The Burj Dubai will be the world's tallest tower and the centerpiece of the Gulf region's most prestigious urban development to date. This architectural phenomena will be a global tourist magnet that skyrockets Dubai into the global limelight.

Artists drawing of Burj Tower Dubai

Every city has its architectural jewels, whether they come from the ancient times or are creation of modern times. As a rule, each city has its elite area to live and work. Dubai has outnumbered many major world cities so far by the scale and quantity of extraordinary buildings which make its residents spoilt for choice of accommodation.

One of those many preferences is Burj Dubai, situated in the city's new Downtown development. Why then so much interest? Have a look why. No doubt, it will stun you as well. Burj Dubai is translated from Arabic as “Dubai Tower” and surely will stand for its name.

It will be the tallest man-made structure in Dubai, in the whole world in fact, when it will be completed in 2009.
Predicted height of Burj Dubai has been suggested to be around 818 metres (2.684 ft) judging by the figures, released by the contractor.

There are rumours of the final height being at 916 m (3,005 ft), even over 940 m (3,084 ft). The thing is, the approved final height is being kept a secret due to the competition from other buildings under construction or proposed. Based on the height of 818 meters, the total number of the habitable floors is estimated to be around 162.

Although by the words of Greg Sang, the construction manager, the final height would be greater than 700metres. Even so, it is still beating all the world records for being the tallest free-standing structure.
The designs of the tower keep changing with the building process.

At one point, the design architect, Adrian Smith, came to the conclusion that the upper-most section of the tower didn’t agree as gracefully as it should with the rest of the structure, so he filed and obtained approval to increase it to the currently projected height. This change didn’t include addition of extra floors, which was in correspondence with Smith’s efforts to make the crown more elegant.
Burj Dubai is being constructed by Samsung Engineering & Construction, which also built the famous Petronas Twin Towers and the Tipei 101. The design is by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, who also created Sears Towers in Chicago and the Freedom Tower in New York City.

The building bears a resemblance to the Sears Tower, but is not a tube structure. In all fairness the roots for the design of Burj Dubai come from the patterning arrangements embodied in Islamic architecture: triple-lobed footprint of the building is the abstract version of the native desert flower “hymenocallis” common to the region.

The tower consists of three elements organized around the central core. At the rise of the tower other elements appear growing in an upward spiraling pattern, reducing the cross section of the tower as it shoots towards the sky. If one views it from above or from the base, one would note the subtle presence of the onion-shaped domes of Islamic architecture.

The exterior cladding is of reflecting glazing, aluminium and textured stainless steal spandrel panels.
The design has been tailored to meet the weather conditions of course. Engineers had to rotate the building (in the designing process) 120 degrees from its original layout to reduce “wind stress”; the cladding system is designed to stand Dubai’s extreme summer temperatures, etc.

The interior of Burj Dubai will be decorated by Giorgio Armani and an Armani Hotel (the first in the world of its kind) will be located on the first 37 floors. 700 private apartments will occupy the floors from 45 to 108 and which have been sold within 8 hours of them going on sale due to developer’s words.

The 78th floor is given to an outdoor zero-entry swimming pool. Corporate offices and suites will mostly take the rest of the remaining floors, except for 123rd floor (for lobby), 124th floor (indoor/outdoor observation desk). The spire itself (which comes up to over 200 meters) will accommodate communications equipment.

It will boast of having the worlds’ fastest elevator (18m/s) and there will be 56 of them installed, capable of carrying 42 people each at a time.

Burj Dubai is being created to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development that will comprise of 30,000 homes, 9 hotels (such as the Burj Dubai Lake Hotel & Serviced Apartments), at least 19 residential towers, the Dubai Mall, parkland, and the man-made Burj Dubai Lake.

In total, the budget scheduled for erecting this “miracle” of the world, is estimated at about $4.1 billion USD, when the entire new “Downtown Dubai” will take $20 billion.

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