Hello Everyone,
Here are my updates for "Burj Al Alam".
First of all, it is *NOT* no hold. The design is finished and the construction has begun.
(1) Foundation construction
As you know, this supertall is 501meters. They need to dig down first before they build up. At this phase, the will be creating a very big hole about 5 stories deep down.
(2)Base Construction
This is the base that will be build in the deep hole.
Once the this phases are done, the building will start to rise. We still have several months before we see any heigth being built.
Issues
(1) The engineers for this building were fighting with Dubai government to get the proper "safe shelters". Like the Tapei101 and Burj Dubai, they wanted more special shelter floors to evalucation and emergency support areas. As I understand it, this is still on-going and not still fixed. Of Course the construction engineers want more safe shelters. We will have to wait and see how many and what floors will be these safe shelters. Note: because the design is fixed, they most likely not add floors or increase the height of the building but use existing design and select the floors for this purpose.
Good News: I have some friends that are also directly involved with the infrastructure of Burj Al Alam and I have already asked them to take pictures *INSIDE* the building during construction.
Anyway, it is not on hold and you should start to see a nice big hole being created soon!
- Senju