Sears Tower 103rd Floor Glass Balcony, Chicago, Illinois, United States

Burj Khalifa - Dubai New Year's Eve Fireworks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=27lB-doaRlQ#!

Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is among the top 10 tallest buildings in the world. At 451.9 meters (1,482.6 ft), The Petronas Twin Towers was considered the tallest building from 1998 to 2004 when measured from the base to the antenna/spire.

The tower was made by an Argentine–American Architect named Cesar Pelli. The tower was completed in the year 1998. It was built on the race track of the Kuala Lumpur. The site has a depth of the bedrock and hence, the towers were built on the deepest foundation.



The World Trade Center had 110 floors where as the Petronas Twin Towers only has 88 floors to it and is made up of concrete, steel and glass and is true reflection of the Muslim religion in Malaysia. Since it was very costly to import large amount of steel, the towers were made out of radical design that had super strength and reinforced concrete. This type of concrete is said to be more reliable in terms of its strengths and makes the building two times as heavy as the base as compared to the normal steel. At the bottom of the towers, one can find great shopping malls and one can find almost everything in it. The Petronas Twin Towers is a must see site if you visit Malaysia. The towers are based on the simple Islamic architecture where every floor is based on an eight point star. It is spread in a total area of 100 acres.

Dynamic Tower, Dubai

Dynamic Tower also known as Da Vinci Tower is a planned 420-metre (1,378 ft), 80-floor moving skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, designed by architect David Fisher.

Similar to the Suite Vollard completed in 2001 in Brazil, each floor will be able to rotate independently. This will result in a constantly changing shape of the tower. Each floor will rotate a maximum of 6 metres (20 ft) per minute, or one full rotation in 90 minutes.

It will be the world's first prefabricated skyscraper with 40 factory-built modules for each floor. 90% of the tower will be built in a factory and shipped to the construction site. This will allow the entire building to be built in only 22 months. The core of the tower will be built at the construction site. Part of this prefabrication will be the decrease in cost and number of workers (90 at the work site and 600 in the factory instead of 2,000 needed). The total construction time will be over 30% less than a normal skyscraper of the same size. The majority of the workers will be in factories, where it will be much safer. The modules will be preinstalled including kitchen and bathroom fixtures. The core will serve each floor with a special, patented connection for clean water, based on technology used to refuel airplanes in mid-flight.

The entire tower will be powered from wind turbines and solar panels. Enough surplus electricity should be produced to power five other similar sized buildings in the vicinity. The turbines will be located between each of the rotating floors. They could generate up to 1,200,000 kilowatt-hours of energy. The solar panels will be located on the roof and the top of each floor.

Burj Khalifa, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest manmade structure in the world, at 829.84 m (2,723 ft). Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010, and is part of the new 2 km²(490-acre) development called Downtown Dubai at the 'First Interchange' alongSheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai's main business district. The tower's architecture and engineering were performed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of Chicago, withAdrian Smith as chief architect, and Bill Baker as chief structural engineer. The primary contractor was Samsung C&T of South Korea.

The total cost for the project was about US$1.5 billion; and for the entire "Downtown Dubai" development, US$20 billion. In March 2009, Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of the project's developer, Emaar Properties, said office space pricing at Burj Khalifa reached US$4,000 per sq ft (over US$43,000 per m²) and the Armani Residences, also in Burj Khalifa, sold for US$3,500 per sq ft (over US$37,500 per m²).

Burj Khalifa was designed to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development that would include 30,000 homes, nine hotels (including The Address Downtown Dubai), 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of parkland, at least 19 residential towers, the Dubai Mall, and the 12-hectare (30-acre) man-made Burj Khalifa Lake.

The decision to build Burj Khalifa is reportedly based on the government's decision to diversify from an oil based economy to one that is service and tourism based. According to officials, it is necessary for projects like Burj Khalifa to be built in the city to garner more international recognition, and hence investment. "He (Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum) wanted to put Dubai on the map with something really sensational," said Jacqui Josephson, a tourism and VIP delegations executive at Nakheel Properties.