Skyscraper building has slowed in the region, but urbanisation trends mean demand for tall towers will continue
Dubai was home to three of the five tallest buildings that were built in 2017, according to a new report published by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH).
The 425 metre Marina 101, the 370 metre Address Boulevard and the 342 metre-high Ahmed Abdul Rahim Al Attar towers were the third, fourth and fifth-tallest buildings to complete worldwide last year, according to CTBUH, a Chicago-based non-profit institution.
Yet while Dubai retains a reputation globally as a haven for skyscrapers - it has 21 'supertall' (above 300m) towers, which is more than the next two cities, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, combined - it is clear from CTBUH's data that the skyscraper boom is both moving east, and spreading to a much broader group of cities.
The tallest building to complete in 2017 was the 599m-high Ping An Finance Center, which was one of 12 buildings above 200m to complete in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen last year. About 53 percent of the 200m-plus towers completed last year were based in China.
In a press release accompanying the report, CTBUH's executive director, Antony Wood, said that the 2017 data "shows a continuation of the trend towards a greater global proliferation of skyscraper construction”.
“High-rise construction is no longer confined to a select few financial and business centres, but rather is becoming the accepted global model for densification as more than one million people on our planet urbanise each week," Wood said.
He said that 13 cities across the globe saw their first 200m-plus high rise completion last year, and that 28 cities also welcomed their tallest building last year.
The number of 200m-plus skyscrapers completed per year globally has more than doubled over a five-year period - from 69 in 2012 to 144 last year, which was a record.
Yet although the global trend is towards expansion, there has been a slowdown in the Middle East.
Hitting the heights
The peak years for completions of 200m-plus towers in the region were 2011 and 2012, when 23 and 17 towers respectively were completed. That number has since slumped, with just nine completions last year. This is because most of these buildings were commissioned prior to the global financial crisis.
Of the 40 buildings 200m-plus towers completed in the Middle East in 2011/12, only one (Riyadh's Tamkeen Tower) started on site after 2008, according to CTBUH data. Even two of the five tallest from 2017 - Marina 101 and the Ahmed Abdul Rahim Al Attar towers - were commissioned more than a decade ago.
Peter Pardoe, associate director, buildings, Arcadis Middle East, said: "Most of the tall buildings launched before the 2008 financial crisis have now been completed, however, the sustained low oil price continues to drive a sharper focus on the business case that underpins new developments.
This means that even those developers that are still proposing towers have scaled back their ambitions somewhat, Pardoe told Zawya via email.
"We are now seeing a greater number of assets being planned around the 200m mark as at this height, it’s often easier to make the commercials work than with 'supertall’ developments, which generally need to be part of a larger plot of land to create value.”
Pardoe said that although the number of 200m-plus towers completed are unlikely to reach the levels achieved in 2011 any time soon, he does not foresee any further decline between now and 2020, which he argues is representative of a "growing maturity" in the real estate market across the region.
"There’s now a greater focus on the quality of the assets being built and the business case that underpins them, rather than just adding new stock to the market,” he said.
CTBUH lists 30 Middle East towers above 200 metres as due for completion in 2018. However, the number that actually finish is likely to be significantly lower. Those scheduled for delivery include the four-tower Damac Maison-Paramount scheme off Al Khail Road in Dubai, as well as the same developer's Damac Heights building in Dubai Marina. There are also several delayed towers within King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh, including the KFAD World Trade Center, the Samba Bank HQ tower and the 385m-high Capital Markets Authority tower.
Lee Morris, Middle East and Africa head of architecture at building consultancy Atkins, said: "We are continuing to see a huge demand for new towers in the commercial, hospitality and mixed-use building sectors."
Expediting for Expo
This is driven in Dubai by a desire from the government and project owners for many projects to be complete before Expo 2020 gets underway in October that year, as well as the ongoing transformation plan for Saudi Arabia.
Pardoe added: “Tall buildings remain a big part of the Middle East construction market, as evidenced by the pipeline of assets due to come online over the next three years, as well as the ongoing commitment to super-tall developments like the Jeddah Tower and ‘The Tower’ in Dubai Creek Harbour.”
Picking out its trends for 2018, CTBUH points to one phenomenon where Dubai already leads the way. It states that by December this year, for the first time in history more towers will have an all-residential function than any other purpose, when the number of such towers are likely to reach just over one-third.
In the Middle East, 34 percent of all the 200m-plus towers that had been completed by the end of last year are residential buildings, 29 percent are offices, 27 percent are defined as mixed-use and 10 percent are hotel towers.
Whether or not this will continue to be the case remains to be seen, though. Morris believes "there's a reassessment going on" of high-rise living in the region, which is partly as a result of the drive towards more affordable homes.
"Sizes are reducing and development density is increasing to meet the economic demands," he said.
"We will continue to see the rise of more affordable, mid-range, low rise community districts as a more significant part of the masterplan mix for live, work, play lifestyle," he said.
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