- [Narrator] At over 2,716 feet high with more than 160 floors,
the Burj Khalifa in Dubai currently reigns supreme as the tallest building in the world. But as mind-blowingly big as it is, the rest of the world has
plans to build skyscrapers and structures that'll snatch that title in the not-so-distant future. From buildings more than a kilometer high, to towers twice the size
of the Burj Khalifa, not even the sky is the limit anymore. With that, let's take a look at the plans for some of the tallest buildings that will dominate our
skylines in the future. (upbeat music) The Bride. Now, the city of Basra in
Iraq isn't the first location that springs to mind when
you think of big buildings. But far from the war-torn city of 2003 that many people remember,
Basra has slowly transformed into a new economic hub of business. And to mark this transformation, in 2013, AMBS architects put forward plans to erect a staggering skyscraper almost three quarters of a mile high in the middle of the city. Elegantly called The Bride,
this 3,780 foot building is going to be so tall that it'll tower more than 1000 feet over the Burj Khalifa. In fact, even if the
Eiffel Tower were stacked on top of the Burj, it would
still be slightly shorter than this Bride to be. With 241 floors, it's
designed to house offices, hotels, residences, clinics, gardens, and even its own rail network across more than 16 million
square foot of floor space. This would all be encompassed inside the four interconnected buildings, linked by a series of sky bridges for easy travel and circulation. Sounds pretty complex, so why are they not just building one large tower instead? Well, in case of emergencies,
the connected tower layout offers more accessible escape routes than a standalone skyscraper. So not only is creating
a cluster of four towers structurally superior to
a singular skyscraper, but it's also much safer. On top of that, the vast,
veil-like canopy of glass and steel flowing from its 180th floor down towards the ground flares out to protect the public area
below from the beating sun. Though as gorgeous as it looks, The Bride is still
waiting for her big day. AMBS initially claimed the
Bride would be completed by 2025, but there are no signs
of work having started yet. It looks like this bride might be waiting at the alter for a while. Oblisco Capitale. Egypt is the famous home of
historically massive monuments like the Pyramids and The Great Sphinx. But these are about to be out-shined, in both height and style, by the phenomenal pharaonic
design of the Oblisco Capitale. It'll be erected as the crowning jewel of the New Administrative
Capital of Egypt, a brand-new city designed to boost the country's economic development. And when it is, it stands
to be the tallest building in all of Africa. But if it's completed
before Basra's Bride, it could snag the title of tallest building in the entire world. At a whopping 3,280 feet tall, the construction of
this astonishing obelisk would cost a sky high $3.2 billion. For that price, it'll serve as
the centerpiece of the city, consisting of about 250
floors with more than 13 million square feet of floor
space piled up into the sky. For perspective, that's like
stacking 233 football fields on top of one another. Thankfully, the glittering
facade looks much prettier than a bunch of football fields, but that golden art deco
design isn't just for show. Throughout the day,
those golden fans rotate according to the sun's inclination, reducing the heat inside
without detracting from the expensive looking facade. That's ingenious, or at least,
it will be in about 10 years. While the new city has
been under development since 2015, infrastructure
is still being laid down, so construction on the tower won't begin until at least 2024. But it's on track to rise out
of the desert sands by 2030, set to become another marvelous monument in Egypt's incredible collection. And speaking of incredible collections, if you want to be among the first to know when I add a brand-new
video to my YouTube Library, then be sure to hit those Like and Subscribe buttons down below. All done? Great. Now, where were we? Tower M. In 1996, the city of Kuala Lumpur erected the iconic Petronas Twin Towers, which reached a respectable
1,483 feet high. Being a little taller than
the Empire State Building, these towers are currently the jewel in Malaysia's architectural crown. Although, by 2035, there's a chance they're going to be outdone
by this dazzling development. Known as Tower M, or the
KLCC East Gate Tower, the stunning skyscraper
will be built on top of a retail podium, with
its sturdy foundations spread over four acres of land. This broad base would
