IF you think 20 storeys was too much for the waterfront – how about a building a kilometre high?

That is one of the latest ideas of American architect Eric Kuhne, who came up with Dandara’s controversial scheme for the Les Pas site.

He is reported to be in secret talks with the Kuwaiti government to create what would easily be the world’s tallest building.

It would surpass the Burj Dubai, which is currently being built – and which will stand 700-800 metres tall when completed in 2008 – and would dwarf the existing tallest building, Taipei 101, which reaches 509m into the Taiwanese sky.

The Architects Journal has revealed the audacious plan in its latest edition, claiming Mr Kuhne’s London practice is designing the 1,001m-tall building to be the centrepiece of a new ‘City of Silk’ in the oil-producing emirate which was invaded by Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1991.

Details of the scheme are said to be shrouded in secrecy but the Journal claims that the building will ‘operate on the principle of seven vertical villages stretching into the sky’.