Burj Khalifa

The Burj Dubai had its name officially changed to Burj Khalifa during its grand opening in honor of the president of the U.A.E. H.H. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan.

Engineers working on the design considered installing triple-decker elevators, which would have been the first in the world. In fact, the realized building uses double-decker elevators.

The condensation water collected from the A/C system equals to 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools per year and in turn, used for landscaping.

Over 330,000 cubic meters of concrete and 31,400 metric tonnes of steel rebar was used at the completion of the tower.

The tower is situated on a man-made lake which is designed to wrap around the tower and to provide dramatic views of it.

The top of the building contains a public observation deck and a private club above that.

Burj Dubai features sky lobbies on levels 43, 76 and 123. These spaces offer fitness and spa facilities. The lobbies on levels 43 and 76 each have a swimming pool and a recreational room for receptions and other gatherings.

Burj Dubai is the tallest man-made structure in the world, surpassing the KVLY-TV Tower in North Dakota as well as Warszawa Radio Mast, the previous tallest structure ever built.

The triple-lobed footprint of the building is based on an abstracted desert flower native to the region.

A subtle reference to the onion domes of Islamic architecture can be found in the building's silhouette when looking up at the lobes from near the base.

Although the building's shape resembles the bundled tube concept of the Willis Tower, it is structurally very different and is technically not a tube structure.

The design by Skidmore Owings & Merrill replaces a plan to reuse the design for Grollo Tower, which was proposed in Melbourne a few years earlier.

"Burj" is Arabic for "Tower".

The highest residential floor will be level 109.

An observation deck will occupy the 124th floor.

The building was rotated 120 degrees to allow for less stress from the prevailing winds.

The building sits on a concrete and steel podium with 192 piles descending to a depth of more than 50 metres (164 feet).

A total of 45,000 cubic metres of concrete are used in the foundations with a weight in excess of 110,000 tonnes.

The exterior cladding is of reflective glazing with aluminium and textured stainless steel spandrel panels with vertical tubular fins of stainless steel.

The cladding system is designed to withstand Dubai's extreme summer temperatures.

This is the first world's tallest building since prehistoric times to include residential space.

Designed by Adrian D. Smith, FAIA, RIBA Design Partner at Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP.

Burj Dubai became the world's tallest high-rise building on July 24, 2007, and the world's tallest self-supporting structure on September 12, 2007.