ensure the main tower was secure enough to stretch up a monumental 2,297 feet into the sky. While it'd be 420 feet
shorter than the Burj Khalifa, it'd still lord over the
neighboring Petronas Towers. With just 88-stories, the
twins won't be able to compare to Tower M's proposed 145-story structure. Boasting three to four million
square feet of floor space, dedicated to offices, the
entire tower will cost about $650 million to
raise from the ground. While tentative development
efforts of the tower appear to be taking place, developers KLCC aren't
making any promises. They've secured the proposed lots and laid down plenty of
substructure for future buildings. But disappointingly, they won't
commence work on the tower until 2030, and even
then, it'll only go ahead if they can ensure that demand for all that office space still exists. But with the popularity of
working from home on the rise thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, this may have stopped Tower
M in its massive tracks. So, it looks like big building enthusiasts will be holding their breath
for the next eight years, but at least the Petronas Towers will be able to breathe easy. Merdeka PNB 118. While Kuala Lumper is waiting to see if Tower M ever materializes, they've actually got another mega-scraper that'll be ready to marvel
at much, much sooner. Since 2014, and less than two miles away from Tower M's site, the Merdeka PNB 118 has been slowly rising up from the ground. By 2018, the building had
reached the 50-story mark. By 2019 it had hit 80 stories. And, after a few understandable
pandemic-related setbacks, it's on track to reach a
final 118 stories by 2025. This will raise the PNB 118
to a respectable 2083 feet. Even though that makes it
more than 100 feet shorter than Tower M, it's the
only building in the world over 2,000 feet that's
currently under construction. With 100 stories of office
space, 17 stories for hotels and residences, and a
retail center at its base, this mega-scraper will encompass a massive 3.1 million square feet of floor space in total. To support this, the
tower's structural system will be comprised of eight mega
columns around the exterior, along with a three story
deep outrigger system that'll root the tower in place. These massive and essential components will ensure the tower has
a high structural stiffness so it can resist any and all strong winds. I mean, it may not be the
tallest tower in the world, but the last thing you would want is for this thing to blow over. Considering it's costing more
than half a billion dollars to build, you certainly wouldn't want to see it end up on its side. The Big Bend. New York's skyline is home to some of the most recognizable
skyscrapers in the world, but there's a new building on the block that's set to eclipse
every last one of them. This is the Big Bend,
a conceptual skyscraper that elegantly stretches up
2,000 feet above the city, before bending in the middle
and trailing back down 2,000 feet towards the earth. This means it's height isn't as impressive as its overall length, which is a phenomenal
4,000 feet give or take. So, from end to end,
this building would be nearly twice the height in
length as the Burj Khalifa. The astonishing design was
unveiled by Oiio Studio back in 2017, as a fun
attempt at circumventing New York's very strict zoning regulations. While there's no limit to
the height of a building on the Manhattan skyline,
the city does control a building's bulk and density
by its floor area ratio. This means buildings are
restricted to the square foot of the lot area, preventing
developers from creating massive complexes in
residential neighborhoods. But Oiio gets around this by
utilizing two separate lots on Billionaires Row, a
district that allows developers to build up to 10 times
the floor area ratio of a single lot. This means they could legally
construct this brilliant bend with 100 times the floor
area ratio of the two lots, providing the building connected them. While it's a hilarious way of solving the zoning regulation problem,
I'm not sure how things like elevators or, ya
know, physics would work on that iconic bend at the top. Sky City. With an astounding 95
skyscrapers over 984 feet high, China is currently home to the most super-tall
skyscrapers in the world. But there's one they have in the works that's guaranteed to
overshadow all the others. Known as Sky City, or Sky City One, this staggering 220-story building was originally going to erupt
from the verdant wetlands of Changsha in China's Hunan Province. With its foundations set over
an area 280,000 square feet, its base alone would be around
