There are buildings. There are big buildings. There are skyscrapers. There are even Amazon distribution warehouses.
And then there's ... this:
Ground has officially been broken in Saudi Arabia for what is expected to be the 'world's largest building.'
The ambitious, $50 billion project — called the Mukaab — in the capital city, Riyadh, is part of a wave of futuristic construction across the Arab nation, the Sun reported.
The skyline-redefining Mukaab will clock in at 1,300 feet high and 1,200 feet wide when completed — giving it enough volume to contain 20 Empire State Buildings, the outlet reported.
Inside the cube will be a tower surrounded by massive high-resolution screens that allow the interior of the cube to display videos that make residents/visitors feel like they are in different biomes.
Similar technology is being used in buildings such as Las Vegas's Sphere:
Imagine seeing this thing from the sky!
As impressive a structural accomplishment as that would be, I think we can all agree:
And people had thoughts about that:
Some commenters pointed out that the project is at the same ambitious scale of "the Line," a futuristic megacity that Saudi Arabia proposed a few years ago:
How's that project going, two years later?
Well:
If you don't know about the "kafala" system in Arabian Gulf countries that rely heavily on migrant labor, you might not understand how millions of migrant workers get trapped in indentured servitude to build those glittering Arabian skylines. The Global Slavery Index estimates that in 2021, there were 740,000 such modern-day slaves in Saudi Arabia alone.
Keep that in mind when you see projects like the Borg Cube.
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