Merdeka 118: The Biggest Skyscraper You've Never Heard Of

it's time for us a make a projects to administer a pop Cris you ready here we go what's the tallest skyscraper on planet Earth now we'd be willing to wear that a whole lot of people watching this video knew the answer immediately is the bur Khalifa The 829 M or 2700t tall skyscraper that has become synonymous with the city of Dubai those who might not have guessed it immediately can certainly remember it now except for you Peter you're just not that bright but it's the quiz question that comes afterward that we've got a feeling might leave you stumped what Dewer is the second tallest tower in the world now those of you who said one World Trade Center you get a zero those of you who said typ a 101 come and here us after class and for those of you who said the Kingdom tower please get up and leave the classroom nobody's worked on that thing for over 6 years now in fact the correct answer here is none of the above instead it's koala and's Meda 118 with a name translating to Independence Meda with its 118 stories is the crown jewel of all of Malaysia and just 3 days before this video was written on Friday January the 12th 2024 it opened its doors for the first time now in today's installment Omega projects we're going to take you inside the tower that is Meda 118 and explore How It Was Made what it's got inside and why this super D skyscraper that you've probably never heard of now stands among the most impressive buildings in the [Music] world [Music] Malaysia is a nation on the rise from its highly competitive business environment to its recent swell of foreign investment to its higher claim as a global innovator Southeast Asia's sixth largest Nation by population is growing into a regional economic Powerhouse its people are quite affluent with the elite among them taking places alongside the Millionaires and billionaires of the world its GDP is high and consistently growing comparable to Global Nations like Egypt Singapore South Africa and Hong Kong it's a leader in the high-tech industry it boasts low taxes low food prices and a single-payer healthc care system and it's increasingly becoming known around the globe as a place for fast living among the Rich and Famous just before we continue with today's video quick word from our longtime and fantastic sponsor surf shark VPN have you ever felt yourself traveling sitting in a local hotel for the night you want to watch a movie or show on Netflix to pass the time well how many times it happens they open up Netflix and it's not it's not available in this region well don't worry about that because with surf shark you just open up the app you tap on connect and you'll be able to log on to internet anywhere in the world and get all the selection that you could hope for or maybe a movie is only available on Netflix in America and you're not in America we're not a problem with surf shark just activate change your virtual location and uh it's just as easy as that isn't it plus also browsing the internet can 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wasn't new for Malaysia the capital city koala lumor currently hosts 1900 high-rise buildings many of which were already built when this new tower was announced in fact the Patronus Twin Towers had already given Malaysia 5 years of Acclaim when it was those towers that were the tallest in the world from 1998 to 2004 but this new building first announced as the Manara warison Med deer or Independence Heritage Tower was intended to overshadow everything Malaysia had done up to that point their new tower wasn't going to be able to catch up to the Bur Khalifa Malaysia knew that as well as anybody else but it certainly could come close and it would put every other piece of Malaysian architecture in history to shame as its original name suggests the government's portrayal of the meda1 18 project was all about Malaysian patriotism and national pride its design was intended to resemble a key moment from an iconic speech in Malaysian history when the nation's first prime minister tungku Abdul rahan held up an outstretched hand while proclaiming Malaysia's Independence in 1957 the word he chanted while doing so was the same word that would define that new tower Meda or Independence for Malaysian politicians then and now Meda 118 was meant to inspire confidence in Malaysia's Evolution and it was framed as a critical investment that would soon usher in a second chapter to the country's economic and social boom the building was constructed with help from a range of foreign investors and especially from another East Asian Powerhouse South Korea whose construction branch of the Samsung corporation collaborated with a Malaysian firm to build most of the tower they were awarded nearly 3/4 of a billion dollars from Malaysia in 2015 after a several year interval between the Project's announcement and its commencement but after the project broke grounds it moved along quickly not just with work on Meda 118 itself but two nearby residential towers and a range of other initiatives the project some major endorsements including from H hotels who announced they'd establish a new hotel to take out the top 17 floors of the building the construction process certainly wasn't easy by any means thousands of laborers had to battle monsoons and a dagee of lightning storms in order to get the thing into the sky but while construction did have some issues most notably at pause during the covid-19 pandemic the tower's concrete core still topped out in August of 2020 the last highest piece of the tower structure was placed onto its tip in November of 2021 and after a bit over 2 years of interior work Meda 118 was ready to open its [Music] doors Meda 118 may not feature the almost otherworldly design of the Burge Khalifa or the stagged takeout box look of type A 101 but from the outside it's among the more visually striking Towers in the world covered in a mixture of diamond-shaped glass facad made in a range of designs that are meant to reflect the diverse Malaysian population the Meda 18 features predominant ly working space as well as a massive Spire slapped onto the top this was just to ensure that it breaks all the height records that was intended to located near the heart of koala lumor it dominates the skyline and puts to shame any and all buildings in its immediate vicinity the tip of Meda 118 reaches a full 680 a half meters into the koala lumpor Skyline