Tallest building - Burj Khalifa (former Burj
Dubai) sets world record
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- At 2716.53 feet
(828 m) high and clad in 26,000 glass panels, Burj
Khalifa (Dubai) has 160 floors and more than 500,000
sq m of space for offices and apartments-setting the new world
record for the Tallest
building.
The world's Tallest
building it's about twice the height of the Empire
State Building, you can see its spire from 95km away and the
exterior is covered in about 26,000 glass panels, which glisten
in the midday desert sun.
Photo: AFP (enlarge
photo)
"You have the solutions for it but you always
wonder how it will really work," Mohamed Ali Alabbar,
chairman of Emaar, the developer behind Burj
Dubai told the BBC. The world's Tallest
building will also lay claim to the highest occupied
floor, the tallest service lift, and the world's highest observation
deck - on the 124th floor. The world's highest mosque and
swimming pool will meanwhile be located on the 158th and 76th
floors.
Its spire can been seen from 95km (60 miles)
away.
"We weren't sure how high we could go,"
said Bill Baker of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the building's
structural engineer. "It was kind of an exploration... a learning
experience."
The Tallest
building itself cost about $1.5 billion and has been
under construction since September 2004. Officials said they
have sold about 90 percent of the building's 1,000 condominiums.
The design incorporates ideas from traditional
Islamic architecture, while the open petals of a desert flower
were the inspiration for the tower's base. Burj
Dubai will be home to 1,044 luxury apartments, 49
floors of offices and eventually a 160-room Armani-branded
hotel. Around 12,000 people are expected to live and work
in the tower, which is part of a 500-acre development. (enlarge
photo)
"You have to ask, 'why we are building
all this?' To bring quality of life and a smile to people
and I think we should continue to do that," said Mohamed
Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, the Arab world's largest
listed developer. "Crises come and go," Alabbar told reporters.
"We build for years to come ... We must have hope and optimism."
Burj
Dubai in numbers:
95: distance in km at which its spire
can be seen
504: rise in metres of its main service
lift
57: number of lifts
49: number of office floors
1,044: number of residential apartments
900: length in feet of the fountain at
the foot of the tower, the world's tallest performing fountain
28,261: number of glass panels on
the exterior of the tower Though not complete on the inside,
the world's Tallest
building was officially opened by Dubai's ruler, Sheikh
Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, at 2000 (1600 GMT) on Monday,
1,325 days after excavation work started.
The previous Guinness world record for the tallest
building was set by Taiwan's 508m Taipei 101.
