RESIDENTIAL TOWERS

The prestige of great height seems to drive many projects in the Middle East and, more recently, in India. All of the towers shown in this section are either exclusively or primarily residential. In order to achieve their 100+ -story height, developers and their architects have employed a strategy of slenderness, often creating pencil-thin towers.

Developers in the United Arab Emirates often cluster their buildings very close together, not for lack of space, but to create an instant urban concentration around an attraction or amenity. This allows easy pedestrian access to all facilities in an environment that is dictated heavily by the automobile. In the collection of seaside towers in the Dubai Marina development, the strategy for profit is to pack many apartments per floor. The Princess Tower - the tallest in the photograph above-left – is 101 stories and contains 763 apartments, 957 underground parking bays on 6 levels, and 8 retail outlets. Marina 101 is a mixed-use tower with a Hard Rock Hotel in the lower 33 floors and apartments above. The 101st floor will feature a Hard Rock Café & Lounge with a 360-degree view of the city.

The tallest structure in the world at present, the Burj Khalifa, stands 163 stories and is principally residential. The Armani Hotel occupies the bottom floors, with apartments in levels 20 to 110 and elite corporate office suites above. Burj Khalifa is the centerpiece of a 500-acre, US $20 billion complex that includes the world’s largest shopping mall, an artificial lagoon, landscaped parks and gardens, and a variety of new neighborhoods of high-rise housing and traditional villas.

In nearby Mumbia, India, the developer Lodha is creating a complex of three towers called World One. The tallest, at 117-stories, will be completed in 2016 and will have more than 300 luxury apartments, some overlooking the Arabian Sea.

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