Dubai World

 Height is being kept secret but will be more than this estimate: 700 mts- The number of floors is also a secret but likely to be about this: 180

- Samsung Corporation from South Korea is main building contractor

- Estimated construction cost. The whole Dubai Downtown development is costing around $20 billion and will contain 30,000 homes and the world’s largest shopping mall, The Dubai Mall $1 billion

- Many of the lower floors will be taken up by a 175-room Armani Hotel. In addition there will be 144 luxury residential suites designed by Giorgio Armani and kitted out with his home furnishing line

- Floors 17 to 108 will have 800 private apartments. These sold out within eight hours

- Most of the higher floors will be offices and private suites

- An observatory 442 metres above ground on the 124th floor will be open to the public ? the highest publicly accessible observation deck in the world

- There will be a club on floors 144 to 146

- Inspiration for the design was derived from the flower of the Hymenocallis plant that is widely cultivated in Dubai.

- Built of glass, aluminium, concrete and steel

- Much of the external surface is made of factory-produced unitised panels. Made of aluminium, glass and various brackets, they interlock on site and are up to two storeys tall. They improve quality and speed up building work

- Tip of the spire will be visible 60 miles away

- The rods that reinforce the structure weigh a total of 31,400 tonnes and laid end-to-end would stretch more than a quarter of the way around the world

- Water system will supply about 250,000 gallons per day

- The building’s external surface is the size of 17 football fields

- The concrete used is equivalent to a solid cube of concrete 61 metres in size or a 1.5-metre wide pavement 1,200 miles long. It weighs the same as 100,000 elephants

- Peak electricity demand of the building is the same as 360,000 100-watt light bulbs

Source: Gulf News

The Burj al-Taqa skyscraper is the latest in a series of amazing buildings that will have people saying “Only in Dubai!” The Burj al-Taqa tower uses a cylindrical shape that exposes as little surface to the sun as is feasible.
(Burj al-Taqa) The Burj al-Taqa (which means “Energy Tower”) will have a unique 197 foot diameter wind tower on its roof and arrays of solar cells totalling 161,459 square feet.

Not content with this energy output, the building will float an additional island of solar panels within view of the building.

Architects selected an ancient Persian design feature as the model for the futuristic building. Wealthy business owners built wind towers on the roofs of their houses, which gave them a natural air-conditioning system. Louvered openings in the towers suck in cooler air high off the ground like a chimney; this sinks down and displaces the (lighter) hot air, creating a cooler interior space.

Source

 Low carbon commercial towers may one day become a reality in Dubai thanks to international consultants Atkins, whose Middle East operation is currently undertaking the concept design for ‘The Lighthouse’, located in the heart of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). In setting a new benchmark for Dubai, the 400-metre luxury office tower aspires to be a low carbon commercial building which aims to reduce its total energy consumption by up to 65% and water consumption by up to 40%. This will be achieved through the use of passive solar architecture, many low energy, low water engineering solutions, recovery strategies for both energy and water and building integrated renewables – including large scale wind turbines and photovoltaics.