CONSTRUCTION & TECHNOLOGY

In recent years, the Middle East has proved to be one of the most attractive construction and engineering markets in the world for international contractors. This is demonstrated in microcosm in the United Arab Emirates. In Dubai, for example, Japanese contractors have been heavily involved in constructing the Dubai Metro and the joint venture involved in the construction of the recently opened Burj Khalifa (previously known as the Burj Dubai) was led by South Korea's Samsung.

The Burj Khalifa was practically made to inspire a fear of heights. At 2,717 ft and 160 stories, the building formerly known as the Burj Dubai is the tallest building in Dubai, in Asia, and on the planet—it is literally the tallest freestanding thing ever made. And on February 8, 2010, 15 of its visitors found themselves stuck in the highest elevator in the world for 45 minutes. On the 129th floor.

With Google releasing new 3D imagery almost every week, urban sightseeing in Google Earth is getting better and better. Last month we mentioned the opening of the Burj Khalifa, so we thought it was probably time to look at more of the world's tallest buildings. Burj Khalifa, formerly known as Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and the tallest man-made structure ever built, at 828 m.

Speirs and Major Associates, a Scots design company based in Edinburgh, is brightening the world one building at a time. Its most recent project was to create a dramatic lighting “ceremony” for the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world’s tallest building. A complex sequence of stroboscopes and lasers pierced the sky like a scene from a sci-fi film. But what brings some of the world’s biggest property companies to knock on the door of a small company with only 30 employees?

A high quality ternary blend concrete along with other durability enhancing measures were deployed in the substructure of Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower, to ensure its 100-year life span, said a top official of the project. Substructures in Dubai and in the Gulf region in general, are exposed to a shallow water table with high levels of salinity, which threatens the embedded steel reinforcement with corrosion.

At least one Oregon exporter defied gravity in 2009, getting its products a half mile in the sky above Dubai during a year when the state's foreign sales sank. Workers at Warm Springs Composite Products mixed a patented brew of earth, fiberglass and recycled newspaper to make fire-resistant-rated door parts for the Burj Khalifa, which opened recently as the world's tallest building.

We all know that the biggest, and most expensive of just about everything has been used on the Burj Khalifa, but did you realise that the project also broke new ground in machinery terms? We look at some of the tower's PMV landmarks.

Standing 828 meters (2,717 feet) tall and boasting more than 160 stories, Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest structure: a single tower that will eventually house 12,000 people. The significance of designing and building the tallest building on Earth, costing over AED5.5 billion (US$1.5 billion), has become a matter of national pride making the protection of this national asset a priority to the government of the UAE, investors, and the tourism industry.

The three towers perched at this easternmost end of the New Silk Road form the new HQ of Samsung, the conglomerate that drives more than one eighth of South Korea’s economy and whose flagship electronics division is poised to leapfrog Hewlett-Packard as the world’s biggest technology company. Thousands of miles west along the New Silk Road, soaring from the dunes of Dubai, is the world’s tallest building: the 828-metre-high Burj Khalifa, also brought to you by Samsung.

On a global scale, the United Kingdom simply doesn’t compete with having any significantly tall buildings. In fact, the UK’s tallest building is not even a third as high as the world’s tallest man made structure (Burj Khalifa – Dubai). However, The City of London is planning to expand vertically into the skyline with a collection of brand new buildings with some very interesting architecture.