Posted on 12/11/2004 9:07:25 PM PST by wagglebee
The construction of what will be the world's tallest building is set to begin in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The building contract was awarded to a consortium led by the South Korean Samsung Corporation on Thursday.
The Burj Dubai tower will stand 800 metres tall - just 5 metres shy of half a mile - once completed in 2008. That will be a full 350 metres taller that the tallest floored in the world today, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
The new tower’s unique, three-sided design will ascend in a series of stages, around a supportive central core and boast a total of 160 floors, accessible via a series of double-decker elevators. Its shape will be integral to its impressive size. The design is intended to reduce the impact of wind and to reduce the need for a stronger core - allowing for more space - as it ascends.
"It's almost like a series of buildings stuck together," says Mohsen Zikri, a director at UK engineering consultants Arup. "As you go up you need less and less lifts and less core."
Military precision
A key challenge will be the logistics involved in construction, Zikri told New Scientist. "You need things to be delivered with military precision or you will have chaos on the ground."
A spokeswoman for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the Chicago-based architects firm behind the design in the US, says the shape should prevent wind vortices building up around the tower and causing it to move in the wind. "Wind is the primary thing at this height," she told New Scientist. "The engineers have focused on shaping the building to minimise this effect."
As wind whirls around a tall building it can build into powerful vortices that in turn generate powerful winds on the ground. But the wide base of the Burj Dubai should also prevent wind from causing these disturbances.
Besides beating the Petronas Towers, which stands at 452 metres tall, Burj Dubai will also be considerably taller than the CN tower in Toronto, Canada which at 553 metres is the tallest structure in the world without a multiple floor structure.
Foundation work was recently completed by Turner Construction International, based in New York, US. Above ground construction will now begin under the control of the Samsung Corporation. The contract was awarded by Emaar Properties in Dubai, after an 11-month bidding process.
The tower will be used for offices, residential apartments, hotels and shops and will be surrounded at its base by a man-made lake.
right. I was wondering if because of the height involved a deeper anchor would be required. Perhaps it's just the mass of the building.
Which building is for women only?
I know I read somewhere that taking a dump off the 160th floor will build up enough speed and energy to slice right through someone on the ground. That's one mean turd...
Plumbing is recommended.
I believe that will be the top floors of the new building.
This new building in Dubai will be 2,624 feet tall.
Do you know how tall the new "freedom" tower or whatever it is called is supposed to be in NYC??
Ok engineers. How much water pressure does it take to get water to the top floor?
Can you clarify? I must be missing something. What does your post have to do with the tower?
Yep, looks alot better then the peice of crap they are replacing the WTC with.
That was my thought as well.
Looks like a hypodermic needle.......
"I'm fairly certain the UAE is Islamic in name only"
I can't say for the whole UAE - but spent some time in Abu Dhabi as a guest of the then Rulers nephew - in name only is right and they were concerned with radicals "extorting" money from them then - mid '70's
What's that contrail off to the left, incoming SCUD ?
I thought the Bin Laden family had secured this job. There was mucho press about this. When did Samsung replace them? I assume the lobby will have kick-ass plasma displays.
Given the building height of 800 meters the top floor is about 10 feet below that. So, it's at roughly 2615 feet. If someone were stupid enough to try and use a single pump at the bottom of the building to pump water to the top floor it would take roughly .43 X 2615 = 1124 psi.
"The Sears Tower was designed by the architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the same firm that designed the John Hancock Center."
I like their buildings.
I don't care for the WTC replacement architecture. Lame, big-time, IMHO.
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