Tallest Buildings Under Construction in Africa - The Race for Africa's Tallest Skyscraper
Africa has erected some of the world's most impressive structures over time, including
some of the world's highest towers. Beginning with only a few major cities in Africa that
had skyscrapers, new developments have resulted in more cities with superstructures. Since
the late 1960s and early 70's when Anglo American Properties built the Carlton Centre in central
Johannesburg for about R88million which is roughly $6 billion, it had held the title
of Africa's tallest skyscraper. The Carlton Centre in Johannesburg began the history of
skyscrapers in Africa in 1973. The Carlton Centre is a 223-meter-tall Building with 50
habitable floors in Johannesburg. It also provides various shopping centers and eateries.
Carlton Centre resembles the famous One Seneca Tower in Buffalo, New York, which was completed
in the same year. Carlton Centre was once the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere
but the Leonardo has dethroned that feature of the city skyline, as made official by the
Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The Leonardo, in Johannesburg's affluent Sandton
suburb, now holds the title of Africa's highest building. It is obvious that South Africa
has worked its way up to command the lion's share of Africa's tallest structures, having
experienced the grandeur that comes with hosting the continent's tallest towers.
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5. The Leonardo in Johannesburg, South Africa. Currently, the distinction of being Africa’s
tallest building belongs to The Leonardo, in Johannesburg’s upmarket Sandton neighborhood.
The skyscraper stands 234m high but projects underway in several other countries will all
rise above the Leonardo. Leonardo's construction began on November 17, 2015, and the tower
was completed in April 2019, making it the tallest building in Africa. At first, Bart
Dorrestein did not intend to build the tallest building in Africa. Initial plans for the
Leonardo, in Johannesburg’s upmarket Sandton district, envisaged just 33 storeys of high-end
shops, offices and apartments. When those started selling well, the developers — Legacy
Holdings, of which he is the chief executive, and Nedbank — added a few more floors to
the design. Then someone suggested incorporating an eight-storey luxury hotel, and suddenly
the building was 234m tall.That is 11m taller than the Carlton Centre in central Johannesburg,
which for 45 years had gone unchallenged as the “Top of Africa”. That slogan is plastered
on signs in and around the Carlton Centre, but it is going to have to change.Standing
at an impressive 234 m, the modern Leonardo has 55 floors. The skyscraper not only boasts
of being one of the tallest buildings in South Africa but also in the whole continent. The
architects chose to use thin sheets of Dekton, a super-strong material, for its exterior
cladding. The Leornado is undeniably impressive, aimed squarely at Africa’s superrich: from
the marble-clad lobby, decorated with custom artwork, to the ultra-luxurious three-storey
penthouse on the top floors — complete with professional kitchen, infinity pool and 1
100m2. According to a breathless press release the penthouse, called the Leonardo Suite,
“has redefined the opulent sophistication of modern African luxury lifestyle living”The
tower is 234 meters tall, but developments in numerous other African countries will all
be taller than the Leonardo. 4. The Iconic Tower:
Egypt's new administrative capital's iconic tower is rising at a rate of one storey every
six days or less. It is now 100 meters tall, with 16 of the planned 80 floors completed.
The Iconic Tower is a composite high-rise structure with office, lodging, commercial,
sightseeing, and other services that began construction on May 2, 2018. It has a total
area of 65,000 square meters, two underground floors, and 78 floors above ground. The Iconic
Tower, located 50 kilometers east of Cairo, Egypt, is the most prominent skyscraper in
the China State Construction Engineering Corporation's CBD project (CSCEC). With a total area of
approximately 505,000 square meters, the CBD project includes 20 new high-rise buildings
and some municipal projects. The Iconic Tower is symbolic of Egypt's and
China's relationship because it has allowed Chinese and Egyptian engineers to share their
expertise with modern construction technologies. The Iconic Tower's base, which was constructed
using 18,500 cubic meters of concrete and 5,000 tons of reinforced iron bars, was completed
in late February in a 38-hour nonstop operation hailed by Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa
Madbouly as "a miracle by all measures." Hossam Berry, structural manager of the DAR
Supervision Company in Egypt, expressed deep gratitude to the CSCEC remarking that "Since
the tower's core tube project began in April 2019, workers and engineers have been working
around the clock to complete the project." Despite the raging COVID-19 pandemic, the
general manager of CSCEC Egypt explained that construction on the project has continued
uninterrupted. The structure is expected to be finished by 2022. The Egyptian government
also anticipates that the new capital, whose inauguration is scheduled for the end of this
year, will generate approximately 2 million job opportunities.
3. The Pinnacle: Pinnacle Towers is a building in Nairobi,
Kenya's capital and largest city, that is currently on hold. At 70 stories and over
1,000 feet (300 m) in height, the skyscraper will be the second tallest building in Africa
after Egypt's Iconic Tower, and the third tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere.
The skyscraper is located in Upper Hill, on a 2.5-acre (10,000-square-meter) plot of land
about 4 kilometers (2 miles) south-west of Nairobi, Kenya's capital city. The Pinnacle
Towers are expected to cost $200 million to build. The developers provided $50 million,
with the rest coming from Afreximbank and some Kenyan banks..The main contractor is
China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC). Commissioning of the building is
expected in 2020. The development consists of two towers that are adjacent to each other.
The 257-room Upper Hill Hilton Hotel, the third Hilton brand in Nairobi and the 50th
on the African continent, will be housed in the shorter tower, which will have 46 stories.
The 70-story tower will have 11 floors of commercial office space, nine stories of upmarket
rental retail space, and 46 floors of upscale 1, 2, and 3-bedroom serviced residential units.
Conference facilities, a gym, a luxury spa, and an infinity pool are among the other amenities.
