…what would London’s skyline look like?
Well, a little like this:
I’ve roughly compared the height of the Gherkin (180m) to the Burj Dubai (818m) to scale the source image. Obviously I’ve guessed where it might be located if it were to have been built here. In reality, I doubt London’s soil would be able to support the building as it is largely made of concrete and would probably sink in London’s clay.
Click on the photo for larger version.
This is nicely done. Good work! As for the London clay issue – don’t forget they call Dubai and the Emirates “The Sandlands” for a reason. The Burj (and all the other megastructures out there) are all built on sand. Some might say the financing was too but we’ll leave that for later…
The foundations are a fairly generic raft and pile format, as is used in London, however my – admittedly limited – understanding of the issues is that London clay contains enough moisture to enable it to very slowly compress when put under the sort of focused weight that the Burj Dubai would impose on it – unless the raft was staggeringly wide (The Burj piling area is three times the width of the building).
London skyscrapers are considerably lighter thanks to their steel construction, but the Burj benefits from the stability afforded by being a concrete structure. A western style steel tower would sway alarmingly at that sort of height, even with mechanical counter-balances built in.
I’m sure some people would love to be at the top of a swaying tower, but I would find it quite scary ;)
the first thing that occurs to me is ‘what an ugly building’.
Not surprised.
What was the second thing that occurred to you?
Brilliantly done. I love it. Bryn