The largest buildings in the world are ranked by two categories: by volume (usable space) and by area (floor space). In terms of usable space, these are the top four biggest buildings in the world today. Check out the post!
1 ) Boeing Everett Plant – Washington, USA
Floor Area: 398,000 m² (4.3 million sq ft)
Volume: 13.3 million m³ (472 million cu ft)
Ranking as the largest building in the world (by volume), this behemoth Boeing factory is used to manufacture the company’s 747s, 767s, 777s, and the new 787 Dream-liner. Covering 98.3 acres in total, the factory is its own campus with multiple cafes, a theater, flight museum and five Tully’s Coffee stands. The plant is so huge the heat of the lights and machinery alters the climate inside the humongous facility so they use giant fans to push the warm air down.
2 ) Jean-Luc Lagard̬re Plant РToulouse, France
Floor Area: 122,500 m² (1,320,000 sq ft)
Volume: 5.6 million m³ (199 million cu ft)
The assembly hall of the Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger airplane. The vast cathedral-like factory contains 32,000 tonnes of steel, four times more than the Eiffel tower and as much as the Millau viaduct. Noted for its volume, in addition to the massive assembly hall, the building boasts 23,000 square meters of offices.
3 ) Aerium – Brandenburg, Germany
Floor Area: 70,000 m² (753,000 sq ft)
Volume: 5.2 million m³ (184 million cu ft)
A hangar originally intended to house the construction of a giant airship, this building now houses an indoor, artificial tropical resort. Though it’s third on the list by volume, Aerium is the largest single hall without supporting pillars in the world. The Aerium is a €78 million freestanding steel-dome “barrel-bowl†structure built to house the construction of a giant airship—the CL160. Though a considerable amount of design and development work was undertaken, the airship was never built. The Aerium is now called Tropical Islands Resort, an artificial tropical resort which houses the said to be world’s largest tropical indoor pool and the world’s largest indoor waterpark. It was bought by a Malaysian company for €17.5 million and turned into a resort with man-made tropical habitat complete with rain forest, beach, artificial sun and clouds and even bird soundtrack.
4 ) NASA Vehicle Assembly Building – Florida, USA
Floor Area: 32,374 m² (348,000 sq ft)
Volume: 3.66 million m³ (130 million cu ft)
Originally built to enable simultaneous assembly and shelter for four Saturn V rockets. Constructed for the purpose of Apollo/Saturn rocket assembly, this NASA facility is more or less a series of enormous one-roomed towers. To give you an idea of its size, the humble bay doors stand almost 500 feet tall and the addition of the US flag and Bicentennial logo on the building’s side took over 6,000 gallons of paint to complete. When the Shuttle retires, the VAB will become the assembly facility for the Ares I and the unmanned heavy lift Ares V launcher for the 2018 return to the Moon.
