World's tallest building and 'first vertical city' planned for Iraq

Dive Brief:

The AMBS Architects group has proposed a 3,780-foot-tall skyscraper, dubbed "The Bride of the Gulf," for Basra Province, Iraq, according to Dezeen magazine. The building, at 230 stories topped with a 617-foot antenna, would be the tallest in the world. The world’s tallest building currently is Dubai’s 2,723-foot Burj Khalifa skyscraper.
The planned building in Iraq includes four conjoined towers with a glazed canopy on its south facade, a "veil" designed to provide shade to the complex’s low-rise buildings and public areas. The complex’s three other towers are 2,375-feet-tall, 1,588-feet-tall and 200-feet-tall.
AMBS said the building will include offices, hotels, residential areas, commercial centers, parks, gardens and a rail network, making it "the first vertical city in the world," breaking "new ground in engineering and vertical transportation," Dezeen reported. The building will also be a net-zero structure, producing as much energy as it consumes.

Dive Insight:

"In contrast to a conventional tower, The Bride will be a place that may be enjoyed by all, not only for the ones that live and work there, but also the rest of the public," AMBS said. "It will be enjoyed by thousands of people in endless ways, within it, on it or under it, from walking in the vast shaded parks and promenades at ground level, to having lunch or shopping in a sky-square hundreds of metres above sea level."

The Bride falls into the category of "mega tall," over the 1,968-foot mark. Towers over 984 feet are considered "super tall."

"Super-tall towers are perceived as an object in the distance," AMBS said. "An alien planted in the city, disconnected from the urban scale at ground level. The Bride, on the other hand, will be conceived as a city itself both vertically but also horizontally from the ground."

There were a record number of "super tall" towers built in the world in 2014, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, including the 1,776-foot-tall One World Trade Center in New York City. And 10 of the world’s tallest buildings were scheduled for completion in 2015. Also in New York will be the planned Nordstrom Tower, which, at 1,550 feet, will give the mixed-use structure the title of the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere by rooftop height.