Dubai has set the internet on fire with another insane project.
In a world where Saudi Arabia’s Line appears to
be actually happening you’d be forgiven for asking just how real this project is.
It’s a 550-metre high, three kilometre long
skyscraper that would form a ring around the Burj Khalifa’s finger.
Why on earth would someone propose such a ridiculous idea? What would
it actually take to engineer something like this? And… what could we learn from it?
First off, no this isn’t being built. But that’s not really the point, so stick with us.
You’re probably wondering what exactly we’re looking at here. And… is it even
in the realm of possibility, or just science fiction? To answer that,
we need look at where these renderings came from.
While it’s been compared to The Line in Saudi Arabia, it’s important to
note this isn’t a government-backed project. The renderings were made by CGI artists at Pictown,
based on a design from ZNera Space, a Dubai-based
architecture studio that specialises in architectural conversation starters.
Back in 2018 the studio proposed giant smog-eating towers in New Delhi that
would suck in air at their base and filter it skywards – essentially cleaning the
atmosphere in one of the world’s most notoriously polluted cities.
It was never built, but it did get people talking about how to address air pollution.
This latest proposal aims to start a similar conversation about our cities. Specifically
how to manage the density explosion that’s happening across the world.
For the first time in human history more people now live in cities than outside
of them – and the world’s current urban population is set to double by the year
2050. By the middle of this century seven in every 10 people will live in a city. (source)
Places like Dubai are going to have to figure out a way to stay liveable while
not being swallowed whole by the sheer number of new people populating them.
So how does that big old Dubai Downtown Circle figure into this? While not claiming to solve
every problem of urban density, it does ask a rather intriguing question: what if we stopped
building vertically and instead went horizontal … in the sky? What could we achieve then?
Would it supercharge Dubai’s economy even further?
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Now let’s get back to that big ring in Dubai.
The team at ZNera Space has imagined an enormous ring 550 metres in the air and consisting of five
levels. They have essentially curled a 3,000 metre skyscraper around the Burj Khalifa.
A number of interesting things happen now that the skyscraper is lying flat. This may sound obvious,
but we, as humans, typically don't tend to move vertically. We’re a
lot more comfortable walking, running and moving through horizontal planes.
Without having to spend time waiting for elevators – at least once you’re up there – this
flat skyscraper has now opened up so much more space. And it's using it far more efficiently.
Like with this enormous park that would run throughout the entire
ring. It would function as the lungs of the building, offering up clean,
fresh air, abundant natural light, and panoramic views of the city.
If you had that much parkland in an ordinary skyscraper you would have to chop it up into
tiny sections and disperse across several, maybe even hundreds of floors. Instead,
residents here could ride bikes and take leisurely walks, just like any other park.
The skyscraper acts as a series of neighbourhoods, separated into “nodes”. Taking its cues from the
idea of a “15-minute city” where everything a resident needs or wants is available within a
15-minute walk or bike ride. Residential, public and commercial spaces are never far from this
central park while within walking distance is almost every kind of amenity a person could need.
Instead of elevators there would be these somewhat terrifying train pods whipping
around the structure at 100 kilometres an hour. They’d be suspended below the
bottom floor of the ring and offer 360 degree views of the entire city.
While nothing like this has really ever been built before, these pods would, in effect, function like
today’s suspended monorails which do typically reach speeds of 80 to 100 kilometres an hour,
just without a half-kilometre drop beneath them (source).
Supporting this mammoth structure would be five towers. They are enormous in their
own right and would be skyline-defining buildings in any other city in the world.
The towers could be fitted with smog-eating technology like those proposed in New Delhi.
Typically that’s where cladding materials coated in photocatalytic titanium dioxide are installed.
The coating reacts with natural daylight to decompose surrounding nitrogen oxides,
effectively “cleaning” a city’s air. (source)
This may sound ridiculous but neighbouring Doha has already resorted to air-conditioning
outdoor public spaces in a bid to fight rising temperatures. (source)
Dubai itself is already constructing what it calls “the first temperature-controlled
metropolis in the world” – a 4.5M square metre retail street network that will
be covered by an enormous glass dome in the summer and opened up in the winter. (source)
But adding more air conditioning to the problem
seems counterintuitive – it produces 2BN tonnes of CO2 a year (source).
It should be noted the Circle is being pitched as
self-sufficient and sustainable with solar panels on its roof.
The team claims this could allow them to use solar hydrogen technology, whereby solar energy is
converted into water which can then power the air conditioning and provide energy to the building.
But that tech is only in its prototype phase. (source)
So, how would this structure actually be built?
Well from an engineering perspective the ring itself would need to be strong
enough to hold all its residents, its sky park and everything else,
while lightweight enough to be supported by the five surrounding towers and bridge between them.
There is a rough kind of precedent for this kind of
structure. Think of the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore or Raffles City in China.
The Marina Bay Sands has a 2.5 acre park and an infinity pool sitting 200-metres above
Singapore. It also cantilevers by 67 metres past its first tower. To support this immense weight,
enormous trusses and prestressed concrete slabs were incorporated into the design.
Now, every skyscraper in the world naturally sinks a tiny bit over the course of its lifetime,
thanks to its enormous weight and engineers factor that in.
But each of the towers at Marina Bay Sands would sink at a different rate,
and each may eventually rotate slightly, again at differing rates. You can’t expect
the ground under each tower to be exactly the same. (source)
Even the wind causes different deflections at the top of each
tower and all of this affected how the Skypark would balance on top.
To accommodate this, a system of primary bridges with steel trusses were designed
for the parts between the towers. Shaped like a V, the trusses would
extend from the roof of the hotel through the walls of reinforced concrete. (source)
The extreme engineering helped make Marina Bay Sands the most expensive
building in the world at the time of its construction, coming in at a cool USD $6.8BN.
As for the cost of the Dubai Circle? Well it would likely be even more astronomic.
Cue builders everywhere doing a sharp intake of breath as they work out a quote.
Most governments aren’t going to foot a bill like that to build new public spaces – and as
for the private sector, well when a building needs this much money to get built, developers
usually go for something that will bring in a lot of money in return – like luxury housing.
But it’s worth noting that Dubai has already built its fair share
of government-backed record-setting projects. If any city is going to find
a way to bring a crazy rendering like this to life, it’s probably this one.
The Circle isn’t proposing to solve the housing crisis. But it does raise questions about how
we build for a changing world. The coming century is going to radically reshape our
cities and our architecture is going to have to be radically reshaped in turn.
We will have to face the problems of climate change and rising urban populations with bold
new ideas and think more outside the architectural box than ever before.
As for whether a giant donut would ruin the Dubai skyline and the Burj,
the architects of the Downtown Circle have asked whether a naked hand looks better with a ring.
If we like it, maybe we should put a ring on it.
This video was made possible by Masterworks, more about that at the link below.
You can learn more about the Dubai Circle and the other topics on our channel over on The World’s
Best Construction Podcast – available right now wherever you get your podcasts. And as always,
if you want to keep up with these projects and you want to learn more about where
construction is headed, make sure you’re subscribed to Tomorrow’s Build.