Saudi Planning Skyscraper That's 75 Miles Wide:
[...] the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told engineers and designers he wanted his next architectural project to be as grand as the Egyptian pyramids.
According to the WSJ, the plans would make it the world's largest structure. The skyscraper would be a set of two parallel buildings, each 1,600 feet tall, and spanning 75 miles of terrain. Prince Salman is calling it the "Mirror Line" and wants it to house about five million people. It could cost as much as a trillion dollars and looks like a long, golden paradise in the photos shown below.
[...] The WSJ said Salman is, essentially, hoping to create an architectural feat designers have long dreamed of — a linear city. In concept, the Mirror Line is set to include nearly everything its residents could ever dream of needing, like a stadium, yacht club and renewable sources of energy and food.
In reality, though, it kind of sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen. What happens when Salman's weird isolated city runs out of food during internal supply chain shortages, or when another pandemic rips though millions of people trapped in tight, close quarters between two buildings?
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Friday July 29 2022, @07:18PM (5 children)
Can't they just dig up some of the dinosaurs and eat those if they're going to run out of food? Also, they're on, like, the ocean so they could eat fish, right? As far as the pandemic goes, though, they could crank up the air exchangers since a lot of the, er, other modes of disease transmission are banned there, right?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 29 2022, @07:24PM (4 children)
Yeah, that always works so well.
The problem the Prince will face is when the world no longer values his oil, either because he has none left, or because we have moved on and no longer care for it. Getting the locals to finish the construction and do all the maintenance is going to be tough without globally sourced incentives flowing in their direction. Also: water. As long as the oil flows freely it can desalinate all they need, but if the oil becomes scarce, the water will become quite dear...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2022, @07:43PM
I can only imagine they are using the project to gain experience for a relocation to Mars. Even for the region, this is profoundly the dumbest thing I have ever seen, ahead of this [google.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2022, @07:56PM
It's a symptom of unearned wealth and bold leadership that equates leading with having a gold toilet and subjecting others to your tantrums and whims.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday July 30 2022, @03:04AM
Saudi Arabia used to be food self-sufficient.
Then they realized that pumping water out of the ground to irrigate wheat in the desert was draining the aquifers at an alarming rate.
Irrigation mostly ended, and now they import food.
As you say about this all relying on oil production...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Saturday July 30 2022, @03:11AM
Construction is, off course, outsourced to China.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Friday July 29 2022, @07:57PM (1 child)
Or maybe caves of steel is more appropriate?
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Saturday July 30 2022, @08:41AM
Naah, he's a Dredd fan and wants to build Mega-City One before the US gets there. That and a few adaptations, e.g. they're Qāḍī and not Judges, and you're all set. And with climate change they'll have the Cursed Earth ready-made at their doorstep.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday July 29 2022, @07:59PM (4 children)
That's a pretty humongous building, and I wouldn't take the PR pictures too seriously, but it might save on air conditioning bills. With two separated buildings close together you might get a pretty strong chimney effect. Perhaps he's planning to harvest wind energy as well as solar energy.
(I still think it sounds like a silly design, but I think that about lots of skyscrapers.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 29 2022, @08:21PM (3 children)
In the desert I would be inclined to build a spiral wall instead of two parallel walls each exposed to the outside on one side. Concentric rings might have bad connotations about inner circles and Dante's seven levels, but a spiral might skirt those comparisons.
The spiral might start at 1600 or even 2000' high on the outside face, then ramp down towards the middle reaching a single level structure around the central oasis, well protected from desert winds, but with a clear view of the spiral levels all the way to the outermost walls.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 4, Insightful) by inertnet on Friday July 29 2022, @08:48PM (2 children)
Be careful with concave shapes [nbcnews.com], especially in the desert.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 29 2022, @08:56PM
Yeah, inside curves strictly non-reflective.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday July 30 2022, @08:57AM
Holy fsck, they build a solar furnace [atlasobscura.com] in the centre of London... by accident? These things have been around for decades (millennia if you believe the story of Archimedes burning Roman ships), but somehow they didn't see this for what it was?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday July 29 2022, @08:48PM (3 children)
For comparison, the Panama Canal is about 50 miles long. This would be a super-cool engineering project.
I'm interested to see how they'd deal with thermal expansion in a structure that long. The thermal expansion coefficient of steel is ~7E-6. That works out to feet of thermal expansion **per degree F in a region that sees 50 degree swings between day and night.
"Don't park there!"
"Why? You can't tell me what to do!"
"You don't understand. The sun is rising, the building will run over you."
"Pfft, you're crazy, buildings don't move?!".
(Hungry building chomping noises.)
The wind tunnel effect next to/between them would be impressive. I assume, in ignorance, that they could probably generate an impressive amount of power from it.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday July 29 2022, @11:51PM
Expanding joints between each living unit should accommodate that - agree that you would not want a 75 mile long piece of steel
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 30 2022, @01:14AM
Same way they build parking garages and stadiums and other mega structures: expansion joints with planned movement at the joints.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 30 2022, @01:32AM
Thermal expansion joints are nothing new. You put a joint every 200 feet, maybe a foot wide, and cover the joint with a 2 foot wide sheet of steel. The only place you have more solid structures larger than that, are underground where the temperature shouldn't change much, even on a seasonal basis. In effect, the foundations are one huge single piece, but all the buildings are independent structures, and some of the buildings may be multiple structures with a single facade.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Snotnose on Friday July 29 2022, @10:02PM (2 children)
Now that we no longer need your oil, but still remember 9/11 and some journalist you thought the world would forget about soon as he quit publishing bylines..