The larger tower will have a roof-top helipad so that chopper passengers may fly straight
to and from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, which is 16 kilometers (10 miles) distant.
The Pinnacle is expected to be a complete success in 2023.
2. The F tower: The F skyscraper will be erected in Abidjan,
Ivory Coast's economic hub. Although construction has yet to begin, PFO Africa, a business controlled
by Lebanese-Ivorian architect Pierre Fakhoury, has already predicted that it will be the
continent's tallest building, reaching a height of 283 meters when completed. The framework
involves a 283m high new building office tower. The projected tower will be one of Africa's
tallest and will serve as an iconic emblem of the Ivory Coast's achievement, as it will
be one of the country's first "skyscrapers." It is based in Abidjan's large administrative
district, which already houses many corporate headquarters as well as a handful of high
apartment complexes. The current constructions span in height from 160m to 239m. The huge
Tower F will join Towers A and B, which were constructed in the late 1970s, and Towers
C, D, and E, which were constructed in the 1980s.
The objective of the architect was to create an ideal African tower. It's a tall, exquisite,
narrow structure with sculpted trapezoidal inclined glass panels that facets the surface.
An oblique plane truncates the tower's apex. On the east-west axis of the tower, the final
form is symmetrical. The tower is supported on the ground by a simple rectangular base.
The faceted exterior allows the building to be interpreted as a highly stylized african
mask from a certain vantage point.The glass facade's textured surfaces have a materiality
and depth that is suggestive of african Traditional fabrics. This is accomplished by the employment
of a double-skinned façade with an outer layer made up of tilted bands of semi-reflective
glass in a variety of shades of blue. The blue glass's composition allows for a quasi-rich
interpretation of the facade, with different patterns and shades displaying in different
sunlights. This texture hides the horizontal floor slabs while adding depth and richness
to the overall composition. This is a far cry from standard modern skyscrapers, which
employ an orthogonal grid, minimal depth, and horizontal floor levels to provide a uniform
appearance. The tower's blue glass exterior covering provides
solar shade. A peculiarly African structure that conforms to the culture and climate of
the continent.The facade is a double-glazed facade with an interior layer of ground-supported
unitized double-glazed modules stretching from floor to floor. To keep the panels parallel
to the outer facade, they are angled forwards or backwards. The concrete floor slab's external
face is covered with opaque panels. The double skin façade's outer layer is supported from
a cantilevering precast concrete maintenance path that wraps around each floor's perimeter.
The walkway is set lower than the finished floor level to allow for views from the inside
down to the surrounding city and lagoon. The prefabricated parallelogram panels that
make up the external façade are angled in elevation. There is a 350mm wide opening between
each band to allow cleaning of the exterior face from the maintenance walkway. A channel
between the two skins allows a maintenance platform to circulate. The Crown, located
at the top of the tower, is made up of a lightweight steel frame behind which services are stationed.
This huge volume is an external volume that is encased in a façade that matches the outer
facade beneath it. Underneath this roof volume is a big boardroom. It stands 12 meters tall
and has three sides that open onto the surrounding lagoon. The standard inner façade has been
altered to accommodate enormous amounts of glass, and the maintenance paths are made
of lightweight steel. Africa has been late to the skyscraper party,
with Asian and Middle Eastern countries accounting for nine of the ten tallest structures, all
of which were constructed in the recent decade. Even if the F tower is built, it will only
be a third of the height of the world's tallest building, Dubai's Burj Khalifa. The Eiffel
Tower in Paris, which was finished more than 130 years ago in 1889, stands 324 meters tall
at its highest point. Despite this, the completion of this tower will be a boon to Africa's construction
industry. 1. Mohammed VI Tower:
The Leonardo, in Johannesburg’s upmarket Sandton neighbourhood, is 234m high and the
current holder of the prestigious title. Yet after only being officially opened in October
2019, the skyscraper is expected to be topped by the Mohammed VI Tower in the Moroccan capital
of Rabat within the next three years. The 250-meter Mohammed VI Tower in Rabat,
Morocco's capital, has been under construction for a year. According to Leila Haddaoui, deputy
MD of O Tower, a subsidiary of the privately-owned FinanceCom SA Group, which commissioned and
financed the project, the building "will have 55 floors hosting a luxury hotel, prestigious
offices and luxury apartments as well as an observatory at the top of the tower." Not
only can the construction endure the ordinary elements, such as severe winds or earthquake
events, but it can also withstand flooding from the nearby Bouregreg river. The tower
is positioned 70% by its concrete core and 30% by the steel portico structure on its
façade. A tuned mass damper system to decrease oscillations will be placed in the last few
levels due to the apartments at the top of the tower.
The façades, which cover an area of more than 70.000 m2, 41,000 m2 for the tower and
32,500 m2 for the podium, were designed by BESIX's Façade Department. The south façade
of the tower is transparent to the north and is outfitted with photovoltaic panels. The
Mohammed VI Tower will be the focal point of the Bouregreg Valley Development Project,
which is a key component of Rabat's plan to become the Moroccan Capital of Culture. This
includes major urban structural initiatives such as the Grand Théâtre de Rabat and the
House of Arts and Culture. The south façade of the skyscraper will be completely covered
with 3350 m2 of panels, and rainwater recovery and waste water recycling systems will be
built into the structure. The hot water is additionally provided by a built-in energy
recovery device. The structure is planned to be LEED Gold and HQE certified, ensuring
that it meets the highest international environmental quality requirements. The BESIX Engineering
Department's innovations will also ensure a building that is at the cutting edge of
modern construction technology. The structure will be completed by May 2022, according to
Bjorn Walgraeve, project director for Belgium's Besix Group, which was granted the construction
contract in October 2018. "Right now, there are 300 people on site," he continued, "but
that number will rise to 2,000 at peak." Thank you for watching.if there are any tips
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