Jordan’s capital city, Amman, will soon have a spectacular landmark: the Sanaya Twin Towers, which will tower more than 200 meters over the city and will be the country’s tallest landmark.
The project, which means starlight in Arabic, comes with a $300 million pricetag. It was begun in July, 2008, and has required the removal of 225,000 cubic meters of earth to erect the building’s massive foundations.
The excavation part of the project will be completed by mid-summer, 2009, and it will be Jordan’s first large eco-building project.
The buildings will combine energy efficient glass, sensor lights, central air conditioning, an waste management that is expected to save operating costs by as much as $2 million each year.
The 200 meter high buildings will contain 500 apartments of 1,2 and 3 bedrooms each; 10,000 sq. meters of commercial and recreation space (covering 5 floors), and a 5,600 sq. meter “green” open space, including a landscaped park.
The excavation alone has resulted in a hole 124 meters long, 74 meters wide, and 40 meters deep from street level.
The Limitless Real Estate Development Co. involved in building the towers, is based in Dubai and has built numerous high-rise building projects in the Gulf region, as well as in other countries, including Turkey.
Limitless is becoming more involved in Jordan’s development, and participated for the second year in Jordan’s largest international real estate exhibition PropertyLink.
There is lot more involved in this project than just the construction of two colossal buildings, according to Bahaa Abouhatab, Limitless’ regional director. He said that the project will incorporate “wind generated and water recycling systems that will cut consumption by as much as 30%.”
The water recycling aspect will be something appreciated in a country that has one of most chronic water shortages in the Middle East. Another factor in which water recycling may be helpful is what will be the world’s highest suspended swimming pool, connecting the two towers, and at a height of 125 meters off the ground.
For a country in which most office and apartment buildings are generally not more than four to six stories high, the Sanaya Twin Towers will bring a significant change to Amman’s skyline, and perhaps usher in other such projects, not only in Jordan, but in other regional countries as well.
One of the geography courses this semester at Ben Gurion University focuses on the phenomenon of towers in Beer Sheva. While here the buildings don’t get much higher than 20 stories, they reach 40, 50 and 60 in other Israeli cities.
I hesitate to buy the eco shpiel for a few reasons:
1) The systems in tall buildings that deal with the wind, with waste removal, with sewage, air quality, must be on enormous scale, both economically and energy-wise. This may not translate to savings, even when accounting for economy of scale. Further, the minute they are not maintained, they decay rapidly and can turn into urban slums.
2) Because of the high cost of building, towers like these are generally aimed only at the upper strata of society, meaning amenities like a suspended swimming pool will be privatized and closed off to other Ammanis. However, I also know that pools in Amman tend to be private anyways.
3) There is a sort of hubris in planting enormous skyscrapers in the middle of a relatively poor and low city that would benefit much more from adding a few storeys to several buildings rather than towering apartment blocks. It’s a move that screams
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Sanaya Amman Towers To Be Jordan’s Tallest and First “Green” Building http://tinyurl.com/r3k4sq
Emirate-Built Sanaya Amman Towers To Be Jordan’s Tallest and First “Green” Buildings http://ow.ly/atb7