The Burj Khalifa: How a Three-Week Sketch Became the World's Tallest Building

Within just three weeks, Adrian Smith sketched out the original designs that would eventually become the tallest building in the world—the Burj Khalifa. In the early 2000s, he was approached by Emaar Properties, the real estate company behind the skyscraper. "They wanted to ask us about our experience with supertalls," Smith tells AD. At the time, he was working at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) and had designed buildings such as Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai and Zifeng Tower in Jiangsu, China.

Smith and colleagues, including Bill Baker, a structural engineering partner at SOM, took the meeting and travelled from Chicago to New York for an informal yet informative conversation. "We talked a lot about designing tall buildings, because they are so different from even a 60-story building," Smith says. Emaar representatives told the SOM team they were looking to develop the world's tallest skyscraper in Dubai and asked for recommendations on selecting an architect. "I said that you ought to have about a two- or three-week ideas competition," Smith remembers. "And they called back the following week and said, 'That's what we're gonna do.'"

Soon after, Emaar approached a handful of architectural firms, including Smith's team at SOM, with the basic project details—they wanted something in the 1,640- to 1,968-foot range—and gave each team a few weeks to pull together their ideas. As Smith explains, the SOM team submitted "a rough form" of what eventually became the Burj Khalifa. "The initial drawings, which weren't much, suited their needs," he says. "They selected us and we then started in earnest about a month later."

What Is the Design of the Burj Khalifa Based On?

Structurally, the Burj Khalifa is designed with a Y-shaped tripartite floor geometry. The design was largely based on Samsung Tower Palace Three, a skyscraper in Seoul with a similar structure that Smith had previously worked on. Because of zoning restrictions, Tower Palace Three currently stands at 73 stories, though it was originally meant to be 93, with multiple setbacks as it grew taller. When the height was reduced, "I brought it down to a point where they still stepped but only in two-story or three-story increments," Smith explains. "So it was almost like building a top to the building."

Though the original vision for Tower Palace Three didn't come to pass in Seoul, Smith still had the idea for a supertall structure with varied stepping from the three points of the tripod. "I had a scheme where each leg of the three tripods would drop off at different points," he says, "and the other two legs would go up and then one of those would drop off, until just one leg would continue on." Similarly, Smith had also designed a version where the legs stepped at varying intervals around the building, so that from a distance the building would appear to spiral. During the three-week ideas competition, Smith presented both concepts to Emaar, who were drawn to the fact that in either iteration, the building was not only buildable but also had a dynamic quality.

After winning the competition, the architect turned his attention to refining the building to better match the heritage of the Middle East. "As I was developing the massing, I thought about the architectural elements that exist in the Middle East, not just Dubai, that people are familiar with," he says. Thinking particularly about Islamic architecture, pointed arches came to mind, as did the onion dome—though often associated with Russian Orthodox churches, this form has roots in Syria and Iran. "So I thought, 'I'm gonna use that, and I want to use it in an abstracted way where it's not obvious,'" Smith says of the dome shape. Because of its various setbacks, when looking down at the building, a dome form appears, though when looking up from the base, the shape isn't particularly visible. "I wanted that to be a little mysterious, but prevalent."

How Tall Is the Burj Khalifa?

From the base of the building to the very top—which includes a spire and antenna—the Burj Khalifa is 2,722 feet, or a little over half a mile. Still, this wasn't always the case. Though excited to win the design competition, there was something in the back of Smith's mind that didn't feel quite right. "As I was developing it over the next three or four months, it was just nagging at me that it still wasn't tall enough and it wasn't completing itself," he recalls.

While construction crews excavated the building's foundation, Smith and his team flew to Dubai to present a series of models to the developers to show different ways the building could be completed. "We modeled them as a tower where I could take the top off and put another top on," Smith explains. The architect was advocating for something in the 850-meter range (about 2,790 feet), though developers were conscious about the price implications of this additional height. But pre-sale numbers were good, interest in the building was high, and the development team made a decision immediately. As soon as Smith was done presenting, they'd decided on an option that brought the building up an additional 500 or so feet—to the 2,722 feet it stands at today.