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#41. Burj Khalifa

History Rising – Burj Khalifa

This is a video response to all videos that involve actual photographs from the Burj Khalifa construction site.  With construction beginning on February 1st, 2005 and estimated for completion on August 16th, 2009, since its development in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the Burj Khalifa has gotten taller and taller. Developed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, it is now the tallest man-made structure on Earth and continues to get taller. This video is commemorated to those who have put there blood, sweat, and for two construction workers, lives into this project. May the Burj Khalifa reign King of the Skyscrapers for years to come until its brother the Nakheel Tower begins construction.  Photos for this video come from burjdubaiskyscraper.com courtesy of Imre Solt. He truly has an eye for photographing construction sites as he provides the clearest view on the progress of the Burj Khalifa’s construction.  The song used for the video comes from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion’s remake of Bart Howard’s original “Fly Me to the Moon.” 

burj-khalifa-1Burj Khalifa, Location: Dubai Architect: Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. Year: 2004

This is the tallest man made structure in the world, clocking in at 160 floors. It is also the tallest building to ever include residential space. Literally awesome.

240px-Burj_KhalifaBurj Dubai

Burj Khalifa (Arabic: برج خليفة‎, “Khalifa tower”), known as Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration, is a skyscraper in DubaiUnited Arab Emirates, and is the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 m (2,722 ft).

Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010, and is part of the new 2 km2 (490-acre) development called Downtown Dubai at the ‘First Interchange’ along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai’s main business district. The tower’s architecture and engineering were performed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of Chicago, with Adrian Smith as chief architect, and Bill Baker as chief structural engineer.  The primary contractor was Samsung C&T of South Korea.

In March 2009, Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of the project’s developer, Emaar Properties, said office space pricing at Burj Khalifa reached US$4,000 per sq ft (over US$43,000 per m²) and the Armani Residences, also in Burj Khalifa, sold for US$3,500 per sq ft (over US$37,500 per m²).  He estimated the total cost for the project to be about US$1.5 billion.

The project’s completion coincided with the global financial crisis of 2007–2012, and with vast overbuilding in the country; this led to high vacancies and foreclosures.  With Dubai mired in debt from its huge ambitions, the government was forced to seek multibillion dollar bailouts from its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi. Subsequently, in a surprise move at its opening ceremony, the tower was renamed Burj Khalifa, said to honour the UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan for his crucial support.

Because of the slumping demand in Dubai’s property market, the rents in the Burj Khalifa plummeted 40% some ten months after its opening. Out of 900 apartments in the tower, 825 were still empty at that time.  However, over the next two and a half years, overseas investors steadily began to purchase the available apartments and office space in Burj Khalifa.  By October 2012, Emaar reported that around 80% of the apartments were occupied.

Conception

Burj Khalifa was designed to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development that would include 30,000 homes, nine hotels (including The Address Downtown Dubai), 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of parkland, at least 19 residential towers, the Dubai Mall, and the 12-hectare (30-acre) man-made Burj Khalifa Lake.

The building has returned the location of Earth’s tallest freestanding structure to the Middle East, where the Great Pyramid of Giza had claimed this achievement for almost four millennia before being surpassed in 1311 by Lincoln Cathedral in England.

The decision to build Burj Khalifa is reportedly based on the government’s decision to diversify from an oil based economy to one that is service and tourism based. According to officials, it is necessary for projects like Burj Khalifa to be built in the city to garner more international recognition, and hence investment. “He (Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum) wanted to put Dubai on the map with something really sensational,” said Jacqui Josephson, a tourism and VIP delegations executive at Nakheel Properties.

History of height increases

450px-BurjKhalifaHeight.svgBurj Khalifa compared with some other well-known tall structures

There are unconfirmed reports of several planned height increases since its inception. Originally proposed as a virtual clone of the 560 m (1,837 ft) Grollo Tower proposal for Melbourne, Australia’s Docklands waterfront development, the tower was redesigned by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM).  Marshall Strabala, an SOM architect who worked on the project until 2006, in late 2008 said that Burj Khalifa was designed to be 808 m (2,651 ft) tall.

The design architect, Adrian Smith, felt that the uppermost section of the building did not culminate elegantly with the rest of the structure, so he sought and received approval to increase it to the current height.  It has been explicitly stated that this change did not include any added floors, which is fitting with Smith’s attempts to make the crown more slender.

Delay

Emaar Properties announced on 9 June 2008 that construction of Burj Khalifa was delayed by upgraded finishes and would be completed only in September 2009.  An Emaar spokesperson said “The luxury finishes that were decided on in 2004, when the tower was initially conceptualized, is now being replaced by upgraded finishes. The design of the apartments has also been enhanced to make them more aesthetically attractive and functionally superior.”  A revised completion date of 2 December 2009 was then announced.  However, Burj Khalifa was opened on 4 January 2010, more than a month later.

Architecture and design

220px-Comparisonfinal001fx7Cross-section comparisons

The tower was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, who also designed the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in Chicago and the new One World Trade Center in New York City. The Burj Khalifa uses the bundled tube design, invented by Fazlur Rahman Khan. Proportionally, the design uses half the amount of steel used in the construction of the Empire State Building thanks to the tubular system.  Its design is reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright‘s vision for The Illinois, a mile high skyscraper designed for Chicago. According to Marshall Strabala, an SOM architect who worked on the building’s design team, Burj Khalifa was designed based on the 73 floor Tower Palace Three, an all residential building in Seoul. In its early planning, Burj Khalifa was intended to be entirely residential.

