It’s 2024.
In the past year we’ve seen some incredible
feats of construction – from desert skyscrapers and Japanese supertalls,
to an underwater mega-tunnel and a new dam being built in front of a dam to save a dam… damn!
But the next year looks set to be even more dramatic with massive Spanish stadiums,
Australian railways, Canadian supertalls,
and a Parisian Olympic Opening Ceremony that will be unlike any we’ve ever seen.
It’s the world’s greatest industry that’s set to pull off these amazing feats and more over the
next 12 months. Here are the 10 most exciting construction projects completing in 2024.
Ooh la la, 2024 will undoubtedly go down as the year of the French.
Now don’t worry, we are going to get to the other projects around the world,
but this country has more spots than any other on our list this year,
and there’s one big reason for that
The Olympic Games.
Normally that would mean excess – think epic new
stadiums and lavish megaprojects. But this is an Olympics unlike any other.
Having built up a bit of a reputation for its cost – and the estimated $12.9BN that the
pandemic-hit Tokyo Games ran to – Olympic officials have been wanting to rebrand,
cut down on waste and create a cleaner event.
One way to do that is by reusing old buildings, and 95 percent of
the venues for this year’s Games will be held in either existing or temporary structures.
Many of the venues that are already standing are being refurbished and modernised where needed.
While temporary ones are going to be constructed around the city and dismantled once the Games
are over - like this spectacular arena built at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
Not only is this less wasteful, but it means events can be held
in different and interesting parts of the city.
The only permanent new venue will be the Aquatics Centre: an impressive
looking venue that’s being largely built with sustainably-sourced mass timber.
It’ll be reused after the Olympics for international and national competitions.
The 5,000 square metre roof will also be covered with photovoltaic panels making
it one of France’s largest urban solar farms, supplying all the energy the building will need.
Inside, the smaller-than-usual- space has been carefully calibrated to maintain views
for spectators while reducing the size of the room that needs to be heated.
This ambition to be clean and green has stretched to other parts of the
French capital too, most notably its river.
Massive treatment facilities have been constructed in a bid to make the Seine
swimmable, something which has not been possible for more than a hundred years.
That’s because French officials banned swimmers
from the river in 1923 due to metal and faecal bacteria in the water.
The enormous clean up effort will cost over USD$1.5BN, and involves what is
basically a giant rainwater holding tank, measuring 50 metres wide and 34 metres deep,
storing up to 46M litres of water before being transported via a tunnel to a treatment facility.
That clean swimmable water will then be pumped back into the Seine.
The goal is for swimming trials to be hosted here, like they were in the 1900 Olympics.
The Paris opening ceremony will also take place on the river in a spectacular display that promises
to be the largest Olympic opening in history, finishing-up right under the Eiffel Tower.
Before we leave the French capital there is one other major project that we have to mention.
The restoration of Notre Dame has been a long and complicated process – the
devastating fire of 2019 destroyed much of the interior and the iconic wooden spire.
Rebuilding Europe’s most visited landmark to its former glory is no mean feat.
It has cost more than USD $900M and has run into several major setbacks already.
Miraculously most of the cathedral will be open by the end of 2024,
meeting President Emmanuel Macron’s original deadline.
While it will take a little longer to complete the interiors,
much of the exterior should be complete, including the famous spire.
Located on the southern part of the island nation, Kaohsiung has a population of more
than 2.7M people, making it the third largest in the country.
But don’t let that fool you, this economic powerhouse is
home to Taiwan’s largest port and the 13th busiest port in the world.
The bustling city is currently going through a massive upgrade
of its metro and this new station sits in the very heart of the megaproject.
It’ll be a true transportation hub linking train,
metro, local and intercity bus services, taxi and bike routes.
There’s also a 9.75 kilometre railway tunnel which includes
no fewer than seven new subterranean stations.
A sweeping canopy over the 8.5-hectare
site means it also doubles as a new year-round public park for the city.
Rising 458 metres into the sky, this will be the tallest new building to complete in
2024 – and it’ll rank among the top 20 tallest skyscrapers in the world.
Eight of the ten tallest buildings
completing in 2024 will be in China – the other two are in Dubai and Cairo.
Despite the country’s recent tall skyscraper ban and the downfall of property giant Evergrande,
China is still very much leading the world in high-rise construction.
