Crazy, Crazy Dubai

So why Dubai for seeing into the future and
investing in itself? Because Dubai’s oil reserves have reduced
over the past decade and are now expected to be exhausted within 20
years.The OPEC purposely keeps limits on oil production, therefore creating an
inflated price, which then just simply makes them more and more rich.
Opec’s member states are Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya,
Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

Luckily (or unlucky) for us, the day is not far when we will drive a solar energy driven car to places. This is the reason the Crown Prince of U.A.E. H.H.
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has decided to convert Dubai into a Tourism Retreat, a Sports Metropolitan and a Global Business Centre by 2020, investing almost whole of his wealth for creating alternative ways of supporting Dubai's economy after 2020. As architects, we can of course enjoy the crazy rampage of wild developments unleashed by the crown prince in Dubai... take a look...

Dubai in 1990 prior to the craziness

The same street in 2003

Last year

The madness...

Dubai is said to currently have 25% of the worlds cranes...

The Dubai Waterfront.

When completed it will become the largest waterfront development in the world, bigger than its predecessor by 15 times...

All of this was built in the last 5 years, including that island that looks like a palm tree.

In the Palm Islands in Dubai. a new Dutch dredging technology was used to
create these massive man made islands. They are the largest artificial
islands in the world and can be seen from space. Three of these Palms
will be made with the last one being the largest of them all.

Upon completion, the resort will have 2,000 villas, 40 luxury
hotels, shopping centers, movie theaters, and many other facilities. It
is expected to support a population of approximately 500,000 people. It
is advertised as being visible from the moon.

The World Islands. 300 artificially created islands in the shape of
the world. Each island will have an estimated cost of $25-30 million.

The Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai. The worlds tallest hotel.
Considered the only ‘7 star’ hotel and the most luxurious hotel in the
world. It stands on an artificial island in the sea.

Hydropolis, the world’s first underwater hotel. Entirely built in
Germany and then assembled in Dubai, it is scheduled to be completed by
2009 after many delays.

The Burj Dubai. Construction began in 2005 and is expected to be
complete by 2008. At an estimated height of over 800 meters, it will
easily be world’s tallest building when finished. It will be almost 40%
taller than the the current tallest building, the Taipei 101.

This is what downtown Dubai will look like around 2008-2009.More
than 140 stories of the Burj Dubai have already been completed. It is
already the worlds tallest man made structure and it is still not
scheduled to be completed for at least another year.

The Al Burj. This will be the centerpiece of the Dubai Waterfront.
Once completed it will take over the title of the tallest structure in
the world from the Burj Dubai.

Recently it was announced that the final height of this tower will
be 1200 meters. That would make it more than 30% taller than the Burj
Dubai and three times as tall as the Empire State Building.

The Burj al Alam, or The World Tower. Upon completion it will rank
as the world’s highest hotel. It is expected to be finished by 2009. At
480 meters it will only be 28 meters shorter than the Taipei 101.

The Trump International Hotel & Tower, which will be the centerpiece of one of the palm islands, The Palm Jumeirah.

Dubailand. Currently, the largest amusement park collection in the
world is Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, which is also the largest
single-site employer in the United states with 58,000 employees.
Dubailand will be twice the size.

Dubailand will be built on 3 billion square feet (107 miles^2) at an
estimated $20 billion price tag. The site will include a purported 45
mega projects and 200 hundred other smaller projects.

Dubai Sports City. A huge collection of sports arenas located in Dubailand.

Currently, the Walt Disney World Resort is the #1 tourist
destination in the world. Once fully completed, Dubailand will easily
take over that title since it is expected to attract 200,000 visitors
daily.

The Dubai Marina is an entirely man made development that will
contain over 200 highrise buildings when finished. It will be home to
some of the tallest residential structures in the world. The completed
first phase of the project is shown. Most of the other high rise
buildings will be finished by 2009-2010.

The Dubai Mall will be the largest shopping mall in the world with
over 9 million square feet of shopping and around 1000 stores. It will
be completed in 2008.

Ski Dubai, which is already open, is the largest indoor skiing
facility in the world.This is a rendered image of another future indoor
skiing facility that is being planned.

Some of the tallest buildings in the world, such as Ocean Heights
and The Princess Tower, which will be the largest residential building
in the world at over a 100 stories, will line the Dubai Marina.

The UAE Spaceport would be the first spaceport in the world if
construction ever gets under way.I’m not joking…

Some more crazy
shit :

• The Dubai Metro system, once completed, will become the largest fully automated rail system in the world.
• The Dubai World Central International Airport will become the
  largest airport in size when it is completed. It will also eventually
  become the busiest airport in the world, based on passenger volume.
• There are more construction workers in Dubai than there are actual citizens !!!

a pic of dubai today :

a pic from city in star wars movie :

So, where is Dubai heading... you judge yourself...

Images and some texts in this article has been sourced from http://itberandom.com/2008/02/dubai-is-nuts-repost/