Last week, Tanzania’s AICL Group and Edinburgh-based investment company Crowland Management unveiled designs for a skyscraper. Upon completion, the Zanzibar Domino Commercial Tower will be a 70-storey, spiraling skyscraper on a man-made island off the west coast of the country’s Zanzibar archipelago. It will also be the second-tallest building in Africa, after Egypt’s Iconic Tower, 28 miles east of the capital Cairo. The Domino will be the most expensive single-standing building ever constructed on African soil, just $200 million shy of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, which gobbled up $1.5 billion. Over the past decade, Africa’s skyscraper ecosystem has attracted both investor capital and interest with billions of dollars having been committed to projects already. According to Global Construction Review (GCR), there have been a number of contenders for the title of Africa’s tallest tower, including the Leonardo in Johannesburg (227m), and the Bank of Africa Tower in Rabat, Morocco (250m). Egypt is the single country with the most projects with 46 (9.5% of projects on the continent) as well as the most projects by value at $79.2 billion (17 per cent of the continent’s value), edging out South Africa and Nigeria respectively.
SOURCE: QUARTZ AFRICA