After breaking ground in October 2016, new photos have emerged showing an aerial shot of Dubai Creek Tower’s foundation, which contains 72-meter-deep foundation piles, to be capped with 45,000 cubic meters of concrete. When completed, the cable-supported tower will rise 982 meters. The design of the Emaar Properties and Dubai Holdings joint venture is inspired by the lily flower and mosque minarets, say its developers, and will feature a 109-kilometer array of supporting cables. Swiss-Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava has designed a 360-degree observation deck and a Hanging Gardens of Babylon-style floor into the structure, with views over the nearby Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary. The project is currently vying with Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia for the title of the world's next tallest man-made structure. As Saudi Arabia's tower will be 72 meters taller than United Arab Emirates’, Dubai Creek Tower will need to complete first if it wants to hold the record (however briefly). Emaar would not confirm a completion date, but previous reporting has said the tower would be ready in time for Dubai Expo 2020. The Dubai Creek Tower is defined as a tower, not built to be habitable or for office work. It will surpass the Tokyo Skytree, the current record holder, by 294 meters. The Jeddah Tower on the other hand will have 167 habitable floors (and 85 non-inhabitable floors) and will surpass the Burj Khalifa, currently the world's tallest building, by 171 meters. Will the so-called "city of superlatives" strike again? Time and toil will tell.

Mounib Hammoud, Jeddah Economic Company's (JEC) new CEO, has announced the completion of the piling work for the Kingdom Tower, set to be the future-tallest building in the world, upon completion in 2019. This achievement is considered to be the base of works over ground, according to a press release to Arab News from Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), chaired by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Last year Saudi BAUER Foundation Contractors Ltd. announced that it had signed a deal for the enabling works for Kingdom, the one-kilometer-tall tower planned for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has given the go ahead for the construction of the world's tallest tower in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah by signing a US$ 1.2 billion contract with Bin Laden Group on August 2, 2011. On July of this year the company "Broad Sustainable Building" hoping to build the world's tallest skyscraper in record time held a groundbreaking ceremony in Changsha, China. The company planned to build the 838-meter Sky City using its prefabricated modular construction method. But after several days the company announced, that the construction works stopped because of documents problems.

Kingdom Tower, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's project to erect the world's tallest building in Jeddah, is designed to imitate the contours of a sprouting desert plant. Adrian Smith's task is to make sure it doesn't sway in the wind like one. The American architect has the right resume for the job. He already grappled with effects like horizontal wind divergence and negative pressure high above the Persian Gulf desert when he designed Dubai's "Burj Khalifa", today's highest tower. As explained Adrian Smith during telephone interview to news agency Bloomberg, Kingdom Tower will rise from three separate bases in continuous slopes that end at different heights, helping to balance the building's weight and stabilize it against winds that can reach 190 kilometer per hour at the top. The tower is designed to move about 1 meter side-to-side at 500 meters in the most severe storms that occur once every 50 years or so, he said. The movement will be much less in more typical weather conditions. Designing the world's tallest buildings presents numerous challenges beyond high winds. The observation deck will stick out from the building in an 24 meter-wide disc that was originally designed as a helicopter-landing platform, Smith said. The idea was abandoned after several pilots judged that landing there would be too risky. Water must be pumped up the 163-floor Kingdom Tower in stages, using holding tanks at various levels, to avoid too much pressure building up in the pipes and causing them to burst, Smith said. Evacuation also requires special planning. The Jeddah tower will have emergency refuge rooms every 20 floors, where people can stop to get water and protection as well as emergency instructions while descending to the ground. Smith said he's looking at ways to use the elevators in emergencies rather than following the common practice of banning their use. Smith's design includes a system that collects moisture out of the air and from mechanical systems within the tower, producing enough fresh water each year to fill 14 Olympic-size pools. Summer temperatures in Jeddah, the gateway to Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, can soar to 40 degrees Celsius with 80 percent humidity. The Kingdom Tower's exterior walls will be made of glass with insulation behind it to help the structure control the heat, Smith said. "We use glass because it's easy to maintain and has longevity," Smith said. "It also reflects the sky and helps the tower feel lighter and more elegant." Apartment prices in Kingdom Tower will probably be comparable to luxury homes in Dubai and a two-bedroom apartment will probably sell for around US$ 800 thousand.

Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has given the go ahead for the construction of the world's tallest tower in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah by signing a US$ 1.2 billion contract with Bin Laden Group on August 2. As reported by ctbuh.org, at over thousand meters and a total construction area of 530 thousand square meters, Kingdom Tower will be the centerpiece and first construction phase of the Kingdom City development on a 5.3 million square meter site in north Jeddah. The tower's height will be at least 172 meters taller than the world's current tallest building, Dubai's 828 meter-tall Burj Khalifa, which was designed by Adrian Smith. Kingdom Tower will feature a Four Seasons hotel, Four Seasons serviced apartments, Class A office space, luxury condominiums and the world's highest observatory. Design development of the tower is under way, with construction to begin imminently. Foundation drawings are complete and the piling for the tower is currently being tendered. Kingdom Tower will cost approximately US$ 1.2 billion to construct, while the cost of the entire Kingdom City project is anticipated to be US$ 20 billion. AS+GG is leading an interdisciplinary design team. The great height of Kingdom Tower necessitates one of the world's most sophisticated elevator systems. The Kingdom Tower complex will contain 59 elevators, including 54 single-deck and five double-deck elevators, along with 12 escalators. Elevators serving the observatory will travel at a rate of 10 meters per second in both directions. Another unique feature of the design is a sky terrace, roughly 30 meters in diameter, at level 157. It is an outdoor amenity space intended for use by the penthouse floor. AS+GG also designed the master plan for the 230 thousand square meters Kingdom Tower Waterfront District, which surrounds the tower and which will include residential and commercial buildings, a shopping mall, high-quality outdoor spaces and other amenities. The Waterfront District provides a cohesive and pedestrian-friendly setting for Kingdom Tower while creating a pleasant neighborhood experience along the Kingdom City lakefront.