I have been in Dubai for the past 10 days consulting. It is so tough being away from the family. I miss my kids immensely.
I typically put in long hours in the office, but Fridays are my day off. The first thing I did today was go up the Burj Khalifa and faced my fear of heights. It wasn't bad, but I did find a deeper appreciation for all those blue suit workers I used to see working on the Burj when we lived in Dubai. A lot of them were harnessed on the side of the building in the open air (and only paid roughly $4USD a day, I might add). Truthfully, that is my description of hell.
1. It is the tallest building in the world (free standing and man-made).
2. Burj means building in Arabic.
3. The exact height was kept a secret until it was finally built.
4. It has 162 floors.
5. It has the highest elevator installation and the highest mosque.
6. It has the fastest elevator speed 64km/hour.
7. The top spire can be seen 94 km away.
8. Construction began September 2004, and the grand opening was on January 4th, 2010.
Sheik Zayed Road
9. The concrete that was used was enough to lay a 2,065 km-long pavement; and equivalent to the weight of 100,000 elephants.
10. Total cost to build was $1.5 billion.
11. It is about twice the height of the Empire State Building.
12. The outdoor temperature at the top is 10 degrees cooler than the bottom.
13. The price for office space is around $4000. a square foot.
14. It uses approx 954, 000 litres of water per day.
15. Only hours before the opening ceremony, Sheik Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, was told to rename the 'Burj Dubai' to 'Burj Khalifa' by Sheik Khalifa of oil-rich Abu Dhabi because Khalifa had bailed the Dubai Emirate out of financial distress.
Somehow this makes me want to ride a bike or buy a Smart car.
3 comments:
Wow! Interesting facts - Brett is going to love me even more when I randomly insert some of those tidbits into our deep discussions about architecture.
It amazes me that people would want to work up that high. I can see going up to go and take a look to say you've done it and been there but that's as far as my brain goes. I can understand the challenge of it from an architectural view point and the business man or company who wants to feel more established in such a powerful building but as far as common sense goes I don't know why the time and money and effort put into setting up shop on the 109th floor, or the 88th floor. There are so many reasons why not to live so high in the sky while still attached to the ground.
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