Tall building expert says two km tower is now possible

Wednesday, 10 August 2011 01:18 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

It is structurally feasible to build a tower that is twice the height of Jeddah’s 1km-tall Kingdom Tower, according to the Chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

Speaking to Middle East Architect, Dr. Sang Dae Kim said: “With the Kingdom Tower we now have a design that reaches around one km in height. Later on, someone will push for one mile, and then two km.” He continued: “At this point in time we can build a tower that is one km, maybe two km. Any higher than that and we will have to do a lot of homework.”

Yet Kim believes that it is impractical to build a two km-high tower. He added: “In terms of practicalities, we don’t need to build at two km. At this height you have to provide a large percentage of elevator space and this is impractical. But someone with a lot of money might still want to do it.”

He pointed out that building at such height would incur many structural challenges. “There might be constraints for the structural engineering – we don’t know many things. When you go up to one of two kilometres, we don’t have much information on the surrounding wind conditions.”

Kim also noted that there may be issues with floor lean due to the shortening of columns over time.