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00:00This enormous 120,000-square-metre man-made pool is home to the world's biggest display of dancing fountains.
00:21But I'm not here for the fountains.
00:23Even if they can shoot water 150 metres into the air, I'm here for something much, much bigger.
00:33This is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, all 828 dizzying metres of it.
00:41It's a towering skyscraper, nearly 200 metres taller than any other building on Earth.
00:48Built slap-bang in the middle of the Arabian desert.
00:54But how do you engineer the tallest building in the world to withstand electric storms, winds, soaring temperatures?
01:02When, if you strip away the veneer of buildings and city around it, it's standing on sand.
01:09Here I go.
01:11I'm Richard Hammond.
01:13Hello.
01:14And I'm on a mission to explore the really, really big...
01:18Awesome!
01:20Top ten list of insane things I've ever been involved in doing. This is number one.
01:24And yes, I know, everything seems big to me.
01:27Am I climbing into an engine? I feel like I've been shrunk.
01:29I'll uncover the incredible ways engineers have supersized our world.
01:36It's supposed to be this close.
01:38I looked over my shoulder, I shouldn't have done that.
01:41Reveal that sometimes it's the tiny things that make the Titanic possible.
01:46I'm stealing their power!
01:48I could not do this for a job.
01:50And meet the heroes who design, build and live big.
01:58If I do it wrong, are we all blown to pieces?
02:01Maybe.
02:15The Burj Khalifa is a shimmering giant of modern engineering.
02:18It weighs half a million tons, contains enough steel to stretch a quarter of the way around the planet.
02:28And has a radical design that redefines what it means to be a skyscraper.
02:35And there it is!
02:37Mind you, I'm saying that as I'm seeing it for the first time.
02:41Truth is, you can see it from the plane as you land, from the taxi from the airport.
02:44In fact, standing here at the base of it, I feel like if it were a tiny bit higher, I could see it from home in the UK.
02:51That's not just a skyscraper. It's poking right through it.
02:56Right, let's get inside it.
02:58I'm going to meet Bashar. Basically, he sort of runs this whole building so he knows every nook and cranny.
03:07And he's the man to talk to. He told me to ring him and then he said he'd come and meet me.
03:11So I'm probably summoning him from some lofty office somewhere out there.
03:16Hello Bashar, it's Richard.
03:18Hi Richard, what are you doing?
03:19I'm very well, I'm here. Where are you?
03:20Go through the lobby and I will meet you by the lift face.
03:23OK, I'll see you there.
03:24These are dangerous because everyone's going to be looking up.
03:27It could hurt. Thank you very much.
03:29Thank you, I'm used to that.
03:32To get to the lift area, I've got to come through the lobby of the building's five-star hotel.
03:38There are lifts down here, but I'm not going to rush because I'm guessing it'll take him a while to make his way down from his lofty earring.
03:45While we wait, let me tell you a few key things about this gleaming spire.
03:49First of all, it's busy, it's residential, there are apartments here, there are office spaