Some facts about the world’s tallest building

Burj Khalifa is a special building and one with many superlatives apart from being the tallest in the world. Burj Khalifa is not only the tallest building in the world but also the tallest standing man-made object.

Formerly Burj Dubai, it was renamed Burj Khalifa to honour the president of the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Burj Khalifa was opened officially on the 4th of January, 2010 and has gone to wrestle popularity from most of the awesome buildings that graced the skyline of Dubai. Burj means tower in Arabic. Its construction started in September, 2004.

Burj Khalifa under construction. Pic: Gizmodo

Here are some facts for you about the marvelous building:

At an architectural height of 828m (2,717ft) and the highest occupied floor of 585m (1,918ft), the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world.

It has the highest number of floors of any building with 163 floors and a floor below the ground. There are 58 elevators in the building and they move at an incredible top speed of 10m/s.

The total cost of construction of the Burj Khalifa is $1.5bn. The Burj Khalifa is owned by Emaar Properties. The design architect and structural engineer was American firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. The main contractors for the project were South Korea’s Samsung Engineering and Construction Company, Belgium’s Besix and UAE’s Arabtec.

It has 900 apartments and 304 hotel rooms, parking space that can contain 3,000 vehicles. The total land area of the skyscraper is 309,473m² (3,331,140ft²). The Burj Khalifa can accommodate up to 35,000 people at a time.

The Burj Khalifa is so tall that you can witness two sunsets. After witnessing a sunset at the base and going to the top of the building through the fast elevators, you can witness another sunset at the top.

Apart from being the tallest building in the world, it’s also the tallest free-standing structure in the world, a position it snatched from the 555m high Canada’s CN Tower. It is also the tallest man-made structure after it surpassed USA’s KVLY-TV Mast which has a height of 629m.

If the vanity height (unoccupied height) of the Burj Khalifa which is 244m is placed on the ground in Europe, it will be the 11th tallest building in Europe.

Burj Khalifa. Pic: Burj Khalifa

The highest mosque in the world is located at the 158th floor of the Burj Khalifa. The foundations of the Burj Khalifa were dug up to 50m, the height of your typical 16-storey building. This makes its foundation 8m taller than the first ever skyscraper built in Chicago.

Likewise, it has the highest night club in the world at the 144th floor. The Burj Khalifa can withstand the biggest storm in Dubai in 100 years.

It took more than 110,000 tons of concrete, 55,000 tons of steel rebar, and 22 million man-hours to complete the Burj Khalifa. An empty Burj Khalifa weighs about 500,000 tons.

The Burj Khalifa gets a daily average supply of 250,000 gallons (946,000 litres) of water. Its electricity consumption can be as high as that of 360,000 100-watt bulbs burning at once which translate to 36MW of electricity.

The top spire can be seen from a distance of 95km to the building. The total weight of aluminium used is equivalent to that of five Airbus A380 aircrafts (the largest passenger airplane).

Indeed Burj Khalifa is a global icon and it will not be an exaggeration to call it a vertical residential city.

References: Wikipedia, Daily Beast

Posted in Specials, Structures