The world’s tallest skyscraper that you have ever seen is finally standing tall and inaugurated today Monday, 4th January 2010. In a surprise move renamed the gleaming glass-and-metal tower Burj Khalifa in honor of the current President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan. The oil-rich sheikdom that came to its rescue during the financial meltdown.
The skyscraper has many records under its name and is way taller than any other tall structures all around the world. The building was 2717 feet tall. Rooms in the Armani-designed hotel boast views up to 60 miles. Long awaited 160-story tower in financially strapped Dubai cost $1.5 billion to build. The design of the building is based on a flower, Hymenocallis which has a triangular structure and is commonly called as Desert Flower.
When compared to other tall structure, its 818 mts tall. The other tall structures are:-
- Taipei 101 – 509 mts
- Petronas Towers – 452 mts
- Sears Tower – 442 mts
- Empire State Building – mts
- Canary Wharf – 235 mts
This chart show the comparison when the skyscraper was still being made:-
The construction of the building began on 21st September 2004 and it took 5 years and 10 days, to finally get finished with the exterior building on 1st October 2009. Burj Khalifa is part of a township planned, named “Downtown Burj Khalifa” and the entire space allotted for it was 2 sq. km. The builders of the Burj Dubai project are Samsung Engineering & Construction and Besix. The budget set for the whole township was 20 billion dollars, while for Burj Khalifa building was 4.1 billion dollars.
It holds various records after the construction is done, and has surpassed many facts of Taipei 101 tower which previously was the tallest structure. Here are a few records:-
- Tallest skyscraper
- Tallest structure freestanding, which earlier was CN towers
- Tallest and first tallest structure to include residential areas
- World’s highest elevator installation
- Elevator with longest travel distance in the world
- World’s fastest elevator speed at 64 km/hr or 40 miles/hr
- Building with most floors – 160
- Highest vertical concrete pumping for any structure in the world
- World’s highest installation of aluminum and glass facade at height of 512 mts.
- Highest outdoor observation deck in the world
Why this design?
The base design of the building is triple-lobed footprint which was inspired by the flower Hymenocallis. The flower has 6 spokes each representing the sides of the lobes of the tower. There are 3 elements of the tower radiating out of the central core. This structure is made with an inspiration, along with the fact that central base can keep the building stand strong when any natural calamity tries to break it down. Over 28,000 glass panels are used to cover most of the exterior, and there are 3 horizontal tracks which would help in cleaning the outer glass of whole building.
156 floors is build up with concrete, and from there above everything is made of lighter steel.
The Burj Khalifa will have hotels, residential areas, spas and saloons, corporate suites, entertainment zones and event zones. One of the attractive and lower floors occupying ones is the Armani hotel.
Fountain -
Named as Dubai Fountain, it has 6650 lights and is 275 mt long, shooting water at a height of 150 mts. The expenditure for construction of this fountain is $217 million. It runs on different water shooting designs, based on various arabic and world music.
A few facts to note -
- From the top of Burj Dubai, area all around of up to 80 kms can be seen.
- 3,30,000 a cubic meter of concrete was used, which equals the weight of 100,000 elephants.
- To reach from the ground floor to the top most floors, it would take just a minute time.
- An office space in Burj Dubai costs $4000 per sq.ft.
- More than 1000 residential apartments are built in it, and there are 57 elevators installed.
- The address of Burj Dubai – P.O. Box No. 1, Burj Dubai, Dubai
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