. Neil Baxter, secretary of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland says the idea was unique: "Nobody had ever tried to do that."

The problem, however, is that it doesn't work.

The tower has now been closed since August 2010 and the science centre recently announced it had settled a lengthy court action with the contractors.

Science centre bosses said they had received "substantial" compensation but there seems to be very little prospect of the tower ever turning again.

Architect Peter Wilson, of Edinburgh Napier University, is one of the critics of the project.

"The fundamental thing about this is that when it was initially designed, it was never meant to be built," he says.

"It was intended for an 'ideas' competition."

Record breaking lego tower in Seoul

2012-05-14T11:49:00-04:00

The world's tallest lego tower with more than 50,000 bricks stands in front of Seoul's Olympic Stadium. The lego tower measuring 31.9 meters took five days to build and broke the previous record set in France at 31.6 meters.

Purdue team sets new world record for Largest Rube Goldberg Machine

2012-04-09T23:23:00-04:00

The Purdue Society of Professional Engineers team smashed its own world record for largest Rube Goldberg machine with a 300-step behemoth that flawlessly accomplished the simple task of blowing up and popping a balloon - setting the new world record for the Largest functional Rube Goldberg machine, according to World Records Academy