Sky-high ambition

Step onto the observation deck on the 157th floor of Jeddah Tower and the world falls away beneath you. The air is thin and clean, carrying none of the dust and heat of the city below. The Arabian Peninsula stretches out in every direction and the Red Sea glitters to the west.

The glass around you hums almost imperceptibly. A reminder that this structure is alive, flexing and breathing in the wind. Every window, every facade panel, every sealed joint in this building engineered to perform for decades.

A vertical city

Rising over a kilometer across 252 floors, Jeddah Tower will become the world's tallest building when it opens in 2028. Designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the tower's distinctive Y-shaped, three-petal footprint is a structural response to the forces acting on a building of this scale, distributing wind loads and structural weight with precision.

Inside, the tower will house luxury condominiums, serviced apartments, high-end office space, a hotel and that record-breaking observation deck on the 157th floor. A vertical city in every sense requires building systems that perform reliably without compromise from ground level to summit.

Sealing at scale

A facade, a building’s exterior envelope or "outer skin", spanning more than a kilometer must endure extreme thermal fluctuations, continuous structural movement and relentless environmental stress. For Trelleborg, that meant developing new solutions for it at a scope that continues to expand, with innovative components added at each phase of the build: solutions that did not exist before this project began.

To date, Trelleborg has supplied approximately 290,000 meters of precision-engineered profiles across 42 distinct components. These are mostly silicone but also include ones in Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer (EPDM) and PVC to seal the tower's facade. Each profile delivers exceptional resistance to ultraviolet (UV) exposure, extreme temperatures and long-term environmental stress, ensuring the building envelope or shell, the physical barrier separating the conditioned interior space of a structure from the unconditioned exterior environment, remains protected for decades to come.

Rising to the occasion

Speed was as critical as precision. The Jeddah Tower construction program left little room for delays, and with the building’s facade installed in parallel with the rising structure, every component had to arrive complete and on time.

"A project of this scale doesn't give you room to ease into it," says Mike Shutack, Sales Director for Trelleborg’s facades. "We're talking about 42 different components, many of them requiring new tooling, produced in high quantities and shipped to site within tight lead times. Managing that complexity across every phase, while the structure and facade go up simultaneously, is what puts real pressure on every part of your operation. Our teams continue to rise to that challenge."

Running around the clock

Meeting deadlines required more than engineering expertise. Trelleborg's global logistics network, moving deliverables by both air and sea, operated continuously to ensure components reached the site on time without compromising quality. A critical assurance for a project of this significance.

"When a project like this calls for precision at scale and speed at the same time, that capability is what makes the difference between a solution that works on paper and one that actually ships," says Shutack. First deliveries were completed in quarter three 2025, on schedule and to specification. In May and June, Trelleborg shipped components for Levels 12 through 49, with the next shipment for the unitized wall system already in preparation.

Measuring up

“Reliable facade sealing across the full height of the building helps safeguard the structure's durability, energy performance and weather resistance well into the future. Yet the real measure of this project is not its scale alone. It is the complexity of meeting evolving requirements phase by phase, and coordinating engineering, manufacturing and logistics to keep pace with construction.

“Trelleborg acts as the catalyst that turns these compounding challenges into a steady, reliable supply of precision-engineered solutions. For facade engineers and construction teams working on landmark projects, Jeddah Tower demonstrates what becomes possible when advanced material science, precision manufacturing and engineering innovation converge,” shares Shutack.

Built to last

"A building of this scale, with such high standards for durability and performance, requires sealing solutions that have never been made before," says Shutack. "And the scope never stands still. Each phase brings new components, new tooling and new demands. All of them produced in high quantities and delivered within lead times that leave no margin for error. That's what it takes when the engineering is this precise and the schedule is this unforgiving."

When you finally step back from the glass on the 157th floor of the Jeddah Tower, you understand what keeps the world out of the building is not luck. It is millions of meters of polymer ambition, engineered to the millimeter and built to last as long as the tower itself stands.

Writer: Ruth Clay
Photos: Adobe Stock and Trelleborg