Burj Dubai

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Burj Dubai Sky high limits

Like needles puncturing a pincushion blue sky, super skyscrapers are redefining the skyscape of the Gulf.

They are twice and three times the size of the giants of the 20th century. Scrapers that used to send us spinning with awe like the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower will be dwarfed by these giants. First there is the Burj Dubai, estimated by some to be targeted at 818 metres, though developers refuse to confirm how high they plan to go. Then there’s the Mubarak Tower in Kuwait’s Silk City aiming for 1,001 metres. Next the Al Burj Dubai, which some say will be higher still, but a final figure has yet to be agreed. And now there’s talk of a mile high tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, soaring 1,600 metres into the atmosphere.

It’s not about space, says the architect Hamid Kia, of RMJM Hillier. “It’s about symbolism and power. Building tall is impressive. Stand on the 160th storey and look out at the world, the clouds beneath you and I promise you get a feeling like none other. It fills a human emotional need. You are standing in the next best place to space – at the outer frontier.” Some say the skyscraper is a modern expression of the age-old symbol of the world centre or axis mundi: a pillar that connects earth to heaven and the four compass directions to one another. The construction engineer Dr Andy Davids of Hyder Consulting says it is certainly a very peaceful place to be. He is one of the people responsible for ensuring that the Burj Dubai not only goes up, but stays up. He believes that the Burj is helping to mould a skyscape for Dubai that will one day be as well known as that of London, Paris or New York City.

Like the domed bubble of St Paul’s Cathedral, the iron fretwork of the Eiffel Tower or the scalloped point of the Empire State Building, the Burj will be a landmark defining Dubai for generations to come, he says. “All these extraordinary buildings – St Paul’s, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building – faced varying forms of criticism but they have survived to become international landmarks. “These super scrapers are never going to be built in London and probably not in any city in the West, but they will define parts of the Middle East,” Davids says. “There is a lot of nation building going on here.”

He feels no sense of vanity, but a sense of privilege in being a key member of the team that is helping to create the build image for Dubai and other Gulf cities. “Why build so high? Why climb Everest or fly to the moon? It’s just in the human psyche. It is the way humans are wired and there is nothing wrong with that.” The challenges that face him and other super scraper engineers are different to those developing more modest buildings.

First there is the challenge of moving a huge team of workers around the building – more than 4,000 people are involved in building the Burj. “The technical challenges are orders of magnitude because of the amount of materials needed. “Each one of these super skyscrapers is a bespoke building. The secret of any huge project like this is to break it down into manageable pieces and then endeavour to get the world’s best people to deal with each one of the challenges that they are expert at,” says Davids. “The key is to keep it simple, but each of these super tall buildings requires as much care and craftsmanship as any iconic building.”

The limits to how high a building can be built are not technical but practical. “It’s primarily an economic figure based on the speed at which each floor can be built. The economic difference between three days and five days when you are building this high is huge. And its not just economics, there is also a sunset on the time a developer is willing to spend on one project. We are not the pharaohs building pyramids.” Super scrapers are the order of the day according to Richard Thompson of Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) which is hosting its second “Building Tall” conference in Dubai today and tomorrow. “These iconic building projects have established the Middle East as the world’s most pioneering market for tall buildings. They are symbols of the region’s dynamism and are attracting experts from all over the world and equipping them with a unique skill set and ability”

The technology for building tall has been in existence in principle for nearly 80 years. “Frank Lloyd Wright proposed the possibility of a mile high building in the 1930s,” said Kia. “It is practicalities like lift speed that stopped them being built before. Now we have double decker and super speed lifts and the sky is the limit.” Davids says that people will stop building higher when they no longer feel comfortable. “To build these buildings we have to take heed of the environment far more than we did before. They call for huge respect for nature and the atmosphere. We have had help from people like NASA with research into the way the wind moves around the earth and acts on different structures.

“We have had to look at other sciences and engineering disciplines. And at a certain height there is the possibility that mankind will feel uncomfortable – the station tubes in the human ear are sensitive to height and movement.” Would he like to live on the 160th floor of the Burj Dubai? “I’d love it but it may not suit my current lifestyle with young children. Let’s put it this way, I love Ferraris, too, but I own a Land Cruiser.”

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Burj Dubai will grow additional floors

Developers of the world’s tallest building project, the Burj Dubai, have decided to add at least one more floor to the tower, which currently stands at 656 metres, pushing its final height further up into the sky but also delaying the project by six months.

