Posted on 01/04/2010 11:26:51 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Burj Dubai: The new pinnacle of vanity
For all the ambition of its construction, Dubai's new Khalifa Tower is a frightening, purposeless monument to the subprime era, says Stephen Bayley.
By Stephen Bayley
05 Jan 2010
/snip
There are three seismic fault zones in the UAE area, although Dubai itself is thought to be at low risk because of its particular soil structure. Yet if I were enjoying the view from, say, the 140th floor, I would not be able to help musing with a frisson of alarm that the geologically unstable Iran was not too far away. Indeed, minor tremors are often felt in Dubai.
The engineers say this is no threat, since the Burj's structure is inherently stable: its tapering profile and cautious weight distribution mean the heights may be psychologically demanding for the timorous but are, at least in theory, secure.
The summit, they say, where the residential floors are only eight metres across, is as secure as a knitting needle set in concrete. Indeed, Burj Khalifa dispenses with a pendulum-like mass-damper, which some supertalls use to moderate incidental movements.
Yet three years ago there were reports that concrete floor slabs had already cracked after suffering significant deflections. New Civil Engineer reported that carbon-fibre was urgently being used in remedial attempts to strengthen the floors. An expert told the same journal "things have to be pretty bad" before you start repairing a half-built building.
The contractors admit that Burj has already settled by several inches. True, all buildings settle and flex, otherwise they would crumble or snap, but – call me feeble – I'd be alarmed to watch standing waves in the lavatory bowl in a howling desert storm as my bundled tube creaked and shimmied its way into the shifting sands and Hades beyond.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
This is what happens after the Camels nose gets in the tent.. he develops an erection..
Paris has one too.. Must be why the muslims love it in France..
your oil dollars at work
I’m guessing it’ll never be occupied. It’ll probably be used for target practice by someone, sooner or later. You can guess who.
My browser (Safari) gave me a malware warning when viewing that site.
How soon before some lunatic drives an aeroplane into it?
Yipes! Even the picture makes me nervous -- and I've never been afraid of heights.
That webpage causes my computer to slow down to an absolute crawl. I had to invoke Task Manager to shut every app running on my desktop. It happened twice.
Could be my fault. I’ve got a Pentium Core 2 Duo, 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM. Broadband internet.
I think it’s a cool building. The only thing that truly aggravates me about it, is that we didn’t build something even more impressive at ground zero by now.
Canada has more oil reserves than the UAE. Saudi, Kuwait, China, and Iran do not have a major investment in this building, so I don’t see how your (or our American dollars) financed hardly any of this.
I stood outside the Burj last week... however it was financed, it still is quite a marvel.
A little bit of flexing won't hurt anything, after all the engineers calculated EVERYTHING...
So, here's the picture
After extensive amateur photogrammetry on Google Maps of Dubai, I have determined, to a high degree of certanty, that the white object at the right margin of the image that looks like a gigantic building shaped like a toilet plunger is actually a lamp or exhaust pipe attached to a part of the building, and is only a few feet from the camera.
Oh. I see. It’s a “burj cam.”
It’s either a camera or a light, mounted on the crane.
(and yes, it looked odd to me at first, like it was a vacuum attachment sucking up other buildings to reuse for this one.)
LIVE WEBCAM
You are correct. The picture is from CAM 2 and I believe the other object is CAM 1
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