A lot is said and covered about Burj Khalifa – the world tallest building! The building is so famous that it is featured in two of the greatest Hollywood film Franchise – Mission Impossible and Fast & Furious.
So, today in this article, we will look at the skyscraper from a different angle. So, let’s begin –
Why was the Burj Khalifa constructed?
Khalifa means king in Arabic and the UAE government at the time wanted to give its citizen a reason to smile. What better gift than to construct the single tallest building in the world. The building was also a sign that the city was moving away from the oil economy and become a tourism hub. This delighted the citizens even more.
Ever since its inauguration, the tower has stood strong and haven’t encountered a blemish. This is extraordinary considering thousands of machines and people are involved in a single day activity in the building.
Now, let’s look at the things you didn’t know about the Burj Khalifa –
- It is cooler at the top: When we climb a mountain, the temperature drops as we go up. Similarly, temperature also drops as we higher in the building. On average, there is a 15-degree difference between the bottom and top of the building.
- Build like a musical instrument: Skyscrapers are built to bend with the air. Similarly, Burj Khalifa was designed to bend with the wind. The tower was tuned like a musical instrument; however, the wind won’t match with the building. This makes it impossible to hear a note.
- The number of workers: A lot of time and effort was put in the construction of the tower. It is estimated that more than 22 million working hours were invested in the whole construction over a period of six years. During its peak construction days, the tower had more than 12,000 workers on site.
- Multiple record holder: All of us know that Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world, but the tower also holds other world records. Such as the tallest occupied floor, elevators with the longest trails, most number of floors in a building, tallest service floor, etc.
- Incredible weight: To build such a humongous building, you need a lot of core strength. The official record shows that the amount of concrete used in the building is equivalent to 100,000 elephants. And the amount of aluminium used is equivalent to that of five A380 aircraft.
- The Tower was renamed: Before the launch of the building, the tower was named as Burj Dubai. But in the opening ceremony, they decided to rename in honour Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Emir of Abu Dhabi, due to his contribution to the city of Dubai.
- Tackling with heat: Dubai is undoubtedly one of the hottest places on earth. To tackle this superheat, more than 300 Chinese experts worked on the isolation system to keep the Khalifa cool. Moreover, there are 24,348 cladding panels protecting the tower.
- Massive cleaning job: The question is, how can you clean such a massive building. You run 12 machines, each weighing about 13 tons and each everything that comes in its path. One machine takes 36 workers to operate.
- Power and Energy required to run the tower: A typical household requires 80 to 100 gallons of water each day. While the Burj Khalifa requires 250,000 gallons of water each day. Also, the electricity consumed in the tower’s daily activities is equivalent to the energy consumed by 360,000 bulbs together.
- Inspired by a flower: Incidentally, the design of the tower was inspired by a flower – Hymenocallis. The flower takes its name from the Greek meaning, “beautiful cone”. This is because the flower has long petals which extend from its central core. Similarly, the tower has wings which centred around the core just like the flower petals.
You might be even more impressed by the Burj Khalifa now. But the beauty of the tower in seeing it in person. The taunting shadow which you can spot from a mile and the picturesque view from the top of the desert and the swimming pool below is sure to dazzle anyone who sees it.
Burj Khalifa is a man-made marvel which everyone should visit once in their life.
