Wednesday February 27, 2008

worlds tallest proposal

Empire World Towers: It looks like this crazy thing is actually going to get built. It’s over 1000 feet tall, 93 stories, will cost a cool billion, and take at least four years to even break ground. Originally seen here.

Tags: · Comment feed: RSS, atom

  1. paranoid paul    Wed Feb 27, 07:45 AM #  

    great, a new target for terrorists



  2. Alex Rodriguez    Wed Feb 27, 07:47 AM #  

    Forget terrorists imagine a hurricane! lol



  3. Osama    Wed Feb 27, 08:15 AM #  

    I like it. I like it a lot.
    Like they say in the movies: If you build it, they will come.



  4. KidBass    Wed Feb 27, 08:44 AM #  

    that looks scarry to me. were gonna sink faster than i thought.



  5. NicFitKid    Wed Feb 27, 09:17 AM #  

    So who’s ready for a little BASE jumping above Biscayne in a few years?



  6. princess lea    Wed Feb 27, 10:43 AM #  

    The empire strikes back!



  7. harumi    Wed Feb 27, 10:46 AM #  

    for terrorist, its more affective to attach on nuclear power plant than this tower. (i heard this on lecture the other day)



  8. cr    Wed Feb 27, 10:47 AM #  

    Go Leon Cohen and family.



  9. adam    Wed Feb 27, 11:46 AM #  

    its hilarious next to all those three story buildings and parkinglots.



  10. opinionated    Wed Feb 27, 08:29 PM #  

    ARCHITECTURE 101
    Context
    Urban Fabric
    Vernacular
    Scale
    Proportion

    This building is all about EGO. It’s BAD Architecture! NASA is in Cape Canaveral.



  11. Margie    Thu Feb 28, 09:00 AM #  

    Looks like a DISASTER waiting to happen with our hurricane friendly geography. I bet they’ll find a piece of it somewhere in Pembroke Pines, Homestead, Hollywood, the Keys, WPB, anywhere within a 20 to 30 mile radius. Yeah, build it. I’ll keep my piece of the Empire next to my piece of the Berlin Wall. That should be fun. By the way, I absolutely agree with “opinionated” the EGO seems to be as big as the planned structure.



  12. joel    Thu Feb 28, 09:59 AM #  

    re: all those worried about hurricanes…

    it is what it is. hurricanes happen and debris goes everywhere. remember, this is only going to be slightly larger than the tallest building already in miami.
    the real question is infrastructure. where are the cars going to go? what streets are they going to drive on? how much water from the aquifer will it require? how much traffic will the construction create? i think those are more viable questions that are consistently left unanswered.



  13. dreaming    Thu Feb 28, 11:24 AM #  

    it looks like godzilla stomping on the holiday inn at its feet.



  14. Mike aka MEFX1    Thu Feb 28, 12:53 PM #  

    i think they should build this gaudy monstrosity…so many Miami people complain about Miami not having that real “City” vibe and then they propose a monster building and they bash the idea. Let the yuppies enjoy this wonderful death trap.



  15. Carlos Miller    Fri Feb 29, 01:38 AM #  

    The problem I see with this is that it’s residential.

    Why not make a building that tall of commercial office space?

    Maybe that would encourage certain companies into setting up shop in Miami, and create jobs for the people who could live in those downtown condos that are sitting vacate.



  16. Dave    Fri Feb 29, 07:58 AM #  

    A. It wont happen, the property is already for sale and the developer is just getting this approved on it to perhaps get a higher sale value for his land.
    B. Hurricanes aren’t much of a problem. Hong Kong has much much taller buildings and rutinely gets hit with typhoons that make our hurricanes look like normal summer showers.



  17. darius    Fri Feb 29, 06:28 PM #  

    Dave is right. Southeast Asian cities have it worse than we do, and their skylines are bigger.
    For Joel:
    As for parking, just don’t own a car. Simple. Lessen your carbon footprint.
    As for water usage, a thousand people living in a high rise like this would use far less water than a thousand people in the suburbs. Think LAWNS.

    As for architecture…BLAH…back to the drawing board please.



  18. joel    Sat Mar 1, 04:27 PM #  

    darius: agreed on both fronts. but the reality is most people can’t conceive living their lives without a car, therefore, they’re going to bring them with them when they move in to the building. unlike in other cities with spectacular public transportation, the miamian will not drop 300k – 700k (conservatively, or whatever the prices will be in 2014) on what will be the most iconic building in the city and then sit on the bus (in increasing traffic) to go to the beach or airport or wherever.
    in regards to water, my point was that any new development, urban or suburban, drains the resource. why not refurbish the 1000s of decaying homes in this county’s neighborhoods?



  19. mapache    Mon Mar 3, 02:54 PM #  

    People are just afraid of what they don’t know. Someone who calls Santiago Calatrava a bad architect most definitely does not know very much about architecture. People talking about hurricanes and a disaster waiting to happen. I find myself wondering why would you think of the negative impact that this building will have on the Miami skyline instead of the positive. Miami’s downtown is dead and has been since the 80’s now finally developers and yuppies are starting to build here so people will actually move to this part of town, Miami is one of the very few cities in the US that the “action” is not downtown but elsewhere. Maybe this downtown revival will bring it up again. The new federal courthouse building, all this new condos, the performig arts center. Finally something in Miami worth seeing thats downtown and not in the “in” areas (aka south beach). Finally, culture, art, something out of the ordinary that is downtown. Maybe all the yuppies will drive away the bums sleeping all over downtown. Jaust maybe something like great architecture by santiago calatrava will revive our downtown and maybe if they keep doing so, people will go downtown on a weekend not just for a heat game or a shakira concert. once MAM is relocated downtown and all the bayfront property infront of it will have a totally new vibe. T%hank God for buildings like these.



  20. alesh    Mon Mar 3, 08:37 PM #  

    Thanks mapache.

    FWIW, I don’t think too much of the building’s architecture (but then commercial condo buildings are seldom architectural achievements); however, the height thing is a good thing. High-density is what you’re SUPPOSED to have in your urban core, there’s no reason a 100-story building can’t be built to withstand hurricanes, and the flight-lines reason against building above a certain height always struck me as nonsense.