five football fields in size. From here, a planned 270,000 tons of steel would make up the bulk of
the sky bound structure, more than 38 times the amount of metal used in the Eiffel Tower. And all this would raise Sky City up to a record-breaking height of 2,749 feet, making it the tallest
building in the world. Overtaking the Burj
Khalifa by just 32 feet, the $1.46 billion building
would be large enough to support over 17,400 people. With high-speed elevators,
and even helipads providing access to all levels
of this metallic monument, it's designed less as a building and more as a futuristic,
self-contained city. Although that wouldn't be
the most impressive aspect. Back in 2012, before ground
was broken on the project, the construction firm
in charge, Broad Group, announced it would have the
record-breaking building constructed in just 90 days. That's about 2 1/2 stories every 24 hours. After completing a 57-story
version of the project called Mini Sky City in
a mind-blowing 19 days, the company was clearly confident in their super speedy building abilities. But, after ground was
finally broken in 2013, pre-construction activities
suddenly hit a brick wall. It turned out the project
had failed to acquire the correct environmental permissions to build on the wetland site. Though developers fought the verdict, the idyllic spot in Changsha
has since been abandoned. But, in 2017, different
sites were reportedly being scoped out for a future Sky City, and Broad Group has insisted
that they will definitely build the tower in the future. Jeddah Tower. Dubai may currently hold the title for the world's tallest building, but their Saudi Arabian
neighbors are definitely looking to steal that crown. Located in the city of Jeddah, construction on the
aptly named Jeddah Tower began back in 2013. Costing an eye-watering
$1.23 billion to build, the architecture of this tower
has some very high ambitions. When complete, its lofty peak will reach a staggering
3,281 feet into the sky. That's more than 560 ft
higher than the Burj Khalifa, which would really
steal Dubai's spotlight. Made up of 600 residential and hotel rooms spread over 167 floors, visitors would travel
up and down the tower via a set of state-of-the-art,
double decked elevators. But even with a top speed
of 32 feet per second, it would still take almost two minutes to reach the top floor. And that's without some idiot
pushing all the buttons. Elevators aside, the final
structure would contain enough steel to make eight Eiffel Towers, and enough concrete to
build six Hoover Dams. But the half-mile high Burj
Khalifa doesn't have anything to worry about just yet. Work started on bringing
this cloud-piercing leviathan to life in 2013, with the podium structure and tower base reaching the 63rd floor. But then in 2018, with less than a quarter of the building complete, the Saudi Arabian Purge
ground all work to a halt. This national corruption
crackdown saw the government seize billions of dollars in assets from high-ranking businessmen,
one of whom was a chairman on the Jeddah Tower Project. This scandalous setback was
so severe that operations haven't been able to get
off the ground since. Though the tower was
meant to be ready in 2020, today it still sits
unfinished at the 63rd floor with no end date in sight. Is it just me, or did
anyone else just hear Dubai let out a huge sigh of relief? Dubai Creek Tower. As tall as Jeddah Tower threatens to be, Dubai isn't going down without a fight. To retain the World's Tallest Tower title, it revealed back in 2016
that it would be building the unbelievably
sleek-looking Creek Tower. This $1 billion structure was designed to beat out the city's
already-standing Burj Khalifa, by stretching up somewhere
between 3,045 and 3,300 feet into the sky. However, the exact figure
is being kept under wraps to prevent other competitive
projects, like Jeddah Tower, from preemptively stealing its spotlight. But despite all that
height, it'll have just 20 residential floors, along
with 10 observation decks in a minaret shaped bud at its top. This minimalist design
stems from the tower's single concrete column, which
is supported by a huge net of steel cables to keep
it secured in place. Admittedly, this makes
it more of a monument than a real skyscraper,
but it does show off Dubai's engineering prowess
while keeping that coveted title safe at the same time. Or at least, it would if construction ever got above ground level. Back in 2018, the tower's main foundation was laid by pouring 1.7
million cubic feet of concrete into the ground. This created a pile cap that
