The Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, which will be the world’s tallest building when it is completed, marked a major construction milestone this week. The record-breaking skyscraper, designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG) and constructed by Saudi Binladin Group (SBG), has reached a height of 454 meters (around 1,489 feet) at 113 floors, according to SBG senior executive project director Ian Norman Miller, who shared the news in a post on LinkedIn on Wednesday. The Jeddah Tower’s current height surpasses Malaysia’s Petronas Towers, which at 452 meters (around 1,483 feet) was once the world’s tallest building in 1998 before losing its title years later to Taiwan’s Taipei 101 tower, according to the Skyscraper Museum.
Architect Bob Forest, partner at AS+GG, told Newsweek: “It is humbling when you understand the significance of surpassing a previous world’s tallest building record holder and the effort required to reach this milestone…especially considering it is the end of summer in Jeddah [the city in Saudi Arabia] and the team has had to deal with extraordinary hot temperatures." Designed by architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill, co-founders of AS+GG, the Jeddah Tower will, once completed, soar over 1,000 meters (around 3,281 feet) high, surpassing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the current world’s tallest building, which stands 2,717 feet high. The Burj Khalifa was also designed by Smith while he was at the SOM (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) architectural firm, before co-founding AS+GG. The Jeddah Tower’s latest milestone follows a string of other record-breaking skyscrapers unveiled recently, such as Bevel, a proposed tower slated to become the tallest mass timber office building in the United States.
China's Tianjin 117 Tower, the world’s tallest empty skyscraper, is nearing completion almost 18 years after construction began, and last month it announced it will feature the world’s tallest elevator in a building. In his LinkedIn post, Miller from SBG wrote: “454 METERS. Thirty years ago, my father helped build the World’s Tallest Building.
Today, Jeddah Tower - being built by Saudi Binladin Group (SBG) - surpassed it.” Recalling the building of the Petronas Towers, he said: “I was just 16 at the time - and I was proud of my father for his role leading the concrete construction of the tower…and today, I have the pride of celebrating our own success with my SBG team, with Jeddah Tower now eclipsing the height of Petronas Towers…” Forest from AS+GG also recalled working in Hong Kong when the Petronas Towers were completed, shifting the record of the world’s tallest building to Asia for the first time. Forest told Newsweek: “Petronas is a building of my era, built when I could appreciate the record of ‘world’s tallest building’ and I remember admiring the building as a young architect and hoping that one day I could be a part of something so unique. I guess hopes can become reality.” Forest notes that the latest milestone comes with ongoing engineering challenges, such as developing a structural system that can work efficiently at record-breaking heights.
However, one of the more interesting challenges the team faces is that the weather ultimately dictates the construction pace. He explained: “Our profession is both an art and a science, but we all answer to Mother Nature…regardless of the milestones we are trying to hit.” For example, high winds can bring the construction to a halt. While general wind speeds during the year that may be problematic can be predicted with climate modeling, “you never really know until that morning or evening if the wind is at a speed that forces you to stop the construction activities,” Forest said.
He noted: “You can be up there pouring concrete one afternoon and need to stop and secure the construction site that evening as the weather rolls in.” Forest praised the construction team for their “remarkable” work in increasing productivity and the speed of construction. He noted that the team has been learning and testing what logistics and construction strategies work best and what allows the team to be more efficient and increase the speed of construction. The architect told Newsweek: “With the team’s dedication to the process, Jeddah Tower is on track to meet its planned completion date” of August 2028.
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