that's 2,233 ft or nearly half a mile of that height just about 519 M or 1,72 ft a useful space for content that's hundreds of feet higher than the tip of the Empire State Building even including its spire and speaking of spes the Spire of Meda 118 stretches a full 160 m or 520 ft up past the rooftop reaching past Heights that only the bravest tropical birds would dare attempt that's also higher than the highest elevation in a full 12 out of the 50 US states but just looking at meda1 18 sight alone still misses much of the incredible scale of this building made up of a total of 118 floors including five stories under ground meda's interior comprises a total of 292,000 M of floor space roughly equivalent to 3.1 million sare ft it features a total of 87 lifts and elevators as well as two observatories one on the top floor and one on the Spire another 70 M or roughly 210 ft up it's two ad joining residential Towers a reach around 230 to 240 M tall at just a bit under 800 ft the building is CLA in 18,000 glass panels comprising 114,000 met of glass and it's illuminated at night with near nearly 8 and A2 km of LED light strips inside the building features not just the high at koala lmour but Sky decks offices a total of 20,000 parking spots it features a 100% rainwater catchment system which is intended for use watering the plants in the surrounding City and it has its own stop on the Malaysian monil in terms of its record-breaking status Meda 118 is not only the first Southeast Asian skyscraper to exceed 600 M but also to exceed 500 M fully eclipsing any competition that it might have in the region now in the Grand View we're very enthusiastically conceded that meda1 18 is a major architectural achievement it's a highly impressive structure made all the better by the fact that it was developed not by a new Gilded Age Country overflowing with wealth but by a nation that strived to create it despite the difficulty and sacrifices involved but alas the simple fact the Meda 118 exists is perhaps not enough to give it the resounding approval inside Malay Asia that its creators might have hoped for instead the situation with Meda 18 today is much more akin to the situation you found yourself in with your college girlfriends in your high school sweetheart after you went home for sophomore year holiday break that is to say it's complicated as anticipated the arrival of Meda 118 has been greeted with some serious Fanfare by the Malaysian government who've trumpeted the achievement and emphasized its symbolic value as a reflection of Malaysia's broader social progress according to Malaysia's constitutional Monarch and head of state who has an unbelievably long name but it ends in balah from any perspective this Tower reflects how our country has gone through the passage of time ultimately emerging successful in various Fields but as true as that may be it doesn't mean that Meda 118 has been quite so universally well received as uh the chap with the long name might have hoped in fact a lot of the ordinary Malaysian frustrations with madaka 118 have been the same since day one Malaysia didn't need to be spending money on more scri scrapers when it needed and still needs today urgent work on its public infrastructure and drastic intervention to lower property prices so that the average Malian can afford to live in their own country the nation's public health system and its education system have endured rather serious issues in recent years problems that many citizens point out could have probably been fixed if Malaysia had invested the money that it instead funnel towards Meda Malaysia's tower building frenzy seems to infringe on Heritage sites and required the demolition of older historic buildings and the economic infrastructure that's expected to pop up around Meda 118 in the coming years is going to require the destruction of even more that doesn't seem to be a problem for the average Malay politician but it's a problem for the nation's Ordinary People take all these complaints together and it's difficult for many ordinary Malaysians to see Meda 118 as anything other than a vanity project a gross attempt to mimic the material excesses of other countries while papering over the poverty and social ills that continue to plague this nation the final price T of the project came out to 1 A2 billion American dollars even as that amount of money and a good deal more is badly needed in other parts of Malaysia to address far less sexy but far more urgent issues than Malaysia's apparently urgent need for a really big building proponents of MCA 18 have continually pointed out that the tower could very well become the center of a new Malaysian economic boom this attractors point out that all the works that will get done in Meda 118 could just as easily be done in any of koala Lor's other thousands of highrise buildings and that the Malaysian government seeming refusal to splurge on forward-looking projects that the public might actually appreciate for example Arison the minimum wage in koala limpo and Meda 118 begins to look a whole lot like a big middle finger sticking out from the city's corporate epicenter how the future of Meda 11 18 will look now that it's finally opened after 14 years of anticipation is pretty tough to say perhaps it'll continue to be a punching bag for the frustrations of Malaysia's ordinary citizens or perhaps now that the thing is finally complete the animosity of the project will slowly subside and be overtaken by genuine excitement at the feet of engineering that it undeniably is which way the public perception ultimately Falls we can't know until it happens but one thing's absolutely clear the tallest building you've never heard of has now become Malaysia's Crown Jewel whether the people of Malaysia wanted it or [Music] not [Music] oh

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 159,170

Keywords: tallest skyscraper in the world, tallest skyscraper under construction, tallest skyscraper in asia, merdeka 118 tower, building the world's last megatall skyscraper, merdeka 118 doc, merdeka 118, last megatall skysceaper, skyscraper, merdeka tower, menara merdeka pnb 118, highest building under construction, worlds tallest building under construction, pnb 118 progress, kuala lumpur tallest building, pnb 118 construction, pnb 118 tower, worlds tallest building, pnb118 progress

Id: qScfIEa5bgQ

Length: 12min 35sec (755 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 13 2024