The World's Tallest Skyscaper, Burj Dubai Unveiled

The world's tallest tower 'Burj Khalifa' developed by Emaar Properties stands tall at nearly 2,718 ft; its twice the height of the Empire State Building in New York City.

The grand opening ceremony for the 11-hectare skyscaper was unveiled on January 4, 2010 in Dubai, U.A.E. to a crowd of thousands and the world in a crescendo of fireworks, lasers and fountain displays.

Fireworks cascaded from the tower and lasers blazed out from all levels leaving the crowds awestruck.

Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman of Emaar Properties, said that the tower represented a symbol of hope to the Arab world and a shining example of human achievement.

"Thousands of people from more than 100 countries have contributed to the realisation of 'Burj Khalifa'. The tower embodies the spirit and optimism of global collaboration, and shows to the world what can be achieved when communities work in partnership."

'Burj Khalifa' features luxury residences and offices, the world's first Armani Hotel, and the world's highest observation deck, 'At the Top', which is located on the tower's 124th floor. Around 90 percent of the tower's offices and apartments have been sold.

'At the Top' opens officially to the public on January 5. The handover of offices and apartments starts in February, and the Armani Hotel Dubai will be opened by its designer, Giorgio Armani, on March 18.

The amazing Burj Dubai

Since the birth of the Chicago School in the late nineteenth century, which sought not only to try to reach heaven but solve problems of space, massive structures that have emerged so far had not exceeded 700 meters. When we speak of the Burj Dubai (Khalifa) in the UAE, we will associate the word with a height of almost a thousand meters, specifically 828. It has a total floor number of 186, whose highest point is at 768 meters, and it will include more than one thousand luxury apartments and offices, a luxury hotel designed by Giorgio Armani, plus spas and restaurants.

The Burj Khalifa is only the central part of the development known as the Downtown Burj Khalifa (previously Downtown Burj Dubai, “Burj Dubai Center”in English), which along Sheikh Zayed Road, form a complex of two square kilometers,crossing the complete city in a transversal way.

The Chicano (half mexican half north-american) Adrian Smith was the chief architect, who worked with the firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) until 2006. Burj Khalifa had a budget estimated at more than 4,000 million dollars, which were increased to 20,000 million for the full development of the Downtown Burj Khalifa, part of the cost financed by the family of the Emir Mohammed
bin Rashid Al Maktoum, among which his nephew Fuad bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Alvarez, just 20 years old, supported the idea by giving 25 million dollars.

Challenging the conditions of workers:

The project has been criticized by several human rights groups that say workers have been exploited since the beginning of 2004, most of them earning less than 10$ an hour and an average of 468 dirhams per month ($ 169). For the construction of the building it took more than 12,000 workers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (mostly), many of them taking advantage of
the situation by staying overnight in the same building (dormitories), perhaps not wanting to lose more than half an hour to get down to the first floor. Environmentalists for their side have not been happy with the construction of what they think will be a black hole of energy consumption and something that will significantly increase the country’s carbon footprint.

With controversy or not, the fact is that this new building of the UAE has become the symbol of the country’s recovery
and is now considered a relique for the inhabitants of Dubai, increasingly proud of what is being built in their city.

How Do They Clean The Burj Dubai?

The Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai had its official opening ceremony on Monday although it was hardly a grand unveiling as you cant hide a 828 meter tall building behind a curtain. The Burj Khalifa (also known as the Burj Dubai) is the tallest man made structure ever built and has the world’s fastest elevators which travel at 40 mph. The building is so high that those visiting the top of it’s needle like tower are treated to the kind of views you would only otherwise see on a flight to Dubai.

One thing which always fascinates me about large buildings is the amount of effort required to maintain them. Very often large structures, in particular bridges, require constant cleaning so once those doing the work get to the end they start from the beginning again. Most skyscrapers require a lot of window cleaning as they tend to have floor to ceiling windows. The window cleaners who work on the Burj Dubai have to be fearless and fast as this video shows:

The building has 24,830 windows which total 120,000 square meters of glass. The cleaners use normal soapy water according to Dale Harding of Cox Gomyl

“It’s the same as an average shop front cleaner would use — there’s nothing complex about it at all,”

The top floors of the building require a more complex system than men dangling by ropes with a sponge in their hands. An Australian firm called Cox Gomyl were tasked with working out a way to keep the views from the top clear. They went through a series of ideas before designing a series of machines which emerge from the building a run on tracks along its outer edge. The 12 machines carry up to 36 windows cleaners who do their thing in the traditional manner.

The equipment required cost around $7.3 million and each machine weighs in at 13 tonnes. As well as the 12 moving platforms there are six smaller machines which clean the exterior of floors 21 and up. You can see these in action on Cox Comyl’s info page here.

To service the facades of the 828 m high structure, 3 permanent parapet mounted BMUs were installed at each of Levels 40, 73 and 109. These track-mounted and telescoping systems are operate on a horizontal track which has been installed on Burj’s exterior façade. The machines are very flexible in their operation and are able to luff, telescopic, hoist, slew and travel. The average outreach of these machines is 10 m, retracting to 5 m for the parking configuration.

Burj Dubai Burj Khalifa and records

The Burj Dubai (Burj Khalifa) tower officially opened its doors on January 4, 2010, six years after the commencement of construction in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The tower previously known as Burj Dubai was renamed Burj Khalifa in honor of the current President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa.

Some of the records made by the $4.1 billion, half-mile-high skyscraper are:

• Tallest skyscraper to top of spire: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previous record: Taipei 101 – 509.2 m (1,671 ft))
• Tallest structure ever built: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previous record: Warsaw radio mast – 646.38 m (2,121 ft))
• Tallest extant structure: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previous record: KVLY-TV mast – 628.8 m (2,063 ft))
• Tallest freestanding structure: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previous record: CN Tower – 553.3 m (1,815 ft))
• Building with most floors: 160 (previous record: both 1 and 2 World Trade Center – 110)
• World’s highest elevator installation
• World’s fastest elevators at speed of 64 km/h (40 mph) or 18 m/s (59 ft/s) (previous record: Taipei 101 – 16.83 m/s)
• Highest vertical concrete pumping (for a building): 606 m (1,988 ft) (previous record: Taipei 101 – 449.2 m (1,474 ft))
• Highest vertical concrete pumping (for any construction): 606 m (1,988 ft) (previous record: Riva del Garda Hydroelectric Power Plant – 532 m (1,745 ft))
• The first world’s tallest structure in history to include residential space
• Highest outdoor observation deck in the world
• World’s highest mosque (located on the 158th floor)
• Elevator with the longest travel distance in the world
• Tallest service elevator in the world
• World’s highest installation of an aluminum and glass façade, at a height of 512 m (1,680 ft)

Burj Dubai Khalifa numbers and records

Burj Dubai (Khalifa) was built in 5 years, and now it is tallest building on Earth. In this article I’ll try to present most interesting numbers and records for this amazing building.

1. Burj Dubai Khalifa has 828 meters or 2,716.5ft (it was estimated to have 10 meters less before construction);
2. Burj Dubai Khalifa is 320 meters taller than Taipei 101 (building which held this world record since 2004 with 508 meters).
3. Burj Khalifa employs a record-breaking 330,000 cubic meters of concrete, 39,000 metric tonnes of steel rebar and 142,000 square meters of glass; and it took 22 million man hours to build.
4. Burj Khalifa held also word record for highest occupied floor in the world with 550
5. Other world record: tallest service elevator (it travels to a height of 504 meters)
6. Other World record: the highest outdoor observation deck in the world – At the Top on Level 124
7. Burj Khalifa has 160 floors.
8. It is 2,17x taller then Empire State Building (which is 381m taller).
9. The construction of Burj Dubai is estimated at 1,5 billion dollars.
10. The building can be seen from 95 kilometers (if the sky is bright).
11. Burj Khalifa has 57 elevators
12. 28,261- the number of glass cladding panels making up the exterior of tower and
    its two annexes
13. 15,000 – the amount of water in litres collected from the tower’s cooling equipment that will be used for landscaping irrigation
14. 160 – the number of luxury hotel rooms and suite, 1,044 – the total number of residential apartments inside Burj Dubai and 3,000 – the number of underground parking spaces
15. Financial crisis affected Burj Khalifa too which value decreased with 50% in the past year.