Earlier this month the still-incomplete Burj Dubai building in Dubai officially surpassed the height of all other buildings, towers and masts worldwide, making it the tallest man-made structure on the planet.

Currently standing at a staggering 688 m, construction of Burj Dubai is set to continue for another year, and the final height will not be announced until the building opens in September 2009.

As you can see, the Google Earth image was taken while the building was still just a toddler, but you can get an idea of how it might look with a 3D model.

Before the Burj Dubai came along the process for deciding on the world’s tallest building was strangely complex – there’s actually 4 possible categories to consider – and there were separate records for supported masts.

Burj Dubai simplified the debate by taking the top spot in all possible categories, but it gives us an opportunity to revisit all the previous record holders, many of which have been updated since we previously looked at tall buildings and the world’s tallest towers.

Taipei 101 in Taiwan once held the “tallest building” record in 3 of the 4 possible categories with its architectural height of 508 m, highest occupied floor of 438 m and roof height of 448 m.

For the moment at least, Taipei 101 retains the title of largest completed building, but after the completion of Burj Dubai it will have to settle for being the location of the world’s fastest ascending elevator, which can get you up to the 101st floor at a gut-wrenching 37.7 mph!

Chicago’s Sears Tower was once the holder of all tall building records. Taipei 101 failed to conquer its record of “height with antenna”, at 529 m, but Burj Dubai has easily cleared that without the need of extra-reaching aerials.

Lastly, the rope-supported KVLY-TV mast in Blanchard, North Dakota, was officially the tallest man-made structure on the planet at a height of 629 m. The fact that Burj Dubai already tops this height without any external supports is testament to just how amazing an engineering feat it really is.

Further reading at the Wikipedia pages for Burj Dubai, Taipei 101, Sears tower and KVLY-TV mast.

It’s Island Week 3 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. It’ll probably last about a week.

Bruny is one of 20 islands and island groups in the Australian state of Tasmania, the largest island of which is also called Tasmania.

Thanks to the recent addition of Street View imagery for Australia, today we’re going to take our first Street View island day trip! Packed lunches will not be provided.

To get onto Bruny from Tasmania itself we have to take a ferry:

Once we’ve arrived at the other side, we can see an aerial shot of the ferry, with lots of cars waiting to board:

The island of Bruny has a population of just 600 people, and the economy relies on wildlife tourism. However, I’ve not spotted any wildlife yet.

Bruny’s other main attraction is the Cape Bruny Lighthouse, so let’s drive down to see that:

The lighthouse’s main claim to fame, if you can call it that, is that it was the “oldest lighthouse under continuous operation by the Commonwealth”. I’m sure you’re impressed: feel free to take photos.

Unfortunately, the Street View driver drove so slowly that it’s getting dark already, so we’ll have to pack up our picnics and head back to Tasmania. Here’s the ferry queue from the other side:

And, once docked at the other side, here’s the Google Car inside the ferry! Keep your hands inside the vehicle please.

I hope you all enjoyed our day trip to Bruny Island! Please tip the driver.

More info on Wikipedia: Bruny Island.

Thanks to Howder.

Tinsley Viaduct is a two-tier road bridge in Sheffield, England; the first of its kind in the UK. It carries the M1 motorway over a 1033 metre section of the Don Valley, and is one of Sheffield’s most prominent landmarks. Sadly there’s not much to see from our viewpoint.

Fortunately for us however, the Tinsley Viaduct runs right past the Tinsley Towers, a fantastic pair of defunct cooling towers. Due to their extremely close proximity to the viaduct, they were left standing when the power plant they served was demolished in the 70s.

As it happens, “extremely close” is a bit of an understatement – the nearest tower stands only 12 metres from the M1!

Actually, “stood” is the correct term I’m afraid.

Following years of strengthening work to the viaduct (and presumably advances in demolition technology), the towers were finally brought down¹ in the early hours of Sunday the 24th August. You can watch a video of the spectacular destruction of the towers over at the BBC.

Thanks to Radio 2 and the ever informative Jonathan Rawle.

This bizarre tower is the Perfect Liberty Peace Tower in Tondabayashi, Japan, and from up here it looks like it might be constructed entirely from cotton-wool.

Completed in 1970 this incredibly oddly-shaped tower stands at 180 m, and was actually made by spraying concrete at a wire mesh. The irregular shape looks like a disaster waiting to happen, but is actually designed to be earthquake resistant thanks to its centre of gravity being set just 12 m above ground level.

The Peace Tower is part of the headquarters of Perfect Liberty, a “modern” religion whose motto is “Life is Art”. Anyone can visit the tower, but apparently it’s inadvisable as you will be approached to be “drawn into the religion“. Perhaps for this reason, the Street View car kept its distance – the closest shot is from a passing motorway.

However, a local photographer has dared to venture up close, and has loads of pictures showing just how truly weird the tower is.

Thanks to adrbr.

Rounding off our totally unplanned week of obscure towers is… Alton Towers, which is very obscure, being that it’s actually a theme park.

Located in the grounds of a former stately home in Staffordshire, England, Alton Towers opened as a theme park in 1980, and in 2007 it attracted 2.4 million visitors – making it the most visited theme park in the UK.

Alton Towers has a good history of fairly ground-breaking roller coasters, and they currently have 8 in total, including Air – the world’s first B&M flying roller coaster.

Nemesis was Europe’s first inverted roller coaster (Wikipedia).

Probably the best known to this day is Oblivion, the world’s first vertical drop roller coaster (Wikipedia), which opened in 1998 amidst a huge publicity campaign here in the UK. The coaster features a 55m near-vertical drop into a huge dark hole in the ground (ground-level pic).

Of course when I personally went to Alton Towers the first time (all the way back in 1986), the biggest name ride was the Corkscrew (Wikipedia). It’s the park’s oldest coaster, and sadly seems to be reaching the end of its lifespan – it looks likely to be replaced soon. You can clearly see where it gets its name in this image.

Alton Towers is open March to November, and given that the UK has some spectacular weather right now I imagine this weekend will see the 2 km² (500 acre) grounds full to bursting with people queuing for the 125 different rides.

More about Alton Towers, as ever, at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Andrew Senter and Andrew Checkley.