Today there was a big opening ceremony of Burj Khalifa “supertall” skyscraper in Dubai – the tallest building in the world. It is 2717 -foot (828 meters) tall. It beats the next tallest building in the world, Taipei 101 at 509 meters, by over 60%.
The Burj Khalifa is probably going to keep its title of the highest building for quite a while as none of the skyscrapers currently under construction, or even being planned, is going to reach that height. The contender for the second tallest building is probably the Pingan International Finance Center Tower 1, expected to be completed in 2014, at 646 meters.
Amidst the cheerful reviews on the technical ingenuity of the project, there were some voices questioning other aspects of this grandiose undertaking: how financially, logistically, environmentally sustainable it is? And this is what interests me most personally.
The skyscrapers started as a a response to the land shortage and thus growing prices for land in densly populated urban areas. Of course, the issue of vanity has always been there, with many new skyscrapers aiming to supercede the previous ones in catching the title of the tallest building. This latest one is the epitome of that competition. With no real economical justification, this tower was built for pure show off.
The economic fall out from this excessivness has already been demonstrated by the near default of the whole Dubai project that required a megabillion bailout a few weeks before the inauguration of the Burj Khalifa. The renaming of the tower from Burj Dubai that happenned right on the eve of its openning in recognition of the person who saved the city from financial collapse is just a little piece of evidence that the situation got out of control in a big way.
I am personally always amazed by undertakings, business or otherwise, that show great ingenuity, forward thinking, boldness of their authors. But I always try to apply some common sense litmus test to them. In this case I think that the only passing grade could be given to the engineering part of the project. Even though it is still to be seen how sustainable its maintenance and upkeep is going to be. The rest has already proved to be failing.
In the list of courses offered by the GWSB MBA program there are a few classes pertaining to business sustainability and risk management. I sure see the great need for that in today’s world. Now I am seriously thinking about taking more than one elective around that domain. And those courses should better be really good, not just a courtesy bow to the today’s fad 
Bookmark this on Delicious
{ 0 comments }
