Base jumping in Dubai (Burj Khalifa)

Two men set a new world record for the highest base jump from the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa.

ITNExtreme 08 January 2010

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Ahmad Al Matroushi, managing director of UAE of Emaar Properties which built the Burj Khalifa, said: “The base jump undertaken by the UAE national and his trainer is another human achievement that complements Burj Khalifa’s accomplished track-record of pushing frontiers.”

### http://www.dailymail.co.uk Last updated at 5:23 PM on 8 Jan 2010
Don’t look down: Sky diver sets new world record after base jumping 2,205ft from top of Burj Khalifa in Dubai
By Mail Foreign Service
An expert sky diver from the United Arab Emirates has set a new world record for base jumping from the top of the Burj Khalifa. Nasr Al Niyadi and his trainer Omar Al Hegelan made a perfect landing after jumping 2,205ft from the 160th floor of the world’s tallest building in Dubai on Tuesday. The pair, from the Emirates Aviation Society, made the descent at speeds up to 137mph in under one and a half minutes.
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Related Post and Comments:
3.1.10 Burj Dubai/Khalifa: view at the top

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Blogger casts critical eye over downtown Dubai

So the Burj Khalifa is finished—what now for Dubai?

### http://www.architectsmagazine.com January 06, 2010 8:43 PM
Architect: Beyond Buildings blog
Instant Metropolis
By Aaron Betsky
Phoenix meets Hong Kong, Instant Urbanism, Go Go Architecture—none of it quite describes Dubai. The Burj Khalifa (see my previous post) is only the exclamation point to the tectonic uplift of real estate development that has created not just one, but several human-made mountain ranges rising out of the flat desert next to the Gulf. Flying out last night, it all spread out below me.

Dubai is an act of self-conscious citymaking, a will to metropolitan status. Build it and they will come—and they have.

What are lacking are many of the amenities that make cities work, from public open space to mass transportation, from cultural facilities to sports stadia. Dubai is building some of them…
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-Aaron Betsky is the director of the Cincinnati Art Museum, and in 2008 he was director of the 11th Venice International Architecture Biennale. Trained as an architect at Yale, he has published more than a dozen books on art, architecture, and design and teaches and lectures about design around the world. Aaron worked for Frank O. Gehry and Associates and Hodgetts & Fung Design Associates as a designer, taught for many years at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, and between 1995 and 2001 was curator of architecture and design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. From 2001 to 2006 he was director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Baltimore: proposal for single downtown zoning designation

### http://www.baltimoresun.com January 8, 2010
New zoning would protect views of iconic buildings
No new parking lots under proposed plan
By Lorraine Mirabella
Baltimore’s downtown would include designated districts that are defined by unique building structures, and regulations would prohibit blocking views of the city’s iconic structures under a proposed vision for future development.

Protecting distinctive views of buildings [is] “politically charged, but a very brave thing to do. It’s our only chance to have cohesion in downtown.”
-Gary Bowden, Urban Development and Architecture Review Panel

City planners offered preliminary ideas on Thursday for new rules and guidelines to replace downtown’s zoning regulations, which haven’t been updated in nearly 40 years. The new zoning also would prohibit any new surface parking lots. The proposals will be incorporated into a new zoning code for the entire city through the Transform Baltimore initiative.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity…to not be bound by the current rules and to improve urban design quality of the region.”
-Thomas J. Stosur, city planning director

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Post by Elizabeth Kerr