AWESOME ARCHITECTURE

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about 

THE BURJ AL ARAB

The Burj Al Arab was designed by multidisciplinary consultancy Atkins led by architect Tom Wright. It is very similar to the Vasco da Gama Tower located in Lisbon, Portugal. The design and construction were managed by Canadian engineer Rick Gregory also of WS Atkins. Construction of the island began in 1994 and involved up to 2,000 construction workers during peak construction. It was built to resemble the billowing spinnaker sail of a J-class yacht. Two "wings" spread in a V to form a vast "mast", while the space between them is enclosed in a massive atrium.

The hotel was built by South African construction contractor Murray & Roberts / now renamed Concor and Al Habtoor Engineering and the interior works were delivered by UAE based Depa.

The building opened in December 1999.

The hotel's helipad was designed by Irish architect Rebecca Gernon. The helipad is above the building's 59th floor, and has been used as a car race track, a boxing ring, a tennis match, and the jumping off point for the highest kite surfing jump in history.

Features

Lobby

Several features of the hotel required complex engineering feats to achieve. The hotel rests on an artificial island constructed 280 m (920 ft) offshore. To secure a foundation, the builders drove 230 forty-meter-long (130 ft) concrete piles into the sand.

Engineers created a ground/surface layer of large rocks, which is circled with a concrete honeycomb pattern, which serves to protect the foundation from erosion. It took three years to reclaim the land from the sea, while it took fewer than three years to construct the building itself. The building contains over 70,000 m3 (92,000 cu yd) of concrete and 9,000 tons of steel.

Inside the building, the atrium is 180 m (590 ft) tall. The 18 storied atrium is enclosed by 12 individually tensioned two-layer membrane panels form the north facing façade.

Given the height of the building, the Burj Al Arab is the world's fifth tallest hotel after Gevora Hotel, JW Marriott Marquis Dubai, Four Seasons Place Kuala Lumpur and Rose and Rayhaan by Rotana. But where buildings with mixed use were stripped off the list, the Burj Al Arab would be the world's third tallest hotel. The structure of the Rose Rayhaan, also in Dubai, is 333 meters tall, 12 m (40 ft) taller than the Burj Al Arab, which is 321 meters tall