Reaching for the sky in Dubai

How would you like to live in a building almost a kilometre high? In Dubai, you can, provided you can afford it.
Burj Dubai, set to be the world's tallest tower, can provide such an apartment. While it's eventual height is being withheld, its builders claim it will cross the Taipei 101 (currently the tallest) in July.
This colossal construction marvel is expected to cross 700 metres with over 160 floors on completion.Already 134 floors have been built and at a speed of one floor in three days, the building should be done by middle of 2008. The building is going to hold a luxury Armani Hotel and the entire tower's estimated population on completion will be 35,000 people.
The Burj Dubai (burj means tower in Arabic) is part of Downtown Burj Dubai, real estate giant Emaar Properties' flagship project and will be a mixed-use 500-acre community combining commercial, residential, hotel, entertainment, shopping and leisure outlets in open green spaces dotted with lakes and other water features. "It will be a city within a city," says Shravan Gupta, executive vice chairman and MD, Emaar. "It will have a soul, a character, a feel that no other city has."
Burj Dubai derives its design inspiration from the desert flower, Hymenocalis, and incorporates patterning systems that are embodied in Islamic architecture. The tower has three petals arranged around a central core. As the tower rises from the flat base, the petals set back in an upward-spiralling pattern.
At first glance, the building looks almost like a series of buildings stuck together but a closer look reveals the enormous scale on which the project is reaching for the sky, literally (see graphic). The new tower's unique, three-sided design will ascend in a series of stages, around a supportive central core and its 160 floors will be accessible via a series of double-decker elevators. The elevators, believe it or not, will move at speeds of almost 10 metres per second, its architects claim.
Apart from the luxury Armani Hotel, the Burj will also hold residences and commercial spaces. There will also be recreational facilities and entertainment venues including four luxurious pools and a cigar club, a library, residents' lounge, serviced residences, 15,000 sq ft of fitness facilities and an observatory. With a total area of 5 million square feet, it surely has the space for all this.
Burj Dubai, after Taipei 101 and the Petronas twin towers, is a perfect example of the global race for 'living in the sky'. With real estate prices also heading skywards, where does India stand in this race? "It's our belief that Delhi can take the tallest building in the world," says Emaar's Gupta.
The writer was in Dubai at the invitation of EmaarMGF