Dubai’s Giant Circle Skyscraper Explained

Dubai is set the internet on fire with yet another insane projects here's the new proposal for downtown to bike a giant 1640 feet or a 550 meter tall ring called the downtown Circle Dubai is rarely set in a standard for the future of this world 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 meter high three kilometers long skyscraper that would form a ring around the Burj Khalifa's finger why on Earth would someone put forward such a ridiculous idea what would it take to actually 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 so after that we need to look at where these renderings came from well it's been compared to the line in Saudi Arabia it's important to note that this isn't a government-backed project the renderings were made by CGI artists at picktown based on design from zanerospace a dubai-based architectural company that specializes in architectural conversation starters back in 2018 the studio put forward giant smog eating Towers in New Delhi that would suck in air at their base and filter its 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 idea aims to start a similar conversation about our cities specifically how to manage the density explosion that's happening right 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 places like Dubai are going to have to figure out a way to stay livable while not being swallowed whole by the shin number of new people populating them so how does that big old Dubai downtown Circle figure into all of 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 be achieved then would it supercharge Dubai's economy even further hard to say but in times like these nearly every country is desperate to stimulate its economy the current economic slowdown isn't just affecting governments and cities it's affecting regular people too Global funds and everyday investors alike are seeing record high losses last year 36 trillion dollars was wiped off the global stock on bond markets in just nine months Goldman Sachs is even calling for an upgrade to the classic stock Bond strategy which had one of its Worst Years on record now the investment firm says the ideal portfolio should allocate more money to real assets one in particular you might not expect Contemporary Arts according to Baron's art Prices rose an average of 29 last year preserving Capital while remaining insulated from other markets that's where today's video sponsor Masterworks comes in it's a platform that lets you diversify your Investment Portfolio with high value contemporary art from Legends like Picasso and Banksy without needing Millions and despite massive losses in other markets Masterworks has sold 11 paintings each of them for a profit to their investors new investment offerings have been known to sell out in minutes but you can get Priority Access at the link below now let's get back to that big ring in Dubai the team as a narrow space has imagined an enormous ring 550 meters in the air consisting of five levels they have essentially curled a 3 000 meter skyscraper around the Burj Khalifa a number of interesting things happen now the skyscraper is lying flat this may sound obvious but we as humans typically don't move vertically we're a lot more comfortable walking running and moving through horizontal planes without having to spend much 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 lights and panoramic views of the city if you're trying to put that much Parkland into an ordinary skyscraper you'd have to chop it up into tiny sections and disperse it across several maybe even hundreds of floors instead residents here could ride bikes and take leisurely walks just like any other Park scraper acts as a series of neighborhoods separated into nodes taking 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 immunity a person could need instead of elevators there'd be these somewhat terrifying train pods whipping around the structure at a hundred kilometers 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 ever really been built before these pods would in effect function like today's suspended monorails which do typically reach speeds of 80 to 100 kilometers an hour just without that half kilometer drop beneath them supporting this Mammoth structure would be five Towers they're enormous in their own rights and would be Skyline defining buildings in any other city in the world the towers could be fitted with smog eating technology like those put forward in New Delhi typically that's where cladding materials coated in photocatalytic titanium dioxide are installed the coating reacts with natural Daylights to decompose surrounding nitrogen oxides effectively cleaning a city's air now this may sound ridiculous but neighboring Doha has already resorted to air conditioning outdoor public spaces in a bid to fight Rising temperatures Dubai itself is already constructing what it calls the world's first temperature controlled metropolis a 4.5 million square meter retail Street Network that'll be covered by an enormous glass dome in the summer and opened up in the winter but adding more air conditioning to the problem seems to be counter-intuitive it already produces 2 billion tons of CO2 every year it should be noted that the downtown 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 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 at 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 type of structure think of the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore or raffle city in China the Marina Bay Sands has a 2.5 acre Park and an infinity pool sitting 200 meters above Singapore it also cantilevers by 67 meters past its first Tower to support this immense weight enormous trusses and pre-stressed concrete slabs were incorporated into the design the 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 even the wind causes different deflections at the top of each Tower and all of this affected how the sky Park would balance on top to address 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 this 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 6.8 billion US dollars as for the cost of the Dubai Circle well it would likely be even more astronomic Cube Builders everywhere doing a sharp intake of breath as they work out a quote governments aren't going to fuss a bill like that to build new public spaces and as for the private sector well when a building needed this much money to get built developers usually go for something that'll 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 promising 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'll have to face the problems of climate change and Rising urban populations with bold new ideas and think even more outside the architectural box as to 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 brought to you by Masterworks you can learn more about that at the link in the description you can learn more about the Dubai Circle and the other projects on our Channel over on the world's best construction podcast available right now wherever you get your podcasts and as always if you enjoyed this video and you want to keep up with where construction is headed make sure you're subscribed to tomorrow's build

Channel: Tomorrow's Build

Views: 273,630

Keywords: construction, architecture, engineering, Tomorrow's Build, tomorrowsbuild, TomorrowsBuild, tomorrows build, B1M, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, future, Dubai downtown circle, Burj khalifa, the line, Pictown, ZNera Space, skyscraper, dubai ring, smog-eating tower, marina bay sands, singapore, urban density, urban sprawl, urban design

Id: tLKjQ89mVo4

Length: 11min 5sec (665 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 28 2023