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Burj Khalifa

Burj Khalifa

Gist

The Burj Khalifa, located in Dubai, is the world's tallest structure and building, reaching a height of 828 meters (2,717 feet). It features a unique Y-shaped design inspired by Islamic architecture and desert flowers, and is constructed with reinforced concrete and glass. The building houses residences, offices, and the "At the Top" observation deck, offering panoramic views of Dubai.

The tallest building in Dubai is the Burj Khalifa, which rises 828 metres (2,717 ft) and contains 163 floors. The tower has stood as both the tallest building in the world and the tallest human-made structure of any kind in the world since its completion in January 2010.

Summary

Burj Khalifa is a mixed-use skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that is the world’s tallest building, according to all three of the main criteria by which such buildings are judged (see Researcher’s Note: Heights of Buildings). Burj Khalifa (“Khalifa Tower”), known during construction as Burj Dubai, was officially named to honor the leader of the neighbouring emirate of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa ibn Zayed Al Nahyan. Although the tower was formally opened on January 4, 2010, the entirety of the interior was not complete at that time. Built to house a variety of commercial, residential, and hospitality ventures, the tower—whose intended height remained a closely guarded secret throughout its construction—reached completion at 163 floors and a height of 2,717 feet (828 meters). It was designed by the Chicago-based architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Adrian Smith served as architect, and William F. Baker served as structural engineer for this building.

The building, modular in plan, is laid out on a three-lobed footprint that is an abstract rendering of the local Hymenocallis flower. The Y-shaped plan plays a central role in the reduction of wind forces on the tower. A hexagonal central core is buttressed by a series of wings, each with its own concrete core and perimeter columns. As the tower increases in height, the wings step back in a spiral configuration, changing the building’s shape at each tier and so reducing the effect of the wind on the building. The central core emerges at the tower’s top and is finished with a spire, which reaches more than 700 feet (200 meters). The spire was constructed inside the tower and hoisted to its final position using a hydraulic pump. At the foundational level, the tower is supported by a reinforced concrete mat nearly 13 feet (4 meters) thick, itself supported by concrete piles 5 feet (1.5 meters) in diameter. A three-story podium anchors the tower in place; the podium and two-story basement alone measure some 2,000,000 square feet (186,000 square meters) in their own right. The tower’s exterior cladding is made up of aluminum and stainless-steel panels, vertical stainless-steel tubular fins, and more than 28,000 hand-cut glass panels. A public observation deck, called “At the Top,” is located on the 124th floor.

Upon its inauguration in January 2010, Burj Khalifa easily surpassed the Taipei 101 (Taipei Financial Center) building in Taipei, Taiwan, which measured 1,667 feet (508 meters), as the world’s tallest building. At the same time, Burj Khalifa broke numerous other records, including the world’s tallest freestanding structure, the world’s highest occupied floor, and the world’s highest outdoor observation deck.

Details

The Burj Khalifa (known as the Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration) is a megatall skyscraper located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it is the world's tallest structure, with a total height of 829.8 m (2,722 ft, or just over half a mile) and a roof height (excluding the antenna, but including a 242.6 m spire) of 828 m (2,717 ft). It also has held the record of the tallest building in the world since its topping out in 2009, surpassing the Taipei 101, which had held the record since 2004.

Construction of the Burj Khalifa began in 2004, with the exterior completed five years later in 2009. The primary structure is reinforced concrete and some of the structural steel for the building originated from the Palace of the Republic in East Berlin, the seat of the former East German parliament. The building was opened in 2010 as part of a new development called Downtown Dubai. It was designed to be the centerpiece of large-scale, mixed-use development.

The building is named after the former president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The United Arab Emirates government provided Dubai with financial support as the developer, Emaar Properties, experienced financial problems during the Great Recession. Then-president of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed, organized federal financial support. For his support, Mohammad bin Rashid, Ruler of Dubai, changed the name from "Burj Dubai" to "Burj Khalifa" during inauguration.

The design is derived from the Islamic architecture of the region, such as in the Great Mosque of Samarra. The Y-shaped tripartite floor geometry is designed to optimise residential and hotel space. A buttressed central core and wings are used to support the height of the building. The Burj Khalifa's central core houses all vertical transportation except egress stairs within each of the wings. The structure also features a cladding system which is designed to withstand Dubai's hot summer temperatures. It contains a total of 57 elevators and 8 escalators.

Development

Construction began on 12 January 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed in 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010 and is part of the 2 sq km (490 acres) Downtown Dubai development 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 & Merrill of Chicago, with Adrian Smith as chief architect, and Bill Baker as a chief structural engineer. The firm had designed the Sears Tower in Chicago, a previous record holder for the world's tallest building.

Hyder Consulting was supervising engineer and NORR Group Consultants supervised the architecture. The primary contractor was Samsung C&T of South Korea, together with the Belgian group BESIX and the local company Arabtec.

Numerous complaints concerned migrant workers from South Asia, the primary building labour force, who were paid low wages and sometimes had their passports confiscated.

Additional Information

Soaring 828 meters above Dubai, the Burj Khalifa—the world's tallest building—is a feat of design and engineering that has redefined the limits for skyscraper construction.

Design inspired by the desert

The design for the Burj Khalifa combines local cultural influences with cutting-edge technology to achieve high performance in an extreme desert climate. As the centerpiece of a mixed-use development, the 162-story tower contains offices, retail space, residential units, and an Armani Hotel. The Y-shaped floor plan maximizes views of the Arabian Gulf. At ground level, the skyscraper is surrounded by green space, water features, and pedestrian-friendly boulevards.

The design for the tower is inspired by the geometries of a regional desert flower and the patterning systems embodied in Islamic architecture. Built of reinforced concrete and clad in glass, the tower is composed of sculpted volumes arranged around a central buttressed core. As it rises from a flat base, setbacks occur in an upward spiraling pattern, which reduces the building’s mass as it reaches skyward. At the pinnacle, the central core emerges and is sculpted to form a spire.

Engineered to reach new heights

SOM’s architects and engineers developed innovative strategies to meet the unique challenges of building a tower of unprecedented height. The simple Y-shaped plan reduces wind forces and also enhances constructability. Each wing, with its own high-performance concrete core and perimeter columns, buttresses the others via a six-sided central core, or hexagonal hub. The result is a tower that is extremely stiff torsionally. The rigorous geometry of the design aligns all of the common central core and column elements.

The setbacks are organized in conjunction with the tower’s grid: the stepping is achieved by aligning columns above with walls below to provide a smooth load path. This enabled construction to proceed without the typical delays associated with column transfers. At each setback, the building’s width changes. The advantage of the tower’s stepping and shaping is, in essence, to “confuse the wind.” Wind vortices can never coalesce because the wind encounters a different building shape at each tier.

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