The Burj 2020 - Plans to be the World's Tallest Commercial Tower

This month saw a long awaited announcement regarding the ambitious Burj 2020 project, which had gone relatively quiet since late 2014. It was announced that renowned Architect Adrian Smith was to work on the designing the iconic Dubai based tower which, when constructed, will be the World's largest commercial tower.

Smith, who is part of Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill Architecture has been involved on several high profile towers in the region including the Burj Khalifa, Dubai and the Kingdom Tower, Jeddah which is currently under construction.

The project is planned to be built in the Jumeirah Lake Towers Free Zone in Dubai and the target date for completion will be 2019.

When completed the Burj 2020 should surpass the 541 metre record for a commercial tower as currently held by the New York's One World Trade Centre as per the Council of Tall Building and Urban Habitat. It has not yet been revealed what the planned height of the Burj 2020 will be.

Detailed information on the project is scarce at this stage, however details emerged late last year that the top floor of the building will include a 360 degree viewing platform. The tower will be built with a steel frame. Finally it was also revealed via Developer DMCC that the tower will not use a spire to break the record height. Instead the plan is to design the Burj 2020 tower to beat the record solely based on the number of floors.

This may be due to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat recently describing Dubai's towers as having some of the most 'vanity height' of all the World's tallest towers. Vanity Height was described as the distance between the buildings highest habitable floor and the architectural peak of the building.

Despite this being a relatively small step forward for the project, it is welcome news to learn that some of the ambitious developments that have been announced for the Expo 2020 Dubai exhibition are going ahead as planned. Falling oil prices and a lack of movement to other signature projects such as Dubai World Central have left some wondering whether plans for the Expo had been secretly scaled down; this appears to prove otherwise.

We are now coming to the end of the Ramadan and the Eid holiday where construction work in the Middle East region has slowed down. However, the period post Ramadan and before Christmas typically tends to be the busiest period for construction recruitment in the region.

If you are looking for a change of construction job and the Middle East region appeals, now is the best time to touch base with me about the possibility of making the move during 2015; I look forward to hearing from you with that updated CV!

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Stuart Hackett
Maxim Recruitment
Middle East Recruitment Specialist