Burj Dubai

Burj Dubai scales 150 storeys to become world’s tallest free-standing structure

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The Burj Dubai this week surpassed the height of the world’s tallest free-standing structure, the CN Tower in Toronto.

At 555.3m the Burj Dubai has now also scaled 150 livable levels, the largest number of storeys for any building in the world. The tower already holds the distinction of being taller than Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which at 508 metres has held the tallest-building-in-the-world title since it opened in 2004.

Burj Dubai now surpasses the 31-year-old record of CN Tower, which at 553.33m has been the world’s tallest free-standing structure on land since 1976.

When completed, Dubai’s landmark tower will be the tallest structure in the world in all four of the criteria listed by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). The council measures height to the structural top, the highest occupied floor, to the top of the roof, and to the tip of the spire, pinnacle, antenna, mast or flag pole.

CTBUH, the acknowledged source of information based at the Illinois Institute of Technology, measures the height of a building from the pavement level of the main entrance to the structural top. This includes spires but not television antennas, radio antennas or flag poles. Burj Dubai is billed to scale past the KVLY/KTHI television mast in Blanchard, North Dakota, which at 628.8m is the world’s tallest mast and technically qualifies to be the world’s tallest structure, even though it is stabilized with a series of guy-wires.

More than 320,800 cubic metres of reinforced concrete and 63,300t of reinforcing steel have been used in the tower’s construction so far.

Burj Dubai became the tallest free-standing structure in the world in just 1,325 days since excavation work started in January 2004. More than 5,000 consultants and skilled construction workers are employed on site, and the world’s fastest high-capacity construction hoists, with a speed of up to 120 metres/min, move men and materials.

Structural steel work for Burj Dubai will begin soon, and cladding work using a high-performance system has been completed on several levels. The primary cladding materials of reflective glazing, aluminium and textured stainless steel spandrel panels and vertical stainless tubular fins accentuate the tower’s height and slenderness to the eye.

Developer is Emaar Properties, with a construction team including South Korean contractor Samsung Corporation, New York-based Project Manager Turner International, consultant Hyder Consulting and architects Adrian Smith and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM).