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© Stéphane Compoint
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Virtual photo of the Burj Dubaï Tower", which will become the world’s highest skyscraper. Made up of 192 piers buried 50 meters below ground, the foundation work began in January 2005. The aerial part, which began in May 2005, grows by one floor every week and will be finished in 2008. Although authorities are keeping the final official height secret, specialists believe that the skyscraper will be at least 705 meters high, counting at least 160 floors making it 197 meters and 59 floors better than the current highest skyscraper in the world, the Taipei Tower 101 in Taiwan (508 meters and 101 floors). The “Burj Dubaï Tower” will be 500 000 square meters and will house the biggest mall in the world, offices, hotels and luxury apartments. In the designing process, architects drew their inspiration from the area’s cultural influences. Indeed, the base of the tower is designed to resemble a local desert flower and its petals. The geometry of this design also allows to better distribute the weight of the building on the structure and ground. Funding for the construction, whose cost has reached nearly one billion dollars, has been provided by a consortium led by South Korean group Samsung Electronics. The construction is part of a massive urban planning project whose budget is of 20 billion dollars. The tower will be surrounded by parks, artificial lakes, and other more modest skyscrapers.
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