Burj khalifa Skyscraper

Burj Khalifa Skyscraper became the tallest building in the world when it was officially opened on 4th January 2010. The official height was given as 828 metres 2717 feet.

In a surprise move the tower was renamed Burj Khalifa in a nod to the leader of nearby Abu Dhabi who came to the aid of Dubai by providing funds to put towards debt repayments.

At 2,716 feet, it is a full 1,046 feet higher than the world's previous highest occupied building, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan, and 654 feet higher than the tallest man-made structure, the KVLY-TV tower in North Dakota, America, a broadcasting mast.

It took over the tallest structure mantle from the Petronas Towers during construction and took the mantle from Taipei 101 as the tallest building in the world.

It was designed to contain more than 1,000 apartments, an Armani-branded hotel, and offices up to the 160th floor.

The top 40 floors - grow ever smaller towards the top - these will be occupied by the tower's service centres.

The final number of floors was estimated during contruction to be 195 but it ended up with 162. In case you were wondering "Burj" is Arabic for "Tower".

The building was designed by Skimore, Owings, & Merrill it was estimated to cost cost a massive $800,000,000.00, but the developer of the newly opened tower said it cost about 1.5 billion dollars to build the tapering metal-and-glass spire billed as a "vertical city" of luxury apartments and offices.

It boasts four swimming pools, a private library and a hotel designed by Giorgio Armani.and replaces a plan to reuse the design for Grollo Tower, which was proposed in Melbourne a few years earlier.

The site of the tower was on a man-made lake which is designed to wrap around the tower and to provide dramatic views of it.

Engineers working on the design considered installing triple-decker elevators, which would have been the first in the world. The actual building will use double-decker elevators instead.

The tower will be a mixture of residential and business with a propsed observation deck and private club also included within the plans of the building.

 

The tower is more than twice the height of the iconic Empire State Building in New York.

 

Architect - Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP

Developer - EMAAR Properties

Contractor - Samsung Constructions / BESIX / Arabtec

Construction - Steel Re-enforced Concrete / Steel Spire

Rendering - UV Solar Glass / Aluminium / Stainless Steel

Volume - 517,240 sq/m est

Floors - 181 - 216 est

Height - 808m - 1011m est