Construction of world's tallest tower to begin

[gc]

Construction of world's tallest tower to begin 18:24 10 December 04
NewScientist.com news service
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996781

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 nearly 300 metres taller than the tallest floored building in the world today, the Taipei Tower in Taiwan. 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 Taipei Tower, which stands at 508 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.

Will Knight

[gc]

http://www.burjdubai.com/

[tamtagon]

gasp

[freewaytincan]

So they're really going to build it. I must admit that I'm rather surprised.

[rantanamo]

I'm still skeptical as to all whether there is enough business for Dubai to build all of these towers at once. I could understand some, but to build hundreds overnight, I dunno. Talk about serious vacancies. Can't blame them though. If I had billions to spare you might see that boom in Dallas.

[RobertB]

Talk about elitist. This is from the website referenced by GC:

Monument. Jewel. Icon
The Burj Dubai will be known by many names.
But only a priveleged group of people will call it home.
I know that's the sort of marketing you have to do to attract the $>10e6 crowd. But this building is being built on a foundation of oil wealth that will evaporate in less than a hundred years. When that happens, the Burj Dubai will be known by many names indeed... most of which won't be suitable to repeat in public.

[rantanamo]

From what I understand, Dubai and the UAE are more built on trade than Oil. Sort of a Miami or New York in the sense that its a cross-roads. The question is, cross-roads for what? The pics I've seen on other boards are amazing, but from what I've seen on different television shows it still shocks me that all the towers are going up. Its like a Shanghai in the Middle East going up, but without the billion people behind it.

[sterling]

Talk about elitist. This is from the website referenced by GC:

Monument. Jewel. Icon
The Burj Dubai will be known by many names.
But only a priveleged group of people will call it home.
I know that's the sort of marketing you have to do to attract the $>10e6 crowd. But this building is being built on a foundation of oil wealth that will evaporate in less than a hundred years. When that happens, the Burj Dubai will be known by many names indeed... most of which won't be suitable to repeat in public.

Kinda sounds like the history of Dallas. But somehow, I think Dubai gets along better with it's neighbors. It's nice to know that a hundred years from now, there will still be a "reinvention of place" that will give The Richards Group some more work.

[drumguy8800]

I've said this before.. but I'm gonna say it again. The UAE has a 0% tax rate. Who pays their taxes? Who is paying for these buildings and this country's unbelievable luxury? Why, you, silly!! ;).

[F4shionablecHa0s]

....They're actually building that thing? Wow.

I picture many, many deserted floors.

[freewaytincan]

I see a major terrorist target.

[RobertB]

I see a major terrorist target.
Not really... I'd wager few Americans even know where the tallest tower in the world is outside the US, so bringing it down wouldn't have near the effect, from a PR perspective. Remember that terrorism is all about PR, in the same way a bratty kid throws a temper tantrum to get attention.

Myself, I was able to remember Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but I had no idea that Taipei, Taiwan is working on a 101-story pagoda (http://www.skyscraper.org/TALLEST_TOWERS/tallest.htm) that will top Malaysia's twin towers.

[texman]

Not really... I'd wager few Americans even know where the tallest tower in the world is outside the US


Yes, its sad really, some still think the Empire State Building is.

[I45Tex]

Talk about elitist. This is from the website referenced by GC:

Monument. Jewel. Icon
The Burj Dubai will be known by many names.
But only a priveleged group of people will call it home.
I know that's the sort of marketing you have to do to attract the $>10e6 crowd. But this building is being built on a foundation of oil wealth that will evaporate in less than a hundred years. When that happens, the Burj Dubai will be known by many names indeed... most of which won't be suitable to repeat in public.

No, but that's the point exactly... to convert the oil foundation into a real estate one by the time that happens - by becoming a luxury tourism and shopping, uh, mecca, for Europeans

[rantanamo]

Have any of you seen the palm shaped islands? They are planning serious skyscraper development on them. They have some seriously incredible projects, but most are pretty skeptical as to what this will all house. They seem to have more highrise projects than all the major highrise cities combined with plans to probably have 10,000 or so high rises. How is this possible? Its not like they are dreaming. They are really building this stuff. When I saw the sat photo of the palm islands I almost fell out of my chair in disbelief.

[carousel]

Probably not the most appropriate place to post this article, but I thought is would be of interest.

World's tallest tower rising in Dubai
Oct 30 10:46 AM US/Eastern

Slated to become the world's tallest skyscraper and symbol of a city given to grandiose projects, "Burj Dubai," or Dubai Tower, is rising in parallel with the profits of its promoter, Emaar Properties.
With two stories added every week, Burj Dubai is taking shape as the centerpiece of a 20-billion-dollar venture featuring the construction of a new district, "Downtown Burj Dubai," that will house 30,000 apartments and the world's largest shopping mall.

Launched in early 2004, the construction of the tower by South Korea's Samsung should be completed at the end of 2008 and cost one billion dollars, according to Greg Sang, the Emaar official in charge of Burj Dubai.

Burj Dubai already has 79 stories, taking its height to more than 200 meters (656 feet). But even after having gone that far, Emaar is still not revealing the tower's final height.

"At the moment, we are not answering. We'll say it (will be) more than 700 meters (2,296 feet) and more than 160 stories ... The people who need to know, know," Sang, a 40-year-old New Zealander, told AFP.

The world's tallest inhabited building is "Taipei 101" in Taiwan, which is 508 meters (1,666 feet) tall.

"At the moment, we've got around 2,500 workers on the tower site alone. We expect that to peak about a year from now at over 5,000 ... And for the whole site ... at any point in time, when the whole Downtown Burj Dubai district is under construction, there will be 20,000 men working here," Sang said.

Some 2,500 of these laborers hired by one of many firms working for Emaar downed tools for two days earlier this year and demonstrated in protest at poor working conditions and delays in the payment of salaries.


The protests degenerated into riots during which equipment and cars were smashed.

According to Sang, the protesting laborers did not work on the tower site and construction was therefore not affected.

"We actually work very closely with the contractors and with the authorities to ensure conditions for the labor are adequate and good. So we were a little disappointed that they weren't completely satisfied," Sang said.

He said the average wages of the south Asian laborers, who work in summer in temperatures reaching 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit), are "probably in the range of a couple of hundred US dollars a month" for a shift of "eight to 10 hours" a day, six days a week.

"They can get overtime if they like," Sang said.

But he stressed that it is the contractor, not Emaar, "who employs the workers, and it's his responsibility to provide them with accommodation and pay the salaries on time."

Emaar, which is listed on the Dubai stock exchange and boasts of being the world's largest property company by capital, is setting great store by this flagship project.

The figures bear out its confidence. Emaar, in which the Dubai government has a 32.5 percent stake, is seeing its profits climb.

The real estate giant posted record net profits of 437 million dollars in the third quarter of this year, a 39 percent increase on the same period in 2005. It posted a 21 percent hike in profits in the first half of 2006 compared to the first six months of last year.


Business cirles attribute the steady rise in profits to the sustained sales of apartments in Downtown Burj Dubai, a trend helped by a law allowing foreigners to become freehold property owners in certain areas of the Gulf city state which went into force this year.

"Certain buildings take on iconic status, like the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building, instantly recognizable and instantly associated with the city that they are placed in," Sang said.

"I hope the same happens with the Burj Dubai. It's definitely going to be very unique," he said.

But Sang admitted that he did not expect Burj Dubai to remain the tallest building in the world forever.

For it will face competition in Dubai itself, where the city's other property development major, Nakheel, has announced it will launch the construction of "Al-Burj" or "The Tower" -- whose projected height also remains a closely guarded secret.

[txRNGr]

it (will be) more than 700 meters (2,296 feet) and more than 160 stories
Why?

[Mephis Gooseberry]

Why?

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus) :

The symbolic version of the phallus, a phallic symbol is meant to represent male generative powers. According to Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis, while males possess a penis, no one can possess the symbolic phallus. Jacques Lacan's Ecrits: A Selection includes an essay titled The Significance of the Phallus which articulates the difference between "being" and "having" the phallus. Men are positioned as men insofar as they are seen to have the phallus. Women, not having the phallus, are seen to "be" the phallus, within a heterosexual framework. The symbolic phallus is the concept of being the ultimate man, and having this is compared to having the divine gift of God.

In "Gender Trouble", Judith Butler explores Freud's and Lacan's discussions of the symbolic phallus by pointing out the connection between the phallus and the penis. She writes, "The law requires conformity to its own notion of 'nature'. It gains its legitimacy through the binary and asymmetrical naturalization of bodies in which the phallus, though clearly not identical to the penis, deploys the penis as its naturalized instrument and sign" (135). In Bodies that Matter, she further explores the possibilities for the phallus in her discussion of The Lesbian Phallus. If, as she notes, Freud enumerates a set of analogies and substitutions that rhetorically affirm the fundamental transferability of the phallus from the penis elsewhere, then any number of other things might come to stand in for the phallus (62).

[kenc]

Am I the only person who thinks this building will be empty for 10 years?

[Tnekster]

^no

[frankchitown]

I've been following this on SSP for years...heres the link, its updated with u/c pics almost daily....http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=61955

[Mephis Gooseberry]

I've been following this on SSP for years...heres the link, its updated with u/c pics almost daily....http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=61955

The last post there suggests 2651 feet tall.

[txRNGr]

Its an impressive building but one has to wonder if this is economical at all. I dont think the costs of fueling this monstrosity would ever be outweighed by the profits from the tenants. I guess its just a really different world over there.

[Boredkid]

Am I the only person who thinks this building will be empty for 10 years?

Correction... found the article... the condos sold out in 8 hours... All 700 of them...

[slfunk]

Its an impressive building but one has to wonder if this is economical at all. I dont think the costs of fueling this monstrosity would ever be outweighed by the profits from the tenants. I guess its just a really different world over there.

Their labor is cheap, cheap, cheap and right now they have more money then they know what to do with. Currently a lot of the buildings going up can not be built fast enough. It still boggles my mind, but our hospitality sector is working on some projects in Dubai. Its my understanding that even though they have built numerous hotels, it is still a challenge finding a room. I have also heard a rumor they are trying to build a city that will attract tourism this region.

[freewaytincan]

I've been following this on SSP for years...heres the link, its updated with u/c pics almost daily....http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=61955

That's where I first heard about a few years back.

[rantanamo]

It's mindboggling how quickly people are flocking there if all that construction is not enough. Took the world decades, even centuries to do what they are doing in 10 years.

[psukhu]

Am I the only person who thinks this building will be empty for 10 years?

The Empire State Building faced similar criticism when it was under construction.

[Tnekster]

^Didn't the Empire State building sit largely empty for years after it was built?

[frankchitown]

^Didn't the Empire State building sit largely empty for years after it was built?

Yes, it was only 23% occupied when it opened, but that was also in the middle of the Great Depression.

[freewaytincan]

Yes, it was only 23% occupied when it opened, but that was also in the middle of the Great Depression.

The Empty State Building.

[kenc]

The Empty State Building.
...

[RobertB]

I watched a show on the National Geographic Channel about those insane islands also being built in Dubai. It brought up a good point on the question of "why?". It's simple, really -- as I noted earlier, the oil will run out sometime in the next 50-100 years. Dubai has three choices:

* Ignore the problem and hope it will go away, kinda like we're doing regarding oil in the US.

* Enjoy the good times now, but prepare to return to a nomadic way of life. Got Camel?

* Find some other way to keep the money flowing in, using the (temporary!) oil money.

The Sultan of Swing, er, Dubai decided to go with the third option. He knows his emirate will never be the breadbasket of the world. In fact, once the oil is gone, its only natural resource is sand, and maybe camels. So he's decided to take those billions and build a playground -- a playground where rich people will spend money from *other* parts of the world that still have something to offer.

The whole thing still seems crazy, but it may be crazy like a fox, after all.

[Tnekster]

^Seems wise to look forward and try to build something sustainable. The idea seems to be spreading around to other areas of the gulf as well. Bahrain is trying to build it's tourist industry and I know Kuwait City is doing remarkably well right now but for some different reasons. Education is also high on Dubai's list too. Seems he understands the value of a highly educated population.

[Boredkid]

I have a bunch of photos of the model of this development.

[dfwcre8tive]

Dubai tower now world's tallest free-standing structure
Thu Sep 13, 8:23 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070913/wl_mideast_afp/uaedubaiconstructiontower;_ylt=Apr1.rX9c7rtQ6Tp6go O4_us0NUE

DUBAI (AFP) - The world's tallest building, still under construction in the booming Gulf emirate of Dubai, has become the world's tallest free-standing structure, its developers said on Thursday.

The Burj Dubai tower is now 555 metres (1,831.5 feet) tall and has surpassed the 553-metre- (1,824.9-feet) CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, which held the record for the world's tallest free-standing structure since 1976, developers Emaar Properties said in a statement.

The skyscraper, being built by South Korea's Samsung and set for completion at the end of next year, is one of several mega projects taking shape in Dubai, which is part of the United Arab Emirates.

The statement did not reveal the tower's final projected height or its final number of storeys, which Emaar has kept secret since launching the project in January 2004.

The developer announced in July that Burj Dubai, Arabic for Dubai Tower, had exceeded Taiwan's Taipei 101 which is 508 metres (1,676.4 feet) tall, to become the tallest building in the world.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070914/capt.91c078d5e40c422b80b937424369ed65.emirates_tal lest_tower_xkj107.jpg?x=380&y=311&sig=AezF84YfZLnUDgpixeWbkg--

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070914/capt.be2be21a6f2d4f1284e630e4dd3ade97.dubaitallest _structure_ny190.jpg?x=380&y=273&sig=HBpooBYIm3jTw_zWjXD7Lg--

[gc]

Holy Canoli!

[downtownguy25]

"The $20 billion, 500-acre project is being billed as the most prestigious square kilometre on earth"

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/500345-burj-dubai-taller-than-cn-tower?ln=en

[hamiltonpl]

"The $20 billion, 500-acre project is being billed as the most prestigious square kilometre on earth"

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/500345-burj-dubai-taller-than-cn-tower?ln=en

I don't think any place that treats women like chattel and limits any freedom of expression as "prestigious."

Ostentatious, yet still backwards. Sure. I'll give 'em that.

[RobertB]

I don't think any place that treats women like chattel and limits any freedom of expression as "prestigious."

Ostentatious, yet still backwards. Sure. I'll give 'em that.
Grouping Dubai with the rest of its Arab neighbors is like grouping the US with Cuba -- after all, we're both in North America, right?


from: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/dubai.html
Dubai also stands in contrast to the Saudi kingdom in another Arab-world indicator, the role of women. Where Saudi women are still waiting for the right to drive, Dubai women play a pivotal role in society. "My success means success for other women here," says Sheikha Lubna al Qasimi, the CEO of Tejari, an Internet business-to-business procurement firm, noting that women form 65 percent of Internet City's workforce.
Not to say that the joint's perfect -- I believe they do share their neighbors' proclivity to hire cheap, exploitable labor from impoverished countries. Good thing that doesn't happen here. :rolleyes:

[downtownguy25]

Some random facts,

• The tip of the spire can be seen 95km away with the naked eye.

• An estimated 330,000m² of cement, 39,000t of steel rebar and 142,000m² of glass will be used in the construction of the Burj Dubai.

• 22 million man-hours will go into building the world's tallest landmark.

• The foundation slab is 80,000ft² in size, while the piling is 50m deep.

• The Burj Dubai's observatory lifts (double deck cabs) will have the world's longest travel distance from the lowest to the highest stop.

• The Burj Dubai will set the record for the world's highest lift installation.

• A condensate collection system will collect condensed water from the hot and humid air and will use it for irrigation requirements across the tower gardens. This will provide around 15 million gallons of additional water a year, equivalent to 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

• The curtain wall of the Burj Dubai will be equivalent to 17 soccer fields or 25 American football fields.

• The concrete used for the Burj Dubai is equivalent to a 1900km long pavement.

• The Burj Dubai has a computerised central service system from Germany to analyse the building's stability to withstand natural elements.

• Reflective glass on all the building's floors will provide protection from sunlight at the same time as making the building's interiors cooler.

• It will also feature the world's fastest elevator, rising and descending at 18m per second or 65 kmph. The world's current fastest elevator is in the Taipei 101 office tower in Taiwan. It travels at 16.83m per second or 60.6kmph

[msutton]

I have several students from dubai studying here in Paris with me. If anything, they're closer to Americans in their mindset than the students from around Europe. The girls have no problem taking the lead, buying guys drinks, or working on degrees in communications, political science, etc.