Dubai to Open World's Tallest Building

Yahoo News ^ | 1/1/2010 | Yahoo News

[Dallas59]

DUBAI (AFP) – Once-bustling Dubai will open the world's tallest skyscraper on Monday, boasting new limits in design and construction, hopeful of polishing an image tarnished by the debt woes afflicting the Gulf emirate.

Emaar, the giant property firm part-owned by the government and which developed the needle-shaped concrete, steel and glass structure, has declined to reveal Burj Dubai's exact height.

Apparently wanting to maintain the suspense, the company will say only that the tower exceeds 800 metres (2,640 feet), putting it far higher than Taiwan's Taipei 101 tower (508 metres).

Bill Baker, a structural and civil engineer and partner in Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), which designed the tower, said Burj Dubai has set a new benchmark.

[Dallas59]

Interesting...

"I bought a one-bedroom apartment on the 80th floor for three million dollars in 2008. With the slide in prices, my loss will be huge, at least theoretically," one Palestinian businessman told AFP.

[digger48]

“Follow the yellow dressed guys”
“Follow the yellow dressed guys”
“Fol-low, follow, follow, follow”
“Follow the yellow dressed guys”

[fish hawk]

I just hope that one of those darn Christians don’t fly an airplane into it. ;^)

[Dr. Ursus]

Sheep and goats for the first 79 floors!

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

Good one Digger!

[john drake]

Oh the loss will be huge, realistically, not theoretically. I’m still wondering who in their right mind, other than arabs, would want to buy a unit and live there. Better yet, what businesses are going to occupy all that space?

[lack-of-trust]

I wonder what the maintenance budget looks like?

Imagine the windload stresses and the amount of sway in that building... and the sandstorms! how long will the windows last against the blowing sand.

I would love to meet the facilities team in 4 or 5 years and learn about the challenges of operating and maintaing the monumental building.

[Publius]

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

---"Ozymandias" by Shelley

[USMCPOP]

...estimated to have cost one billion dollars...

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Sheep and goats for the first 79 floors!

Ah, a whorehouse.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Maybe the sawtooth profile is intended to mitigate this.

[STONEWALLS]

...I thought Dubai was about to default on their bonds...what are they thinking?...and aren’t they the same geniuses that are going to pay Tiger Woods $23 million to do a golf course?

[Abathar]

I know they haven’t designed it locally, but they did build an incredibly beautiful building none the less.

Hopefully they didn’t open the World’s Tallest Target on the same day, Dubai is seen as kind of chummy with the West.

[frankenMonkey]

"...I’m still wondering who in their right mind, other than arabs, would want to buy a unit and live there...

A whole lot of very, very rich Americans and Europeans, among others. A couple of PGA golfers, can't recall the names. Weather is perfect.

I personally wouldn't want to be there, it's got to be a mighty tempting target for Iran.

[WVNan]

“..and they said, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven.” We know how that turned out.

[lonestar]

Arafat had no problem ripping off the people he claimed to represent. And they were too stupid to figure it out.

I never knew he had been a member of the US Congress!

[adorno]

Can a 2600 foot building be classified as a ghost town?

The SYFY channel might be doing a special there soon. It’ll be about disappearing wealth.

[Rebelbase]