Yeah, nice tower. Too bad we no longer need you, assholes.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2022, @10:32PM
It should be no surprise that they've been dumping money into things like LIV golf, giving Jared Kushner $1B, etc. They're buttering up/bribing the rich and the "influencers" so that things like you suggest won't happen.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday July 29 2022, @11:32PM
I guess hiring engineers and developers [youtu.be] and being remembered for things you were hoping people didn't pay attention to are pretty common.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by TheGratefulNet on Friday July 29 2022, @10:30PM (4 children)
karma is a bitch, y'all.
wouldn't it be interesting if they suffered a bit of what they gave out.
(one can dream, can't one?)
you want to be a target? go right ahead.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2022, @11:51PM (1 child)
I have wondered about terrorism against arcologies/megastructures if they ever actually get built over the next century. And more mundane concerns like fires.
The sheer width of it should prevent an attack from causing the whole thing to collapse, like the Twin Towers. A plane would just take out a section, or maybe just the rooms it directly impacts. It could also disrupt the internal train service, making travel very inconvenient. Maybe the kill count could be higher if the population is very dense and people have nowhere to run. But more likely the thing doesn't get built or turns out like one of China's ghost cities.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday July 30 2022, @01:12AM
Just use a swarm of drones, no need to waste the life of a human on it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 30 2022, @01:16AM (1 child)
Like the Pentagon, one plane won't do too much damage to the overall structure. Now an icbm with mirvs targeted every 5 miles along the length.....
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday July 30 2022, @06:24AM
The Pentagon was very lucky, the plan hit the one part of the building that had been closed for upgrades so there weren't many people there and the section had already been re-enforced as part of the planed upgrade to the whole building.
If the plan had hit any of the other sides or just dived into the building from above instead of doing a banking descent to hit the side it did the damage and death toll at the Pentagon would have been much higher.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by oumuamua on Friday July 29 2022, @11:38PM
How fitting to talk about a huge 75 mile structure as On this day any use of resources is use beyond renewable capacity (so ideally you want this day to be December 31) and Newsweek has a quite provocative op ed, holy cow, holds no punches: https://www.newsweek.com/its-earth-overshoot-day-future-generations-are-calling-opinion-1728512 [newsweek.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday July 30 2022, @01:18AM (3 children)
So about 490m tall, which isn't extreme but it's up there, and 120km wide. x2 since it's two parallel lines/buildings. I guess it's the width that makes this extreme. They are short one dimension tho, height and width alone doesn't make a cube. Still that is a lot of concrete.
Also housing 5 million people. When is it going to be done? Lets give it a few decades, still it would contain about 1/8 or so of the entire population of the kingdom (they have about 34M today so lets assume it will grow a bit until this monstrosity is built). Still that probably wouldnt even break the top100 pop wise for a city, but it would be in the bottom 10% of the list.. But then not everyone lives in the same building. So it has that going for it. Not sure if arcology living is for me tho , so would I want to live there? Hell no.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday July 30 2022, @03:10AM (2 children)
Dunno about Saudi Arabia, but Egypt east of Cairo is littered with abandoned-unfinished and empty apartment buildings, and even a completely empty modern walking-downtown area (which at least is maintained, unlike the apartments). Point being... the population appears to be shrinking, not growing. But foreign aid is paid by the head...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday July 30 2022, @11:53AM (1 child)
If it doesn't become a luxury resort I guess they could use it to store all their guest-workers. There are millions of them in the country. Not sure if this is a foreign aid scam, it's probably something to sink all the gazillions of Oil $$ into.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday July 30 2022, @02:27PM
Yeah, I expect a lot of it is Keeping up with the Neighbors, specifically Dubai.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MIRV888 on Saturday July 30 2022, @03:44AM
I wish I'd be alive to see it. Dancing for the Saudi Kingdom infuriates me.
Building large buildings won't change it from a shithole desert.
15 Saudi nationals. Any other country would have been nuked.
Yes. I despise Saudi's and UAE. It's mine. I'll own it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2022, @04:32AM
So, how far will they have to lean to do that?
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Saturday July 30 2022, @10:08AM
Good luck finding your home back in 75 miles of the same.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Saturday July 30 2022, @11:01PM
Sometimes a bold approach is good, but before taking such a big plunge it's a good idea to step back.
There are natural canyons on Earth. Almost nobody lives in them. Why? Well for one, it's hard to build on the sides, and for another they can flood. Also they're considered beautiful parts of nature and we either don't want to disturb them or... we just flood them and turn them in to reservoirs. :(.
Of course the Saudis have the opposite problem when it comes to water, and they're building the substructure so it's no problem to build inside; but does anybody really want to live in a canyon even if it's man-made and presumably rendered safe?
Something seems off about it--you've got an inward looking view. The Earth also has steep ridge lines, almost as steep as cliffs and people do build on those. In fact, steep ridge lines and hills are some of the most desirable and expensive real estate.
Maybe their bold stroke should be revised just a bit: A massive artificial double ridge-line development, with cool air from the artificial canyon assisting climate control for the outward facing units. They could even build a short segment of that as a trial balloon--two big triangular condos in the desert and see if anybody wants to buy in to the plan. The government would just lease you the substructure, and you could build whatever you want as long as it wasn't too heavy. I'm not sure if that's been done. It's bold, but it doesn't stray too far from things that are already known to be desirable. If it turns out that people do like the canyon, it will still be there.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.