Those who have seen the Burj Khalifa once cannot take their eyes off it. The construction of such a tall building in the heart of the desert and its standing despite all the adversities, the Burj Khaleej is a unique example of human ingenuity and engineering.
Burj Khalifa breaks through the clouds; source: Daily Mail.
On January 6, 2004, Dubai literally began to explode! The world's tallest building, emerging from the ground and slowly rising, once announced its existence in the kingdom of clouds! Just two days before the completion of six years, on January 4, 2010, Dubai's world-famous skyscraper 'Burj Khalifa' finished its journey by going 828 meters above the ground (829.8 meters including the antenna). It rose so high from the ground that people on the top floors of the building could see the sun for two more minutes even after sunset! As a result, when worshippers on the ground in Dubai start breaking their fast during Ramadan, people living above the 80th floor break their fast two minutes later!
The government of Dubai has a long-term plan to move away from an oil-dependent economy. The government's goal was to increase the impact of services and travel on the country's economy. The Burj Khalifa tower was part of that plan. This vast building was built for multiple uses. Initially, the building's design included 19 hotels, 9 residential towers, 30,000 homes, a 7.5-acre park, a 12-acre artificial lake, and the Dubai Mall. Until its inauguration, it was called 'Burj Dubai'. Later, it was named Burj Khalifa in honor of the President of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. However, Dubai faced a financial crisis during the construction of the Burj Khalifa. After starting to diversify its economy in 2000, Dubai borrowed 80 billion US dollars from various international organizations and countries. As a result, the country was in an economic crisis from 2007-10.
The world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa, was built on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai's main commercial city, 'Downtown Dubai'. The chief architect of the building was Adrian Smith. Bill Baker was the chief construction engineer and Sufian Al Jaberi served as the head of all types of engineering. And the responsibility for building the building was given to a contracting company called 'SOM' or Skidmore, Wings & Merrill. This company had built skyscrapers like the Sears Tower before Burj Khalifa. The 'bundled tube' method invented by Bangladeshi architect Fazlur Rahman Khan was used in Burj Khalifa, which he had invented while building the Sears Tower. Despite being almost twice as tall as the Empire State Building, the total amount of iron used in the construction of the Burj Khalifa Tower was half that of the previous building! Only 4,000 tons of iron were used in the construction of this huge building. This was possible thanks to a method invented by Fazlur Rahman Khan, a famous engineer and architect of Bangladesh.
The design of the Burj Khalifa was inspired by this minaret of the 'Great' Mosque in Samarra, Iraq; source: Pinterest
The original design of the building is derived from Islamic architecture. The spiral design of the Burj Khalifa was inspired by the spiral minaret of a mosque built in the 9th century in Samarra, Iraq. As the building goes up, each tower connected to it ends in a total of 27 steps, and the central tower in the middle rises to a height of 828 meters. And a spiral shape is created around it. As the towers are completed step by step, a beautiful roof is created on them. However, these spiral steps contain important scientific ideas. The steps are decorated in such a way that they are tolerant of desert cyclones. However, a study by the 'Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat' has revealed an interesting fact. According to them, the original height of the Burj Khalifa is 585 meters. The remaining 244 meters is the height of the spire or coil that has been created at the top of the building. This part is unnecessary and removing it would not reduce the usable space of the Burj Khalifa.
The entire Burj Khalifa tower is decorated with 1,000 selected famous paintings. The residential lobbies are decorated with paintings and sculptures by the renowned Spanish painter and sculptor Houmi Plenger. The 174,000 square meters of walls of the entire building are covered with 26,000 large, hard, reflective glass and colorful aluminum sheets. These glasses are not like other ordinary glasses at all. They are poor conductors of heat. As a result, even though light enters the building, the internal environment is not affected by the intense temperature outside. Again, the glasses also work as solar panels. As a result, a good amount of electricity is generated in the intense sun all day long. However, this glass does not only protect from the sun's rays. The outside temperature at the top of the Burj Khalifa is only 6 degrees Celsius. In this case, these glasses also work as insulation.
