MANSIONS-IN-THE-CLOUDS
by Lim Lay Ying
Property Times, New Straits Times
23rd April 2005

There is no turning back. The way it will be in the 21st century is more dramatic addition to the environment around us and the skyline.

As long as developers pursue ways to wring every ounce of profit out of expensive land and savour every excitement of being able to do unprecedented things, the race to create icons of progress and power and objects of consummate wonder will continue – limited only by the physical constraints of the site, calculations of the computer, the market and taste.

The time is past when the architect was the form-giver who handed an idea to the engineer, whose job was basically to make it stand up. Today, the developer, the architect, and the structural engineer, are coequal designers.

Office buildings have been scraping and piercing the skies of London, Paris, Vienna, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Mexico City. Asia has caught up, using the most advanced structural technology and safety features. The 101-storey, 1,667-feet Taipei 101 tower dwarfed every building in the world when it opened in Taiwan last year.

Race for height

Past record holders included Malaysia’s Petronas’s fairy-tale twin towers in Kuala Lumpur at 1,483 feet / 88 storeys (completed: 1998), Sears Tower in Chicago in the United States at 1,450 feet / 108 floors (completed: 1974), Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, China, at 1,380 feet / 88 floors (completed: 1998), and Two International Finance Centre in Hong Kong at 1,362 feet / 88 floors (completed: 2003).

Come 2008, the Burj Dubai tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, will soar above everything we know now. At approximately 2,313 feet and rising 160 floors where the first 37 floors are hotel rooms, the US$900 million (RM3.42 billion) building will feature an observation deck and a private club at the pinnacle. Todate, 192 piles have penetrated the ground to depths of more than 165 feet, using over 1.6 million cubic feet of concrete weighing more than 110,000 tons.

In this new Skyscraper Age, while the earthbound argue about fear and safety, the reality is that radical advances in technology are quietly urging people to build higher than ever. Seasoned skyscraper pros like Cesar Pelli, Norman Foster, Henry Cobb, and William Pederson, are producing superbuildings on a scale never possible before – leaving the rest of us behind in the dust as they ascend into the vertiginous stratosphere.

Targeting the rich and famous

The romance of the great height is quickly sweeping across residential real estate too. In the United States, Donald Trump’s 90-storey Trump World Tower in Manhattan, New York City, is the tallest residential tower in the country. The curtain-walled monolithic structure offers unparalleled views from the floor-to-ceiling windows for the residents. The US$58 million (RM220.4 million) 20,000-square-foot penthouse has a 17-foot-high ceiling.

At prices tagged from US$500,000 (RM1.9 million) to over US$15 million (RM57 million), or approximately US$1,000 per square foot, for the standard apartments which range between 528 square feet (studio units) and 2,000 square feet, the “mansions-in-the-clouds” have attracted the attention of the rich and famous. The world’s richest man Bill Gates, Hollywood celebrity actor Harrison Ford, princes and princesses, and ambassadors, are amongst the list of distinguished owners.

In Kuala Lumpur, the race for height amongst luxury condominium developers appears to be heating up too. Norman Foster’s three towers (tipped to be named ‘TROIKA’) designed for Bandaraya Development Bhd’s Jalan Binjai property, will make the more traditional residential blocks like UBN Apartments at Jalan Sultan Ismail look old fashioned when completed three years from now.

Concrete jungle of tall buildings

Clamouring for the city’s skyline by then will be KL Landmarks Sdn Bhd’s 50-storey K Residences which face KLCC’s Petronas Twin Towers from across Jalan Ampang, the 44- and 45-storey blocks of The Binjai by KLCC Holdings Bhd which are located along Jalan Binjai, the 45-storey Cendana on Sultan Ismail at Jalan Sultan Ismail by Tan & Tan Development Bhd., and the 41-storey The Avare along Lorong Kuda by Magna Prima Bhd and TM Facilities Sdn Bhd (subsidiary of Telekom Bhd).

These residential towers will dwarf the majority of Kuala Lumpur’s new luxury condominiums. The Marc Serviced Residences at Jalan Pinang by Beverly Tower Development Sdn Bhd and TA Properties’ TA One and TA Two are 35-storeys tall, while The Meritz at Jalan Mayang by Tanahnaga Sdn Bhd stand at 31-storeys.

By these standards, the 20-storey blocks of Stonor Park by Beneton Properties, Park Seven by SDP Properties Sdn Bhd, Suria Stonor by Glomac Bhd, and Dua Residency by E&O Property Development Bhd, the 25-storey 2-Hampshire – also by Beneton Properties, and the 28-storey 163 Residences by Yu Neh Huat Bhd, will be like midgets in a concrete jungle of tall buildings.

Emblems of prosperity

With the unprecedented building boom sweeping the city and the pouring in of investment capital for real estate development, building higher than ever is the way it will be in the coming decades. A towering skyline is an emblem of growth and prosperity for cities while high-rise headquarters are symbols of hard-earned worldwide success and advertisements for products and services for many corporations.

This symbolism will continue to fuel competition among developers to build not only the largest and tallest but also the best buildings, and make even the most modest fancy themselves masters of the universe. The sky to them, is the limit.