“We are going higher, and this is one of the reasons why the project is delayed,” said Fred Durie, the executive director for Emaar Properties.

The company has not said how much taller the Burj, which was to be 160 floors, would become with the expansion. A spire and extra floors housing the building’s communication centre accounted for the expansion, said Mr Durie. The change of plans pushes the project’s expected completion to September of next year. The original deadline was December, but the developer had already extended the deadline once, to next April.

Burj Dubai is the product of a joint venture between the local Arabtec Construction company, South Korea’s Samsung and Belgium’s Besix. Making the tower taller had always been a possibility, said a contractor working on the project, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The building’s final height, on completion, has been kept a closely guarded secret.

Mr Durie said that the extra height would pose greater challenges to construction, because of the wind factor created by making a building that tall. In May, 18 days of work was lost due to strong winds. “The higher you go, the more difficult it becomes to build, as when the wind picks up work has to stop,” said Mr Durie. “Vertical transportation also gets more difficult the higher you go – this is the problem with going taller.”

Mohammed Ali Alabbar, the chairman of Emaar, said the interior of the Burj Dubai was also creating delays. “This is a once in a lifetime job, and we are pushing for quality,” said Mr Alabbar. “It’s going to be the tallest tower in the world, so giving contractors an extra few months to get it right will be worth it.”

Burj Dubai is to be the centrepiece of Downtown Burj Dubai, which will also be home to the world’s largest mall, Dubai Mall. Mr Alabbar said that the mall, a joint venture between Dutco Balfour Beatty and Consolidated Contractors International Company, had been expanded by 30 per cent from its original design. Downtown Burj Dubai would also see the addition of a massive new fountain to be built at a cost of Dh800 million (US$217m), the company announced yesterday. The fountain is to be 275 metres long and will shoot water 150 metres – the equivalent of 50 floors – into the air, in a show which will be set to music and augmented with 6,600 lights and 50 colour projectors.

The fountain is being installed by BK Gulf, the mechanical engineering arm of Dutco Balfour Beatty, next to Burj Dubai and Dubai Mall. Emaar, which set a completion date of next April, has hopes the fountain will attract an additional 10 million visitors each year. Mr Alabbar said the company would not be able to recover the cost of building, but viewed the fountain as increasing the overall value of its brand and of the surrounding development.

“The subject of creating the right environment for people to live in has become critical,” he said. “As a company, we’re interested in building a complete development as opposed to just providing office or residential space. When we do business we want to create a landmark environment.” Much of Downtown Burj Dubai is complete, including a number of residential towers and complexes as well as several hotels. Mr Alabbar said that most of the construction work on the development would be finished by September.

Burj Dubai facing 9 month delay

The Burj Dubai is facing up to a nine month delay and is unlikely to be finished until August or September next year, Emaar Chairman Mohammed Alabbar revealed on Monday. Alabbar told reporters in Dubai that the world's tallest building may not be completed until "August or September 2009".

"With a project like this you have to get it absolutely right," he said.

The mega-project was originally scheduled to be completed by the end of this year. The remarks are the second time Alabbar has warned construction of the Burj Dubai has fallen behind schedule. In March the chairman said the tower would likely be delayed by four months, which Emaar said in a subsequent statement was related to the interior design of the tower.

Work on the Burj Dubai was delayed in November when around 40,000 labourers employed by Arabtec, one of the construction companies working on the project, went on strike for a week over pay and conditions. Arabtec Executive Director Tom Berry said at the time the strikes could cause the company miss completion dates for some of its key projects in Dubai, without being more specific. The Burj Dubai currently stands at over 630 metres and its final height is rumoured to be between 700 and 1,000 metres, although Emaar remains tight-lipped on the subject. Local media reports last year said the final height would be 818 metres, citing architects drawings posted on the internet.

In April the tower, already the world’s tallest building and tallest free-standing structure, became the world’s tallest manmade structure, surpassed the 628.8-metre high KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota, US. The Burj Dubai is to be the centrepiece of a city within a city, Downtown Burj Dubai. The $20 billion development as a whole will include 30,000 homes, nine hotels, 6.2 acres of parkland, 19 residential towers, the Dubai Mall, and a 30-acre manmade lake.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Drawing showing the Burj dubai podium layout

Here is a drawing showing the podium layout. They call the 2 "buildings" the pool annex and the office annex. Uses seem obvious but I would think the pool annex is more than just for a pool. This is the view most prints and drawings have from 120 degrees. North is marked.