Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is considering plans for a 2-kilometre megatall tower as part of an 18-square-kilometre masterplanned development to the north of Riyadh.
The proposed tower will be more than double the height of the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, which is 828 metres tall. Contractors that have priced megatall towers in the region say that depending on the final design, a 2 km-tall structure could cost about $5 billion to construct.
A design competition with a participation fee of $1 million is underway for the record-breaking tower, according to multiple sources close to the contest.
The sources add that about eight firms have been invited to participate in the competition. The firms involved include some of the world’s leading names in architecture, which have been selected based on their experience working on other megatall towers and iconic designs around the world.
Some of the top architectural companies in the world are collaborating, and they were chosen for the project based on their previous work on iconic structures and megatall towers around the globe.
US-based companies Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill Architecture, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), and Gensler are among the probable participants.
