June 13, 200619 yr Author ^ i think, well i hope, that is an optical illusion. psst -- wanna see the man? here's a pic somebody took of santiago calatrava his bad self checking out the new apple store in midtown manhattan this past weekend. he's the bottom guy: starchitect stalkers? heh!
June 13, 200619 yr lol. Imagine the feeling of seeing a skyscraper like that and knowing you designed it. It has to be a great feeling. I hope that apple store has a better layout than the one here because it's almost impossible to find what you need in that place :-/
August 9, 200618 yr From the UK Daily Mail: The biggest building site on earth by MICHAEL HANLON 22:22pm 8th August 2006 Those looking for tranquil, unspoilt beaches, rustic charm and authentic maritime culture will probably choose to look elsewhere. But for the world's permatanned classes with bling to display and money to burn this extraordinary construction project in the Persian Gulf is an irresistible draw. images: http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2006/08/Dubai3_600x391.jpg http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2006/08/Dubai2_600x393.jpg http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2006/08/Dubai4_600x335.jpg
August 10, 200618 yr Looks too "orderly" for me. I prefer a little messiness, grit and diversity of styles that come over many decades and even centuries of ebb and flow. When cities suddenly appear like this, too much uniformity results, at least for me. Give me a call in about 100 years and I'll tell you if I like Dubai. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
August 10, 200618 yr ^Not to cause an argument or anything, but don't all cities start out like that?
August 10, 200618 yr I don't know. Folks on the outer barrier and central stalk might enjoy good traffic circulation, but I'd think anybody living at the tip of one of the fronds has got a major commute on their hands.
August 10, 200618 yr Looks too "orderly" for me. I prefer a little messiness, grit and diversity of styles that come over many decades and even centuries of ebb and flow. When cities suddenly appear like this, too much uniformity results, at least for me. Give me a call in about 100 years and I'll tell you if I like Dubai. Agreed. I see that island, and I think of a famous essay by Christopher Alexander "A city is not a tree". Meaning, that a beautiful city, full of life and vitality cannot be organized in such a strict and superficial manner. Beautiful cities are more than aerial diagrams with "work nodes" and "home nodes". The mixed-up and interrelated uses are what make city life so rewarding.
August 11, 200618 yr Those looking for tranquil, unspoilt beaches... Gotta love British english... The outer edge of this first Palm is a gigantic, 7 mile-long breakwater built of 7 million cubic metres of rock brought from 17 different quarries in the United Arab Emirates. It will be able to withstand 12ft-high waves. (sets weather machine to "13ft-high Waves")
August 14, 200618 yr Author some more dubai via google. already built stuff. the "miami/vegas" hotels are fun, but the "downtown strip" buildings are pretty much non-interesting. :| http://www.bilder.dubai-city.de/big/image078.jpg http://www.bilder.dubai-city.de/big/image088.jpg http://www.bilder.dubai-city.de/big/image026.jpg
August 14, 200618 yr Goes to show you just how much money they're raking in from oil if they can finance what has to be at least 500 billion dollars of development. Those rich gluttonous arab oil tycoons are making a fortune and living like kings with 10 wives, eating only the finest food, staying at the most expensive hotels while the Pakistani immigrants building all this practically live like slaves.
August 14, 200618 yr Author i almost kind of dig their appalling bad taste tho. it's like vegas, disney, se florida & the riviera all in one. :laugh: if i ever get over there instead of dubai i'd rather see shibam, the original ancient manhattan in the yemen desert: http://www.profifoto.cz/JPGS/galerie/kalendar2002/yemen_detail.jpg http://www.viaggiaresempre.it/001YemenShibam.jpg http://www.viaggiaresempre.it/017YemenShibam.jpg how familiar -- looks kinda like the bronx! :wink: http://www.viaggiaresempre.it/020YemenShibam.jpg
August 14, 200618 yr It's amazing what you can pull off with all the money in the world and not a single pedestrian to worry about.
August 14, 200618 yr ^Wanna know where the pedestrians are? From http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/6d20e/c2f/ The temperature in UAE is vary between 15°C to 48°C. Summer time (start from May to October) is the highest temperature. It reaches 48°C in the daylight with the high humidity. The temperature starts to decline on November. It’s usually signed with a sandstorm or rain. Winter time is the best time in UAE. The temperature range between 21°C to 29°C in the daytime and average 15°C to 20°C in the nighttime. 48°C = 118.4°F 'nuff said.
August 14, 200618 yr Author a couple other appropriately wacky dubai things i found poking around google last night: ski dubai -- now built! :-o http://www.skidxb.com/ and forget the bruj dubai tower...presenting hydropolis: http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/Hydropolis/index.html#Hydropolis2 http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/Hydropolis/images/5-exterior.jpg http://www.crescent-hydropolis.com/ http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/Hydropolis/images/1-exterior.jpg http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/Hydropolis/images/3-location.jpg
August 14, 200618 yr Did they hire George Lucas to dream some of this stuff up? I feel like I wouldnt be surprised to come across the Cantina from Star Wars if I strolled around the place.
August 14, 200618 yr Living in Dubai is like living in the future. Kinda funny that they won't have mass transit until like 2009. Traffic there is horrible and not many people ride buses. 25% of the world's cranes are in Dubai http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/2311/800pxdsc0056928halfres29wf6.jpg
August 14, 200618 yr Did they hire George Lucas to dream some of this stuff up? I feel like I wouldnt be surprised to come across the Cantina from Star Wars if I strolled around the place. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany...than UAE.
October 30, 200618 yr World's tallest tower rising in Dubai By: CHRISTIAN CHAISE Oct 30 10:46 AM US/Eastern Slated to become the world's tallest skyscraper and symbol of a city given to grandiose projects, "Burj Dubai," or Dubai Tower, is rising in parallel with the profits of its promoter, Emaar Properties. With two stories added every week, Burj Dubai is taking shape as the centerpiece of a 20-billion-dollar venture featuring the construction of a new district, "Downtown Burj Dubai," that will house 30,000 apartments and the world's largest shopping mall... http://www.namibian.com.na/index.php?id=28&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=29066&no_cache=1
October 30, 200618 yr Two months ago I talked to a guy who had returned from a "business" trip to Dubai, he was cracking up making fun of how stupid the people running the show are over there. They quite literally have guys in control of tens of millions of dollars with no higher education, no business experience, little understanding of the basics of compound interest. There is quite literally no rhyme or reason to what's going on, other than a bunch of spoiled royals and cousins-of-former-rommates-of-aristocrats throwing at whatever tickles their fancy. He described sitting out on the bar plaza of a big new hotel that was fully staffed but only had maybe 20 guests, surrounded by a Bryant Park-like forest of completed but completely empty skyscrapers.
October 30, 200618 yr ^So your friend went to Dubai and had nothing but negative stuff to say about it? Wow sounds like a cool dude.
October 30, 200618 yr ^Dude, these places are 1970s and later boomtowns. These places aren't Cairo, or Beirut, or Jerusalem. These places have on very recently been well and continuously inhabited. The average American small town is a hundred years older than these places. You know what the locals do in Qatar? They go to the mall, just like we do in the suburbs.
October 30, 200618 yr It's like Las Vegas except bigger and better. I know it lacks culture and history but damn; no one has anything positive to say about it. They're doing things in Dubai that have never been done before. An under-water hotel in the ocean, man-made islands and canals all over the place, an indoor ski resort in the middle of the desert... how can you not be fascinated by it? You guys make it sound like its another Daytona Beach.
October 31, 200618 yr Author ^ its no daytona but all that stuff has indeed been done before david, indoor skiing & big buildings included. it just has never been done all...in...one...freakin...mindblowing...place. here's the 'ol burj as of yesterday. just as impressive are all the other cranes up in the background!: image: http://www.burjdubaiskyscraper.com/2006/10/burj-dubai-october-29-01.jpg
October 31, 200618 yr ^So your friend went to Dubai and had nothing but negative stuff to say about it? Wow sounds like a cool dude. It's the coworker of one of my friends from high school. He doesn't give a damn about traveling, it's just part of his job. I always love how all these college kids are always so misty-eyed about their "adventures" in Europe, but meanwhile you can know a guy for 5 years before he ever mentions he was in the Navy and has been to 39 countries. Fascinating? Maybe Dubai's slogan should be "Where's the Beef?". I'm certainly not going to spend $2,000 on a plane ticket to see this place. I'd much rather spend that amount of money on a month hiking in any one of our country's well-forested national parks.
October 31, 200618 yr ^So your friend went to Dubai and had nothing but negative stuff to say about it? Wow sounds like a cool dude. It's the coworker of one of my friends from high school. He doesn't give a damn about traveling, it's just part of his job. I always love how all these college kids are always so misty-eyed about their "adventures" in Europe, but meanwhile you can know a guy for 5 years before he ever mentions he was in the Navy and has been to 39 countries. Fascinating? Maybe Dubai's slogan should be "Where's the Beef?". I'm certainly not going to spend $2,000 on a plane ticket to see this place. I'd much rather spend that amount of money on a month hiking in any one of our country's well-forested national parks. You are right, it's not nearly as cool as your jaded take on everything. Seemingly every post that I read from you on this board comes across as cynical & condescending. You are obviously an intelligent person, yet you still feel it necessary to debate with someone the merits of what they personally find to be interesting. I don't think David was trying to convince you to spend your hard earned money on a plane ticket to Dubai or knocking the national park system in this country. He was saying that he finds one of the world's largest construction projects to be pretty facsinating; as I do, and as I am sure many others do as well. You obviously find it interesting enought to keep posting on this thread.
October 31, 200618 yr So they're mum on how many stories this is going to be when it's finished? Why do I get the feeling that a Super Villain is behind this project? Laser Cannon Platform anyone?
November 3, 200618 yr >You are right, it's not nearly as cool as your jaded take on everything. Seemingly every post that I read from you on this board comes across as cynical & condescending. You are obviously an intelligent person, yet you still feel it necessary to debate with someone the merits of what they personally find to be interesting. I don't think David was trying to convince you to spend your hard earned money on a plane ticket to Dubai or knocking the national park system in this country. I wasn't attacking anyone specifically at all. I'm criticizing an idea, and specifically I have no interest in visiting a place built to show off wealth by people who didn't have to do much or any of the physical work the construction workers there are having to do at any point in their life. Plain and simple, most of the Middle East royalty and bullies didn't accumulate their wealth in a fashion that mirrors the that type of rags-to-riches stories that our system enabled in the U.S. It literally fell on their laps or in the case of Saddam he killed everyone that opposed him for 20 years. To visit Europe and see those disgusting royal palaces is to hate monarchies and appreciate how much better things are here and in Europe today. The great public works here such as the Golden Gate Bridge or Hoover Dam or dozens of others are so fundamentally more interesting and admirable that Burj Dubai I'm not going to waste time writing about it. >He was saying that he finds one of the world's largest construction projects to be pretty fascinating; as I do, and as I am sure many others do as well. You obviously find it interesting enought to keep posting on this thread. I detest it because it is a huge waste of materials, energy, and labor. I'm not going to fly to Dubai to ski indoors when I can ski on some of the best slopes in the world on real snow on real mountains in Colorado or Utah. I'm not going to go there to look at buildings some rich nerd built as a hobby. And of course these guys in Dubai can't buy Yosemite, Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon, The Smokey Mountains, or happiness. I was going to cut-and-paste Emerson's "Traveling is a Fool's Paradise" riff here, but you all can look it up if you want.
November 3, 200618 yr A good slide show on dubai construction boom: http://enr.construction.com/features/international/2006/ss/061102-1/061102-1.asp
November 3, 200618 yr Utterly amazing. I never heard about the "running out of oil" rationale before. Maybe Cleveland should start a rumor that we will run out of salt soon, start charging stupid amounts for it, then use the revenue to start our own construction boom. riiiiggghhtt
November 4, 200618 yr Yeah, my sister, brother-in-law, their family, and a friend of my nieces went on an extended tour of the mideast this past summer, and they went to Dubai as part of this. My BinLs brother is a banker in Quatar or Bharian and one of the UAW emirs or princes was one of his clients so they had a big discount on the Dubai trip (including airfare on Emirates Airways). Anyway, Mahmud (brother in law) had a ton of pix from this trip, including Dubai. One thing that I picked up on is how prevelant English is, and our alphabet. They use arabic, but there is a lot of English-language advertising. Dubai from the pix reminded me sort of a desert version of Singapore or Hong Kong (not as dense yet, though). Actually, from these trip pix the Mideast didnt seem as underdeveloped as one would think. They where based out of Amman on the trip, and the pix from Jordan where pretty nice, actually...very much like California, I thought. Amman looks to be a bit more interesting that Dubai, though smaller (mainly ebcause it is built on hills). The Jordanians have some nice resorts, too. There was one series of pix from this Dead Sea resort they stayed at that would be easily comparable to top-end resorts here in the USA (i noticed one of the hotel companys operating there was Movenpick, which is from Switzerland, and has a presence in Canada, too). Petra, too, was nice, but the city nearby seemed a bit touristy. They also went to Cairo and Alexandria, and these places, particularly Alexandria, start looking a bit rougher. Yet still, the prevelance of English. The four lane highway between Cairo and Alexandria looked like it was lined with these big billboards adverstising "Piraeus Bank" (I thought Piraeus was a part of Athens?), and in the Alexandria I spotted billboards for a real estate development called "Alex West", which made me think of Daytons :"Alex-Bell Road" or "Alex Road"...I think we have an Alex West! (an industrial park). Anyway, I sort appreciate this oasis concept working in Dubai. Its not that this is foreign to us, as we have those cities of the Mountain West which are essentially oasis cities of the 20th century, not tooo far from the Dubai concept.
November 5, 200618 yr Author Dubai's Man-made Island Rises Out of the Ocean, Set to Open to First Residents; 'World's Latest Landmark' November 5, 2006 17:47 EST www.underwatertimes.com Press Release/Author Unknown DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Palm Jumeirah, a man-made island off Dubai, is bracing for the arrival of its first residents, even as questions remain about the environmental impact of the mega-projects under way in the Gulf city state. "These projects are a positive thing for the country" since they have propelled Dubai to world fame, said environmentalist Ibrahim al-Zu'bi. View full article: http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=97845362101
November 7, 200618 yr You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany...than UAE. Damn. Beat me to the Moss Isley Spaceport quote! "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
November 7, 200618 yr Author just to show dubai does not have lock on this stuff, i saw another one of those indoor ski runs on the science channel today. it's part of a mall called xanadu madrid. link: http://www.millsmadridxanadu.com/static/node1901.jsp http://www.corriere.it/Media/Foto/2003/05_Maggio/16/MADRID.jpg
November 7, 200618 yr In addition some place have the opposite with indoor year-round beaches, like the ocean dome in southern japan.
November 7, 200618 yr I think Ski Dubai is a lot nicer than that facility. Unless the renderings just gave that illusion. I'm pretty sure there's 4 different slopes, for each level of difficulty. Plus you can go sledding, etc. The indoor ski resort still isn't nearly as impressive as the under water hotel.
November 16, 200618 yr Author but thats not built yet. at least i dont think so. there are a few other underwater hotels too, i think one is in the keys in florida, but nothing like that one is (or will be).
January 9, 200718 yr Author some people on this blog went to do real estate consulting work in dubai: Where the Sidewalk Ends: Dubai by Ethan Kent on January 5, 2007 http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10a/Dubai_UAE_road_widening_oct2006.jpg A few of us from Project for Public Spaces were recently in Dubai to train a group of the city's leading real estate developers in Placemaking. The largest city in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai has experienced explosive growth in recent years, emerging as the region's financial and cultural capital. The real estate development boom currently underway in Dubai almost makes New York City look like a sleepy ghost town. Combined, the group of developers we met are launching or planning tens of billions of dollars in new projects over the next few years. Despite many iconic, ambitious and, perhaps, visionary developments, the modern part of the city has almost no successful public spaces. As is usually the case, the major limiting factor was the city's nearly total automobile dependence. Not surprisingly, the rapid changes are setting a course that will force Dubai to confront many difficult transportation and development policy decisions in the coming years... http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10a/Dubai_UAE_ek_oct2006.jpg http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10a/11_nation_traffic4_gn_5.jpg Photo Credit: Asghar Khan/Gulf News http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10a/Dubai_UAE_imminent_congestion_ek_oct2006.jpg http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10a/Dubai_UAE_high_rise_street_oct2006.jpg[/img] http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/01_01/dubai_bldgs.jpg http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10a/Dubai_UAE_Skiing_ek_oct2006.jpg http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10a/Copenhage_Bicycle_lane_ek_Sep06.jpg http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10a/Dubai_UAE_Dheira_souks_ek_oct2006.jpg http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/10a/Dubai_UAE_muslim_prayer_Dheira_ek_oct2006.jpg more at: http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/01/05/where-the-sidewalk-ends-dubai/
January 9, 200718 yr Interesting article...covering many of the issues that I (and I'm sure many others) often discuss about Dubai. The way they are growing is completely unsustainable. Yes dense growth can be unsustainable, and Dubai is doing a wonderful job at accomplishing that. It sort of puzzels me that the article compares Dubai to NYC in terms of their newer projects and how they relate. I don't know that NYC is comparable to the level of disgustingness that Dubai is producing.
January 9, 200718 yr Yes, good article. I wonder what kind of reaction PPS got from the local officials.
January 9, 200718 yr Comparing Dubai and New York City is laughable. Dubai hasn't even completed their light rail system and their bus system is crap. These Arabs with new money = what happens when you give a 10 year old a hundred dollar bill. It's sad... I'm sure somewhere along the line, working with all of those international architecture and real estate firms, there had to be in-house planners stressing the sustainability issues.
January 20, 200718 yr Author it was a ny-based blog & they normally cover nyc thats why they kept making those comparisons. i thought it was interesting to hear a timely report from some americans actually on the ground over there. such an odd and fascinating train wreck of a place.
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