was more than 65 feet thick, and weighed a whopping 132,000 tons. But suddenly, construction hit a brick, or in this case, concrete wall. Fallout from the 2008 financial crash along with a huge drop in oil prices hit the city's oil-reliant economy hard. The financial downturn
meant large vanity projects, like Creek Tower, couldn't move forward. It was supposed to be unveiled
at the 2020 World Expo, but sadly that never happened. Although, its developers are adamant it'll be ready by the end of 2022. However, a quick look
at Google Earth reveals that, right now, it's still just one big concrete cap in the ground. Sky Mile Tower. While a lot of countries are
racing to build skyscrapers that reach the illustrious
one kilometer mark, Japan is setting its
sights much, much higher with the aptly named Sky Mile Tower. Peaking at 5,577 ft tall,
this gargantuan design would make Sky Mile tower
more than twice the height of the Burj Khalifa. For a more American comparison,
that's more than 18 times the height of the Statue of Liberty. Dubbed Next Tokyo, this
mega project was designed to tackle Tokyo's overpopulation problem, which currently has more
than 14 million people crammed into just 845 square miles. But Next Tokyo, built over Tokyo Bay, would have room to house
55,000 people comfortably over a staggering 421 floors, serving as a sort of city within a city. Spread over 4.5 million square feet, the tower will form a vertical network of residential communities connected by multi-level sky lobbies. These will offer amenities
like hotels, gyms, libraries, and clinics for residents. The island it's based
on will also be equipped with wind, solar and algae farms to make it as self-sustaining as possible. It sounds like a self-contained utopia, but just how does Japan
plan to reach these heights? Well, initial designs rely
on three building legs that are interconnected hexagonally, giving way to three more legs further up. These continuously overlap
the further up the building they reach, allowing for
superior structural stability. But it's those holes in the facade that are most important to
the tower's overall design. At these heights, the
pressure of the winds is a greater threat to a building than the imposed loads on the floor, because the tower effectively
acts like one big sail. To combat this, vertical
slots have been peppered throughout the facade,
allowing wind to pass through the building with minimal disruption. As fantastically futuristic as it looks, this tremendously tall building is still sadly just a concept. But if it does get the green light to become one of the world's
most iconic skyscrapers, it could be ready as early as 2045. Shimizu Megacity Pyramid. Believe it or not, Sky Mile Tower isn't Japan's first conceptual
mega-tall mega-city. Back in 1996, the Shimizu
corporation drew up this surprising pyramidal proposal, which looked like something
that had been plucked straight out of the sci-fi "Bladerunner". Though its futuristic
design isn't as impressive as its proportions. With its grounding points
spread out over the waters of Tokyo Bay, the
structure would encompass over three square miles of floor space, with its peak reaching an
incredible 6,575 feet high. This would make it roughly 14 times larger than the Great Pyramids of Giza, and the biggest man-made
object on the entire planet. The foundations holding
the structure up would rely on around 81 piers made
from a specialized concrete, supporting a series of
five stacked trusses leading up to the top. This extraordinary triangular exoskeleton would then suspend a
series of living quarters, recreational spaces, and
entire neighborhoods inside, with room to support up
to one million residents. But just how were people
meant to get around in a huge pyramid hovering above the ocean that had no streets or cars? At the time, the answer
was accelerated walkways, inclined elevators, and
automated rapid transport pods. It sounds so incredibly innovative that you're probably wondering
why, more than 20 years on, it hasn't been built yet. That's because, disappointingly, there's no material on earth
that's light or strong enough to support such a massive structure. And if just one truss
failed, one million people could be sent careering
into the sea, enough said. However, the recent development
of super strong materials like graphene, which is 200 times stronger than steel ounce for ounce, would technically make
building this pyramid possible. So, there's a very small
chance this mega project might break ground, or
waves, as early as 2030. With such a promising
pyramid on the horizon, I bet Egypt are quaking in their sandals. Millennium Challenge 1852. Like the Shimizu pyramid,
a lot of futuristic, mega-tall structures are sadly limited by current building materials,
