Height and Volume

As of today, the tallest structure ever built on earth is the Burj Dubai. At 650 meters, the building is now taller than the ill-fated Warsaw Radio Mast. When completed, it will be a good 300 meters taller than the current tallest building, Taipei 101. Incredible. It's surprisingly attractive, too. The building was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the designers of many a snooze-inducing skyscraper. Maybe SOM just needed a bigger canvas to really show off their stuff.

I'm surprised there hasn't been an Extreme Engineering or Build it Bigger about Burj Dubai. There has been a show on Ski Dubai and the Burj Al Arab hotel, but I can't recall seeing anything about Burj Dubai. Honestly, there's enough cool engineering and construction going on in Dubai to fill a whole TV series of its own. Henry would love it.

Of course, we've got our own record-setting building here in Western Washington. Boeing's Everett factory, where they manufacture their wide-body jets, is the biggest building in the world by volume. Henry and I toured the factory a few months back and it's thoroughly impressive. The scale of the place is hard to fathom. If you ever find yourself in Western Washington, I highly recommend the tour. If Boeing ever manages to get the kinks out of the 787 manufacturing process, I expect to see a Build It Bigger about that, too.

(via digg.)