Burj Khalifa: Building the World's Tallest Skyscraper

Humans have always strived to build extraordinary projects thousands of years ago it used to be incredible structures like the pyramids and in the 21st century it became supertall skyscrapers for a long time the tallest building in the world was the empire state building but many taller buildings came after that and since 2010 the world's tallest building has been standing in the United Arab emirates  in Dubai how they built the tallest building in

The entire history of civilization the Burj Khalifa did you know that the Burj Khalifa attracts over 1.8 million tourists every year and that over 12 000 people worked on the construction site every single day with a height of 828 meters the gigantic Burj Khalifa breaks so many world records that it's hard to keep track tallest freestanding structure highest observation deck and tallest service elevator are just a few of them it also has the highest residential apartment on the planet the project started with an idea developed by sheikh mohammed bin rashid al maktoum which is a really long name so i hope you're still with us ruler of dubai he wanted to make the city one of the top tourist destinations in the world the idea was to make something so extraordinary as to go beyond anything

Ever made by humans before construction on this truly extraordinary project started in 2004. six years and one and a half billion dollars later the skyscraper opened to the public in 2010. after the concern about its debts dubai once again has something to celebrate tonight was a finale for a building that began six years ago the construction cost of

the burj khalifa is actually pretty low when compared to other tall buildings in the world to give you an idea new york city's one world trade center cost 3.9 billion dollars but no matter the budget

You can imagine building the tallest skyscraper in the world was no easy task even just planning it required extremely complex thinking and challenged the architects one of the biggest challenges was the wind when building a skyscraper that is as tall as a mountain wind quickly becomes a serious problem to understand wind behavior and the stress it could have on the building the engineers conducted over 40 wind tunnel tests

in the end they decided on a y-shaped base with three main elements surrounding a strong central core in simple terms you could say that this design confuses the wind because the structure has an irregular shape as a result the wind cannot create strong vortices that could seriously damage the tower overall this design approach is very efficient as it offers a simple construction but also massively reduces wind forces nevertheless the burj khalifa still sways about to three meters at the very top the base of the skyscraper is supported by a 3.7 meter thick concrete mat which is reinforced with long piles that go up to 43 meters deep

into the ground another huge obstacle was the heat because of the extreme temperatures in dubai the construction workers had to add ice into the concrete and pour it at night and for the building to sustain 50 degrees celsius weather they designed an exterior cladding made of reflective glazing with aluminum and stainless steel panels this required specialists to hand cut around 26 000 glass panels

all things considered they ended up doing a pretty good job thanks to the work of architecture firms skidmore owings and merrell which combined local cultural influences with top-notch technology for the overall design the architects took inspiration from the geometries of the spider lily a regional desert flower at ground level the tower is surrounded by 11 hectares of land with green spaces and the largest choreographed fountain in the world construction on this gigantic fountain alone cost over 218 million dollars it is illuminated by over 6 600 lights

and can shoot water up to 150 meters into the air to give you some perspective this is almost twice the height of the statue of liberty the engineers also tried to reduce material usage and waste as much as possible which is why they included what they call a sky-sourced ventilation system which draws in cool air through the top of the building in addition to that they have the largest condensate recovery systems in the world the building collects and drains condensed water into a holding tank in its basement this water is then pumped into the site

irrigation system to be used on the burj

khalifa park

the burj khalifa is so tall that a

significant number of its floors are

purely used for the base structure of

the spire

so in total about 22 percent of the

floors are not habitable

out of a total of technically 209 floors

the height of the building is three

times that of the eiffel tower

and almost twice the empire state

building it's so

enormous that it can take up to three

months for cleaning crews to clean every

single window

and if you want more numbers the weight

of the concrete is the equivalent of 100

000 elephants and that's just the

concrete

the total weight of the aluminum is

greater than the weight of five

a380 aircrafts the construction of the

burj khalifa required so much work that

at the peak of construction there were

over 12 000 workers and contractors on

site

every single day this led to one of the

most

impressive structures ever built by

mankind there are 57 elevators total and

the main elevator

goes as high as 504 meters

one of the records the burj does not

hold is for the world's fastest elevator

but it does hold the record for the

world's third fastest elevator

so it's just a small failure the fastest

one

is in the shanghai tower and the second

one is in the ctf finance center in

guangzhou

although the building spire is one of

its most defining features it's actually

somewhat controversial

spires such as this one have been called

vanity spires because they're not

inhabited and they're simply used to

make a building as tall as possible

but it does have a practical use as it

houses the building's communication

equipment

now you might be wondering what the burj

khalifa is for other than showing off

well the main purpose of the tower was

to make it a major tourist attraction

this was definitely a huge success as it

attracts over 1.8 million tourists

every year but the gigantic tower has

many uses

it's full of retail space offices a

giorgio armani hotel

and of course a ton of residential units

among those

are 900 luxury residences going from

studios to a giant 5 bedroom penthouse

and residents get access to a great

number of facilities

such as a gym a library and meeting

spaces

in addition to that they also have a

cigar club a gourmet market

jacuzzis and indoor and outdoor pools

it also contains the world's highest

building-based observation deck at

almost

half the height of the tower and because

they're really into beating world

records

it has the highest restaurant on the

planet which stands at 441 meters high

on floor 122. of course it offers

outstanding panoramic views they also

make sure to use the building for as

many

cool purposes as possible which is why

it offers one of the world's most

impressive fireworks shows in the world

on new year's eve

but despite its luxury living in the

burj khalifa is not as out of reach as

you may think

with studio apartments starting at a

little under two thousand dollars a

month

when it comes to buying a one bedroom

apartment will cost you a bit over one

million dollars

after the completion of the burj khalifa

many people believed that it won't take

much time

until there will be an even taller

skyscraper many countries like saudi

arabia have attempted to build a higher

skyscraper like the jetta tower

so far however the future of these

projects is uncertain

the burj khalifa could go down in

history as the world's tallest

skyscraper

humanity has ever built

what's your opinion of the burj khalifa

the world's tallest skyscraper

is it worth all the tourist attention or

are you better flying off to Paris to

see the louvre