methods, and designs. But there's one that takes
all of this into account, and still finds a way to break that magical one mile barrier. This astonishing structure is
the Millennium Challenge 1852, also known as the Al Jaber Tower for its future placement in Kuwait City. When it was proposed back in 2005 by Italian architect Omero Marchetti, he designed it to be the first building to reach a full nautical mile in height. For those unfamiliar with maritime terms, that's a little over a regular mile, at an unbelievable 6,076 feet. This would make it more
than twice the height of the Burj Khalifa, which, at the time, had only just started construction. It was a daring architectural feat, and Marchetti knew traditional
construction methods reliant on concrete and
block grids wouldn't provide the level of sturdiness
the building needed. So, Marchetti experimentally removed most of the right angles
and perpendicular elements from his design, along with his need for any cast iron or concrete materials. Like that wasn't a mad move
on its own, he then focused on the hexagonal matrices of, you'll never guess, snowflakes. As strange as it sounds,
structurally, hexagonal designs, like those seen in
snowflakes and honeycomb, do efficiently support
objects that combine high volumes with low weight. And the result was this
wonderfully irregular spire set to tower over Kuwait City. While Marchetti claimed he
had many investors lined up to help make the angular
building a reality, nothing more about the project
has been revealed since. For more than 15 years, its development has remained
something of a mystery, leaving the world to wonder when this Millennium
Challenge will be conquered. The Space Elevator. For the best part of a century, rockets have been the only way to get anything up to space. But in the very near future, this could be done in the form of a gigantic space-bound elevator. Now, I admit, this wouldn't be any kind of building or skyscraper. But by extending from the earth's surface up to an altitude of 22,000 miles, this unimaginably tall mega
structure would be the largest and tallest engineering
construction project ever undertaken by humanity. So, for that, I think it
definitely belongs on this list. As crazy as it sounds, NASA claims the science behind the space
elevator actually checks out. The concept was first
thought up back in 1895 by a Russian scientist named
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Although, what he suggested
was a Celestial Castle in orbit with the Earth attached
to a tower on the ground, so, something that would look a bit like a supersized Eiffel tower. But more than 120 years
on, instead of building a palace in the sky, space
agencies want to build motorized elevator pods
that are powered up to space via one long tether. Stretching up from a
space port at the equator, the elevator would lead to a space station in orbit overhead, and
the centrifugal forces of the Earth's rotation would hold the entire structure aloft. Theoretically, rockets,
satellites and even people could be shipped into space this way, opening up a brand-new
gateway into space tourism that would make Elon Musk jealous. Even though the structure alone would cost a mind-blowing
$10 billion to build, NASA claims it would be less
risky and cheaper to fund than a lot of pre-existing space programs. Considering the current
cost of launching anything into space is roughly $3,500 per pound, the space elevator could achieve that for as little as $25 per pound. So, what are we waiting for? Why am I not halfway
to the moon right now? Well, that's because
traditional building materials, like steel, would make any giant tether too heavy to launch into orbit. But that previously mentioned,
ultra-strong material, graphene, could be just the ticket. However, the molecular
honeycomb structure of graphene makes it incredibly difficult to produce. To date, it's only been spun
into meter long strands, so it's a long way off from being able to reach up into space. There's also the issue of speed, because even if the elevators could travel up to theoretical top speed
of 190 mph against gravity, it would still take 5 days
to travel up 22,000 miles. Bit of a long ride to see
the stars if you ask me. However, that hasn't
stopped China and Japan starting pre-construction work
on their own space elevators, claiming they'll be
complete as early as 2045. That's sounds like one small step for man, and one giant elevator ride for mankind. Which of these super structures do you most want to see completed? Let me know down in the comments below, and thanks for watching. (gentle music)
