The recently opened Burj Dubai represents a modern engineering triumph.

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It’s hard to fathom a supertall structure that can top some of the architectural and structural engineering masterpieces created by the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), but the firm has done so – quite literally – with the Burj Khalifa in downtown Dubai, United Arab Emirates. When the 2,217-foot skyscraper celebrated its grand opening in early January, it represented not only the pinnacle of more than seven years of planning and development, but also the opening of the world’s tallest building.

Although the sheer height is something to marvel, even more impressive is the collaborative planning process and innovative measures SOM developed to engineer Burj Khalifa. Lead Architect and Managing Partner George Efstathiou says the project resulted from total integration among its architectural, engineering and interior design divisions. “SOM make a collaborative effort – there is not one person that has designed any one building,” he notes.

Owner Emaar Properties approached SOM in March 2003 to submit architectural and structural engineering plans for the mixed-use tower, which, at the time, was known as the Burj Dubai. “We presented them with the existing work we had done and our concentration on the integrated approach,” Efstathiou says.

Two weeks later, Efstathiou and his team received the brief for the competition, and almost immediately began clarifying areas of efficiency in the building. Emaar invited Efstathiou to Dubai to further discuss the project. “We shook hands on the fee at the top of the Jumeirah Emirates Towers at a place fittingly called The View,” Efstathiou says. Preliminary plans for the Burj called for the tower to be considerably shorter at 550 meters, but SOM was excited and determined to build it taller. “We tested several heights in a wind tunnel, but settled at 828 meters,” he notes.

A team of more than 90 design and engineering professionals worked together to create Burj Khalifa. Emaar Properties initially came to SOM looking for architectural and structural expertise, but were convinced to utilize SOM’s mechanical engineering and interior design services, as well. Using an integrated approach, SOM was able to consider the mechanical, electrical and plumbing, and interior design elements in the design phase.

“The effort was as big as the building itself,” Efstathiou recalls. “It was a very intricate process when we went to work on the building. When we focused on the elements of the tower, it was a divide-and-conquer concept. Since the tower is really the sum of various parts, the key was to look at how the various parts would interface.”

The 160-story tower consists of 900 luxury condominiums, 37 office floors and a 160-room five-star Armani Hotel with 144 private residences, a four-story fitness and recreation annex, 3,000-space underground parking structure, restaurant and 27-acre park.

Structure is key in a building of this magnitude. “When you look at the overall architecture, it was essentially designed by a structural engineer in a wind tunnel,” Efstathiou says.

SOM started out with a Y-shaped plan, which is inherently stable, and also allowed for separate lobby entrances for the residential, office and hotel. SOM structural partner William Baker devised a new structural system for the Burj called a buttressed core, which allowed for an efficient and economic build-out. The core runs straight up the center of the tower, and houses the elevators with a series of intersecting walls. The tower was built with high-performance, reinforced concrete, supported by a reinforced concrete mat on deep bored piles. The tower is topped off with a steel spire. Additionally, SOM used high-performance exterior cladding, which allows it to withstand the temperature extremes in the region.

Key mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems such as the elevators, mechanical rooms and chilled watercooling systems were integrated into the structural design. The building has seven double-story mechanical floors.

The design of the Burj Khalifa is derived from patterning systems embodied in Islamic architecture. It combines historical and cultural influences with cutting-edge technology to achieve a high-performance building. The tower consists of three wing elements arranged around a central core. As the tower rises, setbacks occur at the end bay of each wing in an upward-spiraling pattern, decreasing the mass of the tower as it reaches higher.

“Typically, in any work that we do, we look for references of the locations and integrate it into the building,” Efstathiou says. “We looked at the geometry of the Y-shaped plan, which have pointed tips that recall the Islamic architecture. We used the basic architecture to develop repeating patterns on the site work. Inside the building lobby and in the upper stories of the building we used Arabic calligraphy to inspire the carpet and stone patterns. It has a nice mix of being a modern building built for today and the future, but a recollection of where it is located.”

Burj Khalifa was constructed by South Korea’s Samsung Corporation, and Turner Construction International served as the project and construction manager. SOM used the desert climate to its advantage. For example, during the hot and humid summer months, SOM designed a condensate cooling system to collect the condensation from the cooling pipes, using the reclaimed water for landscaping irrigation on site. The system will be able to capture the condensate and deliver it to a storage tank in the basement parking via separate piping. SOM estimates the system will recapture about 15 million gallons of supplemental water per year.

SOM’s interior design group on the project, led by Nada Andric, programmed some 500 artworks for the building, which included locally inspired pieces as well as artwork catering to a global audience. “At the end of the day we designed all of the space – nearly 2.4 million square feet – in the building except the Armani Hotel,” Efstathiou says.

“We learned that we are capable of doing a lot more than we once had,” he says. “It’s not so much of an architectural and engineering issue that’s the challenge – it’s getting organized to tackle the big issues of the project. We are accustomed to working on large-scale, mixed-use buildings, but this one pushed us to another zone and we were quick to adapt to that.”