Starship Asterisk*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Dubai wrote:
<<Burj Dubai (Arabic: برج دبي‎ "Dubai Tower") is a supertall skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest man-made structure ever built, at 824.55 m. Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009 and the building officially opened on 4 January 2010.


The tower is designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which also designed the Willis Tower in Chicago and 1 World Trade Center in New York City. The building resembles the bundled tube form of the Willis Tower, but is not a tube structure. Its design is reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright's vision for The Illinois, a mile high skyscraper designed for Chicago.

The design of Burj Dubai is derived from patterning systems embodied in Islamic architecture. The design architect Adrian Smith has said the triple-lobed footprint of the building was inspired by the flower Hymenocallis. The tower is composed of three elements arranged around a central core. As the tower rises from the flat desert base, setbacks occur at each element in an upward spiralling pattern, decreasing the cross section of the tower as it reaches toward the sky. There are 27 terraces; at the top, the central core emerges and is sculpted to form a finishing spire.


A Y-shaped floor plan maximizes views of the Persian Gulf. Viewed from above or from the base, the form also evokes the onion domes of Islamic architecture. During the design process, engineers rotated the building 120 degrees from its original layout to reduce stress from prevailing winds. At its tallest point, the tower sways a total of 1.5 m.

The exterior cladding of Burj Dubai consists of 142,000 m2 (1,528,000 sq ft) of reflective glazing, and aluminium and textured stainless steel spandrel panels with vertical tubular fins. The cladding system is designed to withstand Dubai's extreme summer temperatures. Additionally, at its projected height the exterior temperature at the top of the building will be 6 °C (11 °F) cooler than at its base.

The hotel interior will be decorated by Giorgio Armani. An Armani Hotel will occupy 15 of the lower 39 floors. Floors through to 108 will have 900 private residential apartments. An outdoor zero-entry swimming pool will be located on the 76th floor of the tower. Corporate offices and suites will fill most of the remaining floors, except for a 123rd floor lobby and 124th floor (about 440 m (1,444 ft)) indoor/outdoor observation deck. Burj Dubai is expected to hold up to 25,000 people at any one time. A total of 57 elevators and 8 escalators are installed, the fastest rising and descending at up to 10 m/s.>>

geckzilla wrote:Yeah, it's hard not to think of the Tower of Babel when looking at Burj Dubai.
I don't know what this has to do with Astronomy, though. I mean, it's tall, but it's not that tall.
Care to enlighten me?

Finnegans Wake page 4.36 wrote: .
Haroun Childeric Eggeberth
he would caligulate by multiplicables
the alltitude and malltitude until he seesaw
by neatlight of the liquor wheretwin 'twas born,
his roundhead staple of other days to rise in undress
maisonry upstanded (joygrantit!), a waalworth of a
SKYERSCRAP of most eyeful hoyth entowerly,
erigenating from next to nothing and celescalating the himals and all,
hierarchitectitiptitoploftical, with a burning bush abob off its baubletop
and with larrons o'toolers clittering up and tombles a'buckets clottering down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper wrote:
<<The word "SKYSCRAPER" originally was a nautical term referring to a small triangular sail set above the skysail on a sailing ship.



The term was first applied to buildings in the late 19th century as a result of public amazement at the tall buildings being built in Chicago and New York City. The traditional definition of a skyscraper began with the "first skyscraper", Chicago's now demolished ten-storey steel-framed Home Insurance Building (1885). The word skyscraper often carries a connotation of pride and achievement. The skyscraper, in name and social function, is a modern expression of the age-old symbol of the world center or axis mundi: a pillar that connects earth to heaven and the four compass directions to one another.>>

bystander wrote:Shouldn't that be Burj Khalifa, formerly known as Burj Dubai?

http://tinyurl.com/yhzblmx wrote:
cyrano DU BURJerac

<<The world's tallest bulding has been renamed after its chief financier, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The 2,717 foot tall building towers over Dubai and is a centerpiece of the region's vision to be the crossroads of the world.
Originally Burj Dubai, it was renamed Burj Khalifa at its January 4, 2010, opening.>>

BMAONE23 wrote:All they need to do now is to build 14 buildings, in the shape of roman neumerals, around it in an arc (every place that the tip of the shadow touches on the hour) and they will also have the worlds largest sundial clock

bystander wrote:Shouldn't that be Burj Khalifa, formerly known as Burj Dubai?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jan/04/burj-dubai-khalifa-worlds-tallest-building wrote:
Dubai unveils world's tallest building with a nod to huge bailout by rival Abu Dhabi


