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.

The Burj Dubai, upon completion, will be the tallest man-made structure on the face of the planet.

Here we can see it in a relatively early stage. From the timeline of pictures on Wikipedia, this image looks to have been taken in early 2006.

But things have changed substantially since then. Already, as of last week, it towers 639m into the sky, with 160 floors. Within the next few weeks, it will likely surpass the - now destroyed - Warsaw radio mast to become the tallest manmade structure ever built. And it won’t even be finished then! It is expected to top off at around 818 metres.

The challenges of building the Burj Dubai are immense, with the incredible heat of the desert, meaning that most of the work is carried out at night, coupled with the problem of pumping concrete that high, all challenges that are overcome thanks to the extraordinary amount of money that is being poured into Dubai by wealthy Princes. It is even said that over 25% of the world’s tower cranes are working on projects in Dubai.

However, the record may not stay with this tower for long, as plans are already being made for a mile-high tower nearby!

Read up on the Burj Dubai and watch its progress in pictures at Wikipedia, see a recent picture of Burj Dubai (and neighboring developments) on Flickr and see a previous post on the current tallest buildings.

Thanks to David Kelly

Possibly the most ambitious of Dubai’s land reclamation projects, The World is an archipelago of 300 islands laid out to represent countries of the world.

The first developed island is owned by Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher. The $7 million piece of land was gifted to him by Dubai’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and is located in the Arctic (although I’m sure he would have preferred Germany).

There’s various rumours of who owns the other islands, including reports that Rod Stewart spent $33 million to buy mini-Britain.

The entire project is scheduled for completion in 2008, and over in what looks like it might be Spain, we see a boat “spraying” sand to create the island.

Official Website and thanks to Brad, Catherine, alexandrecavaco, Others.

For some unknown reason somebody is carving giant letters ‘HA’ into a sand bar near Abu Dhabi. The 500m tall water letters are very neat but it’s a lot of effort just to laugh into space.

Perhaps it’s just the beginning of a longer word? HARRY? HASTA LA VISTA? HALP (sic)?

Thanks: Heather Muise

Google Earth Blog reports that Google Earth has had a huge imagery update with satellite and aerial pics across the globe.

The images haven’t made their way into Maps yet, so if you click the image below you’ll just get an out-of-focus empty shore, but click the Google Earth link and you’ll fly to one of the super-cool artificial Palm Islands in Dubai.

There’s loads of things to see all over the place so hopefully we’ll see the images in Google Maps soon!

The Al Jazira Hotel & Resort is located on a man-made 7km private channel between the Emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. From the satellite photo it is clear that the hotel boasts a couple of tennis courts, a helipad, and a pool shaped like a fish. It’s a good thing we can work that out for ourselves as the official website is sadly lacking in much more info or photos.

Thanks: Rob B

The Armed Forces Officers Club in Abu Dhabi has 120,000 square meter roof constructed from a 3 large concrete shells. My first thought was that it looked a lot like the Olympic Stadium in Montreal so it’s no surprise that both were designed by Roger Taillibert, a French architect who clearly thinks he’s designing spacecraft rather than buildings. There’s ground level photos and design sketches on Tallibert’s website.

Thanks to Tggb3k (We noticed your submissions eventually!)