Burj Dubai
February 3rd, 2008
Construction
The tower's architect is Adrian Smith who worked with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) until 2006. SOM is the architecture and engineering firm in charge of the project. The primary builder is Samsung Engineering & Construction, along with Besix and Arabtec. Third party peer review has been performed by CBM Engineers.
The total budget for the Burj Dubai project is about $4.1 billion US and for the entire new 'Downtown Dubai', $20 billion US.
As of 27 December 2007, Burj Dubai has reached a height of 598.5 m (1,964 ft), with 158 completed floors.
The projected final height of Burj Dubai is officially being kept a secret due to competition from other buildings under construction or proposed; however, figures released by a contractor on the project have suggested a height of around 818 m (2,684 ft). Based on this height, the total number of habitable floors is expected to be around 160. However, when pressed for a more precise figure, the project manager merely repeated that he was able only to guarantee that the final height would be higher than 700 m (2,297 ft), and it would be the world's tallest free-standing structure when completed.
Burj Dubai has been designed to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development that will include 30,000 homes, nine hotels such as the Burj Dubai Lake Hotel & Serviced Apartments, 0.03 km? (0.01 sq mi) of parkland, at least 19 residential towers, the Dubai Mall, and the 0.12 km? (0.05 sq mi) man-made Burj Dubai Lake. Burj Dubai will cost US$ 800 million to build and the entire 2 km? (0.77 sq mi) development will cost around US$ 20 billion.
The silvery glass-sheathed concrete building will give the title of Earth's tallest free-standing structure to the Middle East — a title not held by the region since 1311 AD when Lincoln Cathedral in England surpassed the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which had held the title for almost four millennia.
The decision to build Burj Dubai is reportedly based on the government's decision to diversify from a trade-based economy to one that is service- and tourism-oriented. According to officials, it is necessary for projects like Burj Dubai 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.
Burj Dubai is made from reinforced concrete. As construction of the tower progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to vertically pump the thousands of cubic metres of concrete that are required. The previous record for pumping concrete on any project was set during the extension of the Riva del Garda Hydroelectric Power Plant in Italy in 1994, when concrete was pumped to a height of 532 m (1,745 ft). Burj Dubai now holds this record as of August 19, 2007, as it has a height of 536.1 m (1,759 ft), to hold the record for concrete pumping on any project; and as of October 2, 2007 concrete was pumped to a delivery height of 588 m (1,929 ft).
Special mixes of concrete are made to withstand the extreme pressures of the massive weight of the tower; each batch of concrete is tested and checked to see whether it can withstand certain pressures. The head of Concrete Quality Checking on the Burj Dubai project is Alam Feroze, who is in charge of concrete on the whole project. The concrete pumps, pipelines and booms are provided by Putzmeister AG, of Aichtal, Germany.
As the consistency of the concrete on the project is essential, it was difficult to create a concrete that could withstand the thousands of tonnes bearing down on it, but also to withstand Gulf temperatures that can reach +50 °C (122 °F). To combat this problem, the concrete is not poured during the day. Instead, ice is added to the mixture and it is poured at night when it is cooler and the humidity is higher. A cooler concrete mixture cures evenly throughout and therefore is less likely to set too quickly and crack. Any significant cracks could put the whole project in jeopardy.
