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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteBill Baker, the structural engineer behind the Burj Khalifa, helped make its height workable by combining a buttressed concrete core, a Y-shaped plan, and a profile that steps and spirals as it rises. Those choices address wind and structural loads while also shaping how the tower could be built. SOM’s interview page, dated September 21, 2017, identifies Baker and the construction challenges as its subject; the engineering explanation below draws on the firm’s project information and institutional records.
How was the Burj Khalifa engineered?
The Burj Khalifa is 828 meters tall and was completed in 2010, according to its designer, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). Its structural strategy was not a single solution for height: the plan, core, changing profile, and construction sequence work together.
A Y-shaped plan and a buttressed core
SOM describes a Y-shaped floor plan organized around a six-sided central hub. Concrete wings extend from that hub, with concrete cores and perimeter columns forming the main structural arrangement. The wings buttress one another, helping the tower resist lateral forces as well as carry the building’s weight.
The form also draws on the geometry of a regional desert flower and patterning systems found in Islamic architecture, according to SOM. The tower is reinforced concrete clad in glass.
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What is a buttressed core?
A buttressed core is a central structural core supported by connected wings or walls that brace it. In the Burj Khalifa, the Y-shaped wings act together around the central hub rather than leaving a slender core to resist lateral forces on its own. The result is an integrated arrangement of core, walls, and columns—not an added external brace.
Setbacks that help manage loads and construction
The tower’s wings step back at different heights, producing an upward spiraling profile. SOM says the setbacks also align columns above with walls below. That alignment creates a continuous load path and avoids the column-transfer conditions that can delay construction on other designs.
How does the Burj Khalifa resist wind?
Wind pushes tall buildings sideways and can make them twist. It can also create repeating vortices that shed from a building’s sides and contribute to movement. The Burj Khalifa’s changing width and orientation interrupt that regular pattern: SOM says the shape prevents wind vortices from coalescing. “Confuse the wind” is a useful shorthand, but the engineering point is the changing geometry, not a claim that wind forces disappear.
The Skyscraper Museum’s archival account says wind-tunnel testing at RWDI in Guelph was essential to the design. The changing profile and testing are complementary: engineers can assess how the proposed form responds to wind rather than relying on appearance alone. The sources cited here do not provide a quantified reduction in wind forces.
How was the tower built at this height?
The Skyscraper Museum’s project-period exhibition material describes concrete construction with jump forms up to level 156, with structural steel above. Jump forms are raised as successive sections of concrete structure are completed, allowing work to proceed upward in stages.
The spire’s unusual erection sequence
The same museum account describes the final 136 meters of the spire as a 350-ton steel pipe. Rather than assembling it entirely outside the tower, crews assembled it in sections inside the building and hydraulically jacked it into place over eight lift cycles. This account is specific to the spire erection sequence, not a general description of the whole tower’s construction.
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Who was the structural engineer behind the Burj Khalifa?
William F. “Bill” Baker is an American structural engineer and an SOM structural engineering partner, according to the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. Its biography says Baker earned a civil engineering bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri in 1975 and a master’s degree from the University of Illinois in 1980. He joined SOM in 1981 and became a partner in 1996.
The Queen Elizabeth Prize page presents Baker discussing engineering judgment and design. It quotes him saying, “When an architect gives you a sketch, do not take it as something that you can go out and just immediately engineer. Take it as a problem statement.” That idea fits the Burj Khalifa’s design challenge: the architectural ambition had to be translated into a structural system and a buildable sequence.
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Burj Khalifa facts and source differences
| Detail | What the source says |
|---|---|
| Height | 828 meters; SOM project page, undated and accessed in 2026. |
| Completion | 2010; SOM project page. The Skyscraper Museum dates the opening celebration to January 4, 2010. |
| Stories | SOM’s project facts list 160 stories; its descriptive narrative calls it a 162-story tower. The page does not reconcile the figures. |
| Gross building area | 454,249 square meters; SOM project facts. |
| Steel quantity | Almost 40,000 tonnes, as reported by the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering; the page does not display a publication year. |
SOM calls the Burj Khalifa the world’s tallest building on its project page. The figures above are source-reported project facts, not an independently updated ranking or a comparison with other towers.
Quick Recap
Sources
- SOM: Burj Khalifa project page
- The Skyscraper Museum: Burj Khalifa exhibition archive
- Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering: Bill Baker
- SOM: Bill Baker interview, September 21, 2017
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