73 of the hundred tallest buildings currently being built are in China.
The International Land-Sea Center is a 98-storey part of an 11 tower master plan
designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox that will completely overhaul Chongqing’s downtown.
Built on the banks of the Yangtze River, one of the major train lines in the
city will actually pass directly through the building at its base.
This dazzling light display marked the supertall tower’s topping out back in 2022.
Australia’s largest metro is getting a much needed expansion. The 30-kilometre new line
burrows under Sydney Harbour and through to new CBD stations that are due to open in 2024.
The project has been called “arguably the most transformative
piece of transport since the Harbour Bridge.”
At a cost USD $20BN the new network is one of the largest suburban rail
projects in the world, rivalling even the Grand Paris Express.
And that’s just the start. By 2030,
Sydney will have 113 kilometres of new metro rail and some 46 new stations.
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Now let's get back to this year's biggest projects.
Next we’re heading over to Toronto, where a frantic race
to build Canada’s new tallest building is heading towards the final straight.
Strict zoning laws and a rising population mean the city is seeing a massive skyscraper boom
and will soon overtake Chicago as the urban area with the second most skyscrapers in North America.
Designed by Foster and Partners, The One will rise 306-metres above the city to become Canada’s
first supertall building, offering apartments, commercial space and a hotel when it completes.
The building’s extreme height for its location has resulted in a
number of engineering challenges, most notably with taming the wind.
With so many tall buildings springing up across Toronto,
the wind being blown down to street level has become an issue.
To get around this, cutaways in the building’s mechanical floors have been created to
help to disrupt the flow of wind and prevent it blowing down to pedestrians below.
From one skyscraper boom to another, Frankfurt’s
skyline is set to get dramatically taller over the next few years.
There are currently more than 50 high rises either being built or planned in this city.
Leading the charge is FOUR Frankfurt – a megadevelopment of, you guessed it,
four towers – which is due to finish in 2024.
The tallest new building in the cluster will rise 233-metres above street-level.
For decades the city centre and the banking district have been severed,
but this development will reconnect them: creating a new mixed-use neighbourhood in the process.
The site will contain offices, apartments,
a hotel, shops and restaurants – literally acting as its own little city within a city.
We visited the site in 2023 to see its progress and the towers are shaping up nicely.
Kuala Lumpur kind of has a thing for skybridges.
This massive complex is going up right next to the iconic Petronas Towers;
a world-famous skyscraper duo linked by what’s probably the world’s most famous skybridge.
Raising the bar, Well Oxley Towers has two of these sky-high connections,
each with their own rooftop garden.
The sprawling three-tower structure will contain nearly 2M square metres of floor
space – five times that of the nearby Petronas complex – and see its tallest
tower rise to a supertall height of 338 metres.
Inside is another veritable city within a city: think the usual mix of apartments,
offices, commercial spaces, restaurants, shops – you get the idea.
The Malaysian capital’s skyscraper boom also shows no signs of slowing down.
Oxley Towers will join the recently completed Exchange Tower and the now
tallest building in the city – and second tallest building in the world – Merdeka 118.
No, it’s not an enormous sandwich toaster,
this is the $1BN new home of Spanish football legends Real Madrid.
The Santiago Bernabéu Stadium has undergone
an incredible transformation to become the self-declared “best stadium in the world”.
This is what it looked like just a few years ago when it
was already one of Europe’s most iconic venues.
The refurb has included, most obviously, a massive wraparound facade made up of strips
of steel and stripes which will be lit up at night and have images and videos projected on to them.
The stadium’s capacity has also been raised from around 81,000
to 85,000 and a retractable roof and new terraces have been added.
There’s also an amazing retractable pitch that can be segmented and stored below ground,
cleverly stacked to avoid the metro line running under the pitch.
While gigs happen in the stadium, the grass below
ground is kept in optimal conditions and even mowed by the grounds team.
This video was sponsored by Brilliant, you can learn more about that at the link below.
You can keep track of all these projects and more in 2024 over on The World’s Best
Construction Podcast – available right now wherever you get your podcast.
And as always guys if you enjoyed this video and you want the world’s best construction content
in your feed this year, then make your best decision of 2024 so far and subscribe to The B1M.