Burj Dubai

Linked from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Dubai
---

Architecture and Design

The tower is being constructed by Samsung Engineering & Construction and designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, who also designed the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Freedom Tower in New York City, among numerous other famous high-rises. The building resembles the bundled tube form of the Sears Tower, but is not a tube structure. The design of the Burj Dubai is reminiscent of the Frank Lloyd Wright vision for The Illinois, a mile high skyscraper designed for Chicago, Illinois. The Burj Dubai is expected to rise to 150% of the height of the Sears Tower.


The design of Burj Dubai is ostensibly derived from the patterning systems embodied in Islamic architecture, with the triple-lobed footprint of the building based on an abstracted version of the desert flower hymenocallis native to the region. The tower is composed of three elements arranged around a central core. As the tower rises from the flat desert base, setbacks occur at each element in an upward spiralling pattern, decreasing the cross section of the tower as it reaches toward the sky. At the top, the central core emerges and is sculpted to form a finishing spire. A Y-shaped floor plan maximizes views of the Persian Gulf. Viewed from above or from the base, the form also evokes the onion domes of Islamic architecture.

The exterior cladding of the Burj Dubai will consist of reflective glazing with aluminum and textured stainless steel spandrel panels with vertical tubular fins of stainless steel. The cladding system is designed to withstand Dubai's extreme summer temperatures.

The interior will be decorated by Giorgio Armani. An Armani Hotel (the first of its kind) will occupy the lower 37 floors. Floors 45 through 108 will have 700 private apartments on 64 floors (which, according to the developer, sold out within eight hours of going on sale). Corporate offices and suites will fill most of the remaining floors, except for a 123rd floor lobby and 124th floor indoor/outdoor observation deck. The spire will also hold communications equipment. An outdoor zero-entry swimming pool will be located on the 78th floor of the tower.

It will also feature the world's fastest elevator, rising and descending at 18 m/s (40 mph). The world's current fastest elevator (in the Taipei 101 office tower in Taipei) travels at 16.83 m/s (37.6 mph). Engineers had considered installing the world's first triple-decker elevators, but the final design calls for double-decker elevators. A total of 56 elevators will be installed that can carry 42 people at a time.

Engineers rotated the building 120 degrees from its original layout to reduce stress from prevailing winds. Over 45,000 cubic metres (59,000 cubic yards) of concrete, weighing more than 110,000 tonnes (120,000 short tons) were used to construct the concrete and steel foundation, which features 192 piles buried more than 50 m (164 ft) deep.