Crystal Island Moscow To Be World’s Biggest Building

Image courtesy of Skyscrapercity

Moscow is showing the world who’s boss of the biggies: its preliminary planning permission to build the Norman Foster designed, Crystal Island, set to be the world’s largest building, has just been granted pipping the likes of Dubai and Kazakhstan
Crystal Island will cover a staggering 2,670,000 square meters, stand 450 meters tall and will cost an estimated $4 billion. As with so many of the world’s most stunning and original constructions (The Gherkin or Serrenia in Egypt’s Sahl Hashish are just two), the brains behind the tower is renowned British architect Lord Norman Foster whose business, Foster + Partners, have designed the space to be multi use: 3000 hotel rooms, 900 serviced apartments, a business centre, office spaces, a sports centre, entertainment centre and shopping mall as well as an international school, restaurants and cafes. Visitor numbers are expected to be high and there is a planned 16,500 space car park to accommodate them.

According to the designers: “The building’s spiralling form emerges majestically from a newly landscaped park, rising in converse directions to form a diagonal grid. This distinctive geometry extends throughout the project into the park. The result is that the scheme is seamlessly integrated into a new park landscape, which provides a range of activities throughout the year, including cross country skiing and ice skating in the winter.”

The ambitious five year construction plan is right up Lord Foster’s street: he has a reputation for getting things done and this is not his first large scale project in Moscow. The structure will be lit up at night, and some have already dubbed the project Moscow’s “Christmas Tree”.