Like leafing through the pages of 1001 Arabian Nights, a highly exuberant landscape emerges all over Arabia, filled with glittering, shining cities embedded with towering structures reaching the skies, like jewelled spikes and sharp needles supporting amazing revolutionary developments. All of this, unfolding right in front of us as a precursor to the upcoming of a brighter future, like a magical turn in a tale from ancient times.
In reality, this is what historians may be referring to this period - as an extraordinary real estate boom in Arabia with a great race for tall towers at its centre.
With some 1,000 dynamic towers of all shapes and sizes, and record-breaking heights in play, the field of super-tall building structures is maturing at a much faster pace. During my recent lecture at the Tall Building Conference of IFHS in Abu Dhabi, the most noticeable issue was the speed in which the latest building technologies are being applied here in Arabia. The confidence level both in building and rapid occupation with high profits is skyrocketing.
The architectural craftsmanship and precision that took the West over a century to learn has manifested instantly in Dubai's dynamic city planning ventures; bring in the super towers and the rest will take care of itself.
The fast portability of technology and the replication of skills have suddenly made this region the hotbed for tall towers, supposed to be casting long shadows to further nurture urban and city planning as crucial support systems. The mega concept and massive applications of brand new city creation allows this luxury where all could be simultaneously planned from scratch. It's working great here for now.
Vertical subways
Theoretically, unless there are real value-added extraordinary features, mile-high towers are basically mile-long vertical subways with a view. Therefore, their selling propositions must consider the mile-long list of demands of customers. Today, modern living demands modern services, yet with traditional support to lifestyles. Though tough on demographical segmentations and urban-suburban structures, the real challenge lies in the longevity of master concepts and the true delivery of the promise. The customer becomes the king in the long run, and ultimately, the one that will determine the long-term brand value of these super structures.
Living above the clouds is also a lot of fun, with quarter, half or full-mile high options as new benchmarks for high-class living, the hundreds of other not-so-visible towers will struggle for mindshare to retain their position in this increasingly tough race to the top. One thing is for sure, the earlier successes of sell-outs with a single turn of the shovel are being crushed daily by the sheer number of new towering ideas on the ground.
Which tower? Very soon, when there are hundreds of towers on the market, the key issue of image identity and brand leadership will distinguish the most dynamic and prominent from the others that scream for attention. There are already many similar or near-identical tower brands in various cities. Distinguishing them to avoid confusion among customers is the new challenge. The precise art of building a brand for a tower is very often being missed by a mile; we could be left with a jungle of look-alikes. Which tower, did you say? The serious developers must evaluate their long-term image, carrying ideas and make sure that they do not simply end up in the jumbled mess of similarity. The onset of multiple city-living is increasingly becoming a reality, and GCC is becoming a great fertile ground for developers all across Arabia.
Now the story of the 1001 Towers of Arabia seems no longer a fantasy.
The writer is an expert on global imagepositioning and corporate identity and iscurrently lecturing in GCC countries.
