Meet the World’s Tallest Building, Burj Khalifa

Burj Khalifa, originally named Burj Dubai, has officially become the tallest building as of January 4, 2010 when the world welcomed its opening.  It stands 828m tall with 160(162) floors, almost twice as tall as the Empire State Building, and is able to swing back and forth for 1.5m at its tallest point when strong wind hits.  It is no doubt an engineering marvel of the 21 century.  It consist of five different cross sections from bottom to top, with Y shape floor plan that maximum sky viewing. Professionals say that this building would maintain its status of tallest building for at least a decade.

One interesting thing about this building is the way they clean its exterior windows: they use a horizontal track cleaning system developed in Australia to clean the lower floors, and traditional cradles for upper floors (those that are above 109 floors), while using specialist window cleaners for the top spire.  When all things are operational, it would take 36 workers three to four months to clean the entire exterior facade.

The price tag of this building is 1.5 billion dollars (US).  It holds many world records today with that price tag, below lists just a few:

• Tallest skyscraper to top of spire: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously Taipei 101 – 509.2 m (1,671 ft))
• Tallest structure ever built: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously Warsaw radio mast – 646.38 m (2,121 ft))
• Tallest extant structure: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously KVLY-TV mast – 628.8 m (2,063 ft))
• Tallest freestanding structure: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously CN Tower – 553.3 m (1,815 ft))
• Building with most floors: 160 (previously both 1 and 2 World Trade Center – 110)
• World’s highest elevator installation
• World’s fastest elevators at speed of 64 km/h (40 mph) or 18 m/s (59 ft/s)

Well, now that Burj Khalifa has opened to business, let’s clean some windows: