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 super tall 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. In this video, we are going to explore 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? Before we continue, make sure to like this video and subscribe to TopLuxury. Let us know in the comments below if you have already visited the Burj Khalifa. 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. 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 2-3 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°C 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 Merrill, 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. 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% 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 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's 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 firework 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 $2,000 a month. When it comes to buying, a one-bedroom apartment will cost you a bit over $1 million. 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 Jeddah 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? Let us know what you think in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video, make sure to hit the like button and subscribe to Top Luxury. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you in the next video.