Subsequent to the original design by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, Emaar Properties chose Hyder Consulting to be the supervising engineer with NORR Group Consultants International Limited chosen to supervise the architecture of the project.  Hyder was selected for its expertise in structural and MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) engineering.  Hyder Consulting’s role was to supervise construction, certify SOM’s design, and be the engineer and architect of record to the UAE authorities.  NORR’s role was the supervision of all architectural components including on site supervision during construction and design of a 6-storey addition to the Office Annex Building for architectural documentation. NORR was also responsible for the architectural integration drawings for the Armani Hotel included in the Tower. Emaar Properties also engaged GHD, an international multidisciplinary consulting firm, to act as an independent verification and testing authority for concrete and steelwork.

220px-Great_Mosque_of_SamarraThe spiral minaret at the Great Mosque of Samarra

The design of Burj Khalifa is derived from patterning systems embodied in Islamic architecture.  According to the structural engineer, Bill Baker of SOM, the building’s design incorporates cultural and historical elements particular to the region such as the spiral minaret. The spiral minaret spirals and grows slender as it rises.  The Y-shaped plan is ideal for residential and hotel usage, with the wings allowing maximum outward views and inward natural light.  As the tower rises from the flat desert base, there are 27 setbacks in a spiralling pattern, decreasing the cross section of the tower as it reaches toward the sky and creating convenient outdoor terraces. At the top, the central core emerges and is sculpted to form a finishing spire. At its tallest point, the tower sways a total of 1.5 m (4.9 ft).

To support the unprecedented height of the building, the engineers developed a new structural system called the buttressed core, which consists of a hexagonal core reinforced by three buttresses that form the ‘Y’ shape. This structural system enables the building to support itself laterally and keeps it from twisting.

The spire of Burj Khalifa is composed of more than 4,000 tonnes (4,400 short tons; 3,900 long tons) of structural steel. The central pinnacle pipe weighing 350 tonnes (390 short tons; 340 long tons) was constructed from inside the building and jacked to its full height of over 200 m (660 ft) using a strand jack system. The spire also houses communications equipment.

In 2009, architects announced that more than 1,000 pieces of art would adorn the interiors of Burj Khalifa, while the residential lobby of Burj Khalifa would display the work of Jaume Plensa, featuring 196 bronze and brass alloy cymbals representing the 196 countries of the world.  It was planned that the visitors in this lobby would be able to hear a distinct timbre as the cymbals, plated with 18-carat gold, are struck by dripping water, intended to mimic the sound of water falling on leaves.

The exterior cladding of Burj Khalifa consists of 142,000 m2 (1,528,000 sq ft) of reflective glazing, and aluminium and textured stainless steel spandrel panels with vertical tubular fins. The cladding system is designed to withstand Dubai’s extreme summer temperatures. Additionally, the exterior temperature at the top of the building is thought to be 6 °C (11 °F) cooler than at its base.  Over 26,000 glass panels were used in the exterior cladding of Burj Khalifa. Over 300 cladding specialists from China were brought in for the cladding work on the tower.

A 304-room Armani Hotel, the first of four by Armani, occupies 15 of the lower 39 floors.  The hotel was supposed to open on 18 March 2010, but after several delays, it finally opened to the public on 27 April 2010.  The corporate suites and offices were also supposed to open from March onwards, yet the hotel and observation deck remained the only parts of the building which were open in April 2010.

The sky lobbies on the 43rd and 76th floors house swimming pools.  Floors through to 108 have 900 private residential apartments (which, according to the developer, sold out within eight hours of being on the market). An outdoor zero-entry swimming pool is located on the 76th floor of the tower. Corporate offices and suites fill most of the remaining floors, except for a 122nd, 123rd and 124th floor where the At.mosphere restaurant, sky lobby and an indoor and outdoor observation deck is located respectively. In January 2010, it was planned that Burj Khalifa would receive its first residents from February 2010.

Burj Khalifa can accommodate up to 35,000 people at any one time.  A total of 57 elevators and 8 escalators are installed.  The elevators have a capacity of 12 to 14 people per cabin, the fastest rising and descending at up to 10 m/s (33 ft/s) for double-deck elevators.  However, the world’s fastest single-deck elevator still belongs to Taipei 101 at 16.83 m/s (55.2 ft/s). Engineers had considered installing the world’s first triple-deck elevators, but the final design calls for double-deck elevators.  The double-deck elevators are equipped with entertainment features such as LCD displays to serve visitors during their travel to the observation deck.  The building has 2,909 stairs from the ground floor to the 160th floor.

The graphic design identity work for Burj Khalifa is the responsibility of Brash Brands, who are based in Dubai. Design of the global launch events, communications, and visitors centers for Burj Khalifa have also been created by Brash Brands as well as the roadshow exhibition for the Armani Residences, which are part of the Armani Hotel within Burj Khalifa, which toured Milan, London, Jeddah, Moscow and Delhi.

http://www.complex.com/art-design/2011/02/the-top-50-architectural-achievements-of-the-modern-world/burj-khalifa

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