Burj Khalifa

Popularly referred to as the Living Wonder, the Burj Khalifa holds the official record for being the world’s tallest building in the world. Located in downtown Dubai, this structure also described as a ‘Vertical City’ by many, has 160+ stories and took about six years to be completed. Having a total built up area of 5.67 million square feet, this amazing building includes residential spaces, office spaces as well as a luxury hotel. The architecture and engineering aspect was handled by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM).

The Spectacular Building Design
The team borrowed heavily from traditional Islamic architecture to come up with the spectacular design used in this harmonious structure. The tower’s design is also inspired from the Hymenocallis, a lovely desert flower. Rather than choosing the traditional repetitive patterns, the architects chose to incorporate successively receding and rotated stories. The unique design allows spectacular outward views and excellent ventilation as well as natural lighting within. One interesting fact about the design is that the building design only incorporates vertical projecting elements in order to avoid dust build-up on the surfaces.

Other Amazing Trivia
There are a total of 8 escalators and 57 elevators running across the length and breadth of the building. The structure requires 10 000 tons of cooling and its peak electrical requirement is 50 MVA that amounts to around 500, 000 of 100 watts light bulbs being used simultaneously.