Four Armani hotels occupy 15 of the first 40 floors of the Burj Khalifa. There are 900 apartments for sale between floors 50-108. But don't think that you can buy them just because you hear "for sale". They were sold out within just eight hours of the Burj Khalifa's inauguration! There is a huge 'beach entry swimming pool' on the 76th floor. There are no stairs in this type of pool, and these pools get deeper and steeper as you go further, like the seashore. There is a similar swimming pool on the 43rd floor, which is smaller in size. On floors 122-24 is the 'At.Mossphere' sky restaurant, which is also the highest restaurant in the world. Most of the space outside these is occupied by corporate offices and residential suites. There are a total of 2,909 stairs in the 160-story Burj Khalifa. There are 57 double-deck elevators or lifts and eight escalators. The elevators can transport 12 to 14 people per cabin, travel at a speed of 10 meters/second, and have LCD TVs and air conditioning.
The entire Burj Khalifa requires an average of 950,000 liters of water per day, which is supplied through 100 kilometers of pipes. Another 200 kilometers of pipes are spread like a network throughout the building, for fire control in emergencies. On the other hand, there are an additional 46 kilometers of pipes for supplying water through condensate for the air conditioning system. The air for the cooling system comes entirely from the 100th floor of the Burj Khalifa, where the weather is relatively cool and the air is quite dust-free. The heat generated by the Burj Khalifa's cooling system every day is equivalent to the heat generated by melting about 1,300 tons of ice! There is also a special system for cleaning the building's 24,348 windows.
If you want to see a fountain in the heart of the desert, you have to go to Burj Khalifa. Whether artificial or not, who ever imagined that there could be a fountain in the desert country of Dubai? At a cost of $217 million, the American 'Weight Enterprise' built an artificial fountain, which is located next to the main entrance of Burj Khalifa. This fountain of clear blue water is illuminated at night by 6,600 colorful electric lights. And the entire building is surrounded by the vast and beautiful Burj Khalifa Park, which, like the main building, is made in the shape of a flower of a type of desert plant called 'Hymenocallis'. The cooling system of Burj Khalifa supplies about 68 million liters of water annually to the trees in this park. Since its inauguration in 2010, Burj Khalifa has become one of the world's tourist attractions. Not only its height, but also the nobility and architectural style of Burj Khalifa are eye-catching. Parks, fountains, sky hotels, swimming pools, and observation lobbies - if you've ever been to Dubai, you have to go there for all of these.
Dubai at night from the 78th floor observation deck; source: absolutevisit.com
Some records of Burj Khalifa-
• Tallest building - 828 meters; previously in Taipei, China.
• Tallest building without antennas - 828 meters; previously the Sears Tower.
• World's longest elevator - 504 meters.
• Most floors - 160 (211 including the non-residential spires); previously the World Trade Center - 101.
• World's highest observation deck - 555 meters.
• World's highest restaurant - 442 meters.
• World's highest nightclub.
• World's highest mosque (158 floors).
The Dubai government spent 1.5 billion US dollars to build the Burj Khalifa Tower. Currently, the price per square foot of land has reached 4,000 dollars! However, in such a huge and ambitious expensive project, the Dubai government has shown the height of stinginess with the workers. The 7,500 workers who worked for 6 years to build this skyscraper received only 2.84 dollars per day! Moreover, there is no accounting for how many more workers were injured in accidents while working. However, the Dubai government did not treat these workers with even the minimum humane treatment. The housing and food facilities of the workers were of very poor quality. On the other hand, a large part of these workers had come from South Asia and the Middle East. The poor people of these regions had left their black and white lives behind and migrated to Dubai to dream of a colorful future. However, their dreams had no value to the Dubai government. That is why in 2006, about 2,500 workers rebelled against their employers, although the results were zero.
In any case, the Sears Tower, later known as the Burj Khalifa, took construction engineering to a new level. Even if it's not for the park, fountain, or lobby, you have to go to the Burj Khalifa Tower in Downtown Dubai to see a man-made structure rising from the ground to a mountain-like height and into the realm of clouds.