John Peronto says about a third of Jeddah Tower will sit above the atmospheric boundary layer, a level of World's Tallest Buildings engineering that few projects reach. The tower is set to rise above 1,000 meters once topped out, pushing it beyond the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
John Peronto on Jeddah Tower
“One of the things that's unique about Jeddah Tower is that really about a third of it is above the atmospheric boundary layer,” Peronto said in an interview. “We don't talk about that a lot in tall buildings because not many have really achieved these levels of height.”
Peronto is managing principal at Thornton Tomasetti and project manager for Jeddah Tower. The tower is designed by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, and Adrian Smith also designed the Burj Khalifa while at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill before co-founding the firm.
Burj Khalifa and 1,000 meters
Burj Khalifa stands at around 2,717 feet and remains the current tallest building in the world. Jeddah Tower is expected to reach around 3,281 feet once topped out, a gap of roughly 564 feet. The comparison is not just about record height; it marks a move into a structural zone where wind conditions become more layered higher up and the most extreme wind effects are usually concentrated within the first few hundred meters above ground.
Carbon costs in Saudi Arabia
Gordon Gill has described the tower as “extremely efficient” and said, “When we talk about form and performance, these are the kind of things we strive for.” He has also said that “the majority of embodied carbon that we're seeing is primarily in the infrastructure and the structure of these buildings.”
That sits against a wider carbon picture: buildings are responsible for 39 percent of global energy-related carbon emissions, with operational energy accounting for 28 percent and materials and construction for 11 percent. The World Green Building Council has said upfront carbon could account for half of the entire carbon footprint of new construction by 2050, which makes Jeddah Tower a test case for how far height can be pushed without losing sight of carbon and performance.
The immediate unanswered step is topping out Jeddah Tower. Once that happens, the tower will stand above 1,000 meters and give engineers and designers a built example of how far World's Tallest Buildings design can move into the atmospheric boundary layer.
