Somebody needs to try to build these in SL...

I saw a program on (I think it was) the National Geographic channel last night about these man-made islands that are being built off the coast of Dubai, shaped like palm leaves that are several miles across, and one system of 300+ islands that make a map of the world... Truly an amazing feat of engineering.

http://realestate.theemiratesnetwork.com/developments/dubai/palm_islands.php



This is the first one and is 3.5 miles across.

P2

oops

Efficient way to maximize waterfront properties... How much to rent?

Heh. They said the building plots sold for amywhere from US$3 million to US$60 million. There is a property listing on that site that shows 2 bedroom apartments selling for AED2.1 million, which according to the currency converter at www.xe.com is about US$571,000. A 7,000 sq ft 5 bedroom house was listed at AED9.7 million, which would be about US$2.6 million.

P2

I've been keeping an amused ( bemused ) eye on these developments for a long while now, it's a cool way to increase your coastline tenfold withouth invading anyone !

It's also the vision of a totally insane madman with far too much money and power imo...

... rising sea levels ? ... talk about heads in the sand


oh ... and let's give a mention to the 50000 or so exploited building workers ( clue: none of whom are from Dubai itself ) who live in almost total poverty and work ridiculous shifts in incredibly dangerous situations to build these places.

Oh, absolutely. As I watched this two hour special, it kept occurring to me that the Crown Prince of Dubai, who apparently ordered these islands to be built, basically said "I want an island that looks like THIS" without any thought to what it was going to take to do it. It was quite fascinating to hear all the steps that they had to go through to build the first one. The islands are only made of sand! The ring around it is made of huge boulders that were blasted out of cliffs somewhere, some of which weigh as much as six tons. The ring is a wavebreak designed to protect the inner, palm-shaped island, which is nothing but sand that was dredged up from the ocean bottom (they discovered that the desert sand, which of course is abundant in Dubai, wouldn't work, because it was too fine and wouldn't pack properly).

They blew the sand in hydraulically, and then used a technique where they drilled a gigantic probe down into the island and set it to humming like a gigantic vibrator in order to settle the sand. Amazing.

They did have a scare with the 2003 earthquake that struck the mainland. If something like that happens again, it's not gonna be pretty.

P2

Hmm, yeah. It'd be interesting to see someone try to build anything in SL that's 3.5 miles across.

Heh. Well, you know. A scale model.

P2