The inauguration of the tallest building on Earth was supposed to be a show of defiance by Dubai's rulers after a property crash which threatened to shatter the Gulf emirate's reputation as a global economic power. But tonight's spectacular ceremony, which revealed the Burj Dubai's 828m height for the first time, became a moment of supplication when the decision was revealed to name it Burj Khalifa, after the ruler of rival but much richer emirate Abu Dhabi who came to the rescue when Dubai's finances descended into crisis last autumn. As fireworks exploded up and down the 169 storeys, the move triggered speculation that the transfer of the naming rights may have been the price paid when Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates, approved direct and indirect bail outs totalling $25bn last year as Dubai's debt problems deepened and property values slumped. The concession is likely to deflate Dubai's triumphalism in dwarfing the previous tallest building in the world, the 508m tower 101 in Taipei, and the 629m KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota, the tallest manmade structure of any kind. The state-owned developer's pride was such that the 124th-floor public viewing platform is inscribed with the legend: "I am the heart of the city and its people, the marker that defines Emaar's ambition and Dubai's shining dream." One observer said naming the structure after the leader of Dubai's main rival for supremacy in the UAE would be like naming a new landmark in Glasgow after London. An Abu Dhabi state-controlled newspaper said it was "a name to reflect greatness".

Tonight after dusk a crowd of thousands of emiratis, Europeans and migrant workers from Asia jostled to witness the inauguration ceremony led by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum and attended by Sheikh Khalifa, who has in recent months sought to underscore the close relationship between the emirates. In an apparent nod to the city state's financial predicament, the festivities were subdued by Dubai standards, but still dazzling. The world's biggest water fountain burst into life as a digital presentation listed the £925m building's achievements, which include the highest occupied floor in the world – at 160 storeys – and the highest swimming pool 260m in the air on floor 76.

There is talk of plans for a mosque on close to the zenith at floor 158, which would become the world's highest place of worship, though the world's highest bar will be a few floors down. The building is so tall you can see the sunset twice from it – once at the base and again after a 60-second lift ride to the viewing platform.

The developer said it is confident in the safety of the tower. It has air-conditioned, pressurised and fire-resistant refuge floors at 25 store intervals and its reinforced concrete structure making it stronger than steel-frame skyscrapers. "It's a lot more robust," said Greg Sang, Emaar's director of projects. "A plane won't be able to slice through the Burj like it did through the steel columns of the World Trade Center."

Ken Shuttleworth, a lead architect on the Swiss Re, London's skyscraper known as the Gherkin, applauded the building's aesthetic but said building very tall slender is the least economical method of constructing a tall building. "Do you really need to build high in a desert?" he said. "You only build high when there is so much pressure on land that you have now choice. It can't make any sense financially so it is being done for status, a landmark on the horizon."

The sheikhs of Abu Dhabi, the neighbouring and richer emirate, which had to bail out Dubai with $15bn, and whose ruler is honoured in the building's name, are said to be amused by the "brash style" of their neighbour, but also concerned that spending almost £1bn on a tower shows "incoherent planning" of its economic growth. By contrast, Abu Dhabi is trying to build a zero-carbon city called Masdar, which is low-rise and based on a traditional Arab walled city.

Some elements in Saudi Arabia are understood to consider the scale of the tower to be excessive. And they are particularly concerned at the piety of plans for a mosque on the 158th floor. Others have taken the tower's construction as a challenge and its developer, Emaar, is rumoured to be considering building an even taller building in Saudi Arabia.>>

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The world's tallest skyscraper has unexpectedly closed to the public a month after its lavish opening, disappointing tourists headed for the observation deck and casting doubt over plans to welcome its first permanent occupants in the coming weeks.

Electrical problems are at least partly to blame for the closure of the Burj Khalifa's viewing platform — the only part of the half-mile high tower open yet. But a lack of information from the spire's owner left it unclear whether the rest of the largely empty building — including dozens of elevators meant to whisk visitors to the tower's more than 160 floors — was affected by the shutdown.
...
The precise cause of the $1.5 billion Dubai skyscraper's temporary shutdown remained unclear.

In a brief statement responding to questions, building owner Emaar Properties blamed the closure on "unexpected high traffic," but then suggested that electrical problems were also at fault.