ProjectEnd said:
What a silly, ridiculous project.
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Ridiculously tall that is. Silly? For now, it is. But it depends on who you're asking. It's being used to catalyze the development around it, only time will tell...

A graphic of The One in context at 306 m , 1004 feet :

1BW Elevation-West.png
 

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steveve said:
Ridiculously tall that is. Silly? For now, it is. But it depends on who you're asking. It's being used to catalyze the development around it, only time will tell...

A graphic of The One in context at 306 m , 1004 feet :
Click to expand...

I'm going to stick with silly and ridiculous. It's an immense project going up in a place with little population influx and a severe human rights record. These desert things are being financed not by end users or even investors, but by the Sheikhs who run the country. It's a stupid, self-serving project with no real reason to exist beyond being an enormous projection of the extreme oil wealth that Saudi Arabia is generating. Beyond that, not only does it not have any context to begin with, it doesn't create the kind of context of which healthy cities are made.

It's Vegas on bituminous, phantasmagorical steroids. It's the biggest Potemkin Village the world has ever seen.

It's Silly. Ridiculous.

worlds%20tallest%20jeddah%20tower%20kingdom%20tower.jpg
 
ProjectEnd said:
I'm going to stick with silly and ridiculous. It's an immense project going up in a place with little population influx and a severe human rights record. These desert things are being financed not by end users or even investors, but by the Sheikhs who run the country. It's a stupid, self-serving project with no real reason to exist beyond being an enormous projection of the extreme oil wealth that Saudi Arabia is generating. Beyond that, not only does it not have any context to begin with, it doesn't create the kind of context of which healthy cities are made.

It's Vegas on bituminous, phantasmagorical steroids. It's the biggest Potemkin Village the world has ever seen.

It's Silly. Ridiculous.
Click to expand...

It might seem that way to you.

But investing in development also means investing in infrastructure, and making livable cities. Cities bring in outside money, and hopefully, lasting economic change for the country.

Don’t kid yourself I’m thinking that the sheiks, royalty and oil barons of the area don’t know that petroleum’s days are numbered (socially and in regards to reserves). They’re investing into their own countries in the hopes of fostering lasting change. Yes, some may be despots, and the countries themselves may be anti-progressive. But many do care about the future of their home, regardless of their wealth or social status.

In the long run, it also benefits equality, as urban areas foster progressive ideology. See; Doha.
 
Investing billions ≠ good city building no matter what form the development takes. @ProjectEnd is saying that this particular tower is obnoxious. There's no reason that the development in Jeddah couldn't have been done in a way that might actually create a livable city down at ground level. All they're going to create there is another catastrophe of a place like Dubai.

Anyway, none of that is germane here. This all comes out of a silly typo regarding the height recorded for The One. We may be getting something only one third the height of the Jeddah Tower, but hey, thank goodness.

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zang said:
It might seem that way to you.

But investing in development also means investing in infrastructure, and making livable cities. Cities bring in outside money, and hopefully, lasting economic change for the country.

Don’t kid yourself I’m thinking that the sheiks, royalty and oil barons of the area don’t know that petroleum’s days are numbered (socially and in regards to reserves). They’re investing into their own countries in the hopes of fostering lasting change. Yes, some may be despots, and the countries themselves may be anti-progressive. But many do care about the future of their home, regardless of their wealth or social status.

In the long run, it also benefits equality, as urban areas foster progressive ideology. See; Doha.
Click to expand...

How is a 250 storey structure in the middle of the desert with nothing but a glorified mall surrounding it 'making livable cities'? What's incredible about the way that older Arabic / Persian / Middle-Eastern cities function is the way that the souks, bazaars and markets foster a vibrant, intimate street-life which focuses on the pedestrian. This has none of that. So not only is it physically disconnected from the countries' historic urban culture, it's only there to glorify its current export and the unsustainable culture that that export promotes.

In this sense, while 'lasting change' is certainly being fostered, it's not 'progressive' or symbolic of all that we've learned from decades of auto-oriented nonsense.
 
The sand, heat, and wind will not be kind to that structure. The Burj Khalifa is a major energy consumer because it's so exposed to the elements and requires an inordinate amount of energy to cool every day. The Jeddah Tower will be the same. Unless the air is that much cooler way up high and they channel it downwards, it's going to be an energy fiend.

Still a terrible use of resources.
 
At that height I don't think it will look vastly different from the ground. You'll be able to tell which one is taller for sure, but it won't dominate the intersection. Think Commerce Court to First Canadian Place, one is evidently taller, but it's not a neck tilt higher, just a slight glance.
 
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