The Tallest Residential Building in the World
/Q1 – World’s Tallest Condo
First Published Date : June 25, 2009
When it comes to building a tower that will stick in the minds of the people of the world, there is nothing like height for making your point. Certainly there are world famous towers that do not rely on height to take their place among the elite, and no-one would seek to deny that – the Eiffel Tower is one such building – but when it comes to new builds, if you want to truly impress a watching world there is nothing like a skyscraper to get heads nodding and tongues wagging. For this reason, the tallest buildings in the world will always be the subject of much discussion, and this makes the title of “tallest residential building in the world” one that is keenly fought for.
The current holder of this title is Q1 (short for Queensland One) located in Surfers Paradise on Australia’s Gold Coast. Standing at an amazing 1,058 feet tall and 78 storeys high, Q1 is truly remarkable. It is one of those buildings that throws up fascinating facts whenever it is brought up in conversation, simply because it is hard to convey how remarkable something is through raw data alone. Among other things, the building is capable of withstanding the force from ten jumbo jets pushing against it – in the highly unlikely circumstance of that happening – because it has a reinforced “honeycomb” core. The elevator in the Q1 can go from the bottom to the top floor – 77 floors up – in 49 seconds.
Facts like these are what it takes to convey just how impressive the Q1 tower is. It is perhaps no surprise that it cost approximately AUS$400million (US$307million) to build. If you want to live there, however, you will need to take on a substantial cut of that cost. Olympic champion swimmer Ian Thorpe reportedly bought the Penthouse apartment for a sum of money believed to be in the range of $12million, immediately making it the most expensive apartment in Queensland. To stay in the building for a night will cost you less than that – in the region of AUS$319 (US$245).
Often when a building of similar size is built, there is a concern about its height making it structurally unsound, and at its highest point a risk of vulnerability in high winds. For the Q1 this is not a problem – the furthest it will move even in a cyclone is 600 millimetres.
Of course, all of this says very little about the building itself as a residential property. On that front, it is one of the most desirable places in Australia and beyond with world class dining and recreational facilities as well as retail outlets and a very strong aesthetic. There is tropical landscaped garden along with lagoon pools, and for those people who need to relax after a long day there is also a day spa. Top class conference facilities make it an ideal place for a business investment, too.
To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the realestateexpedition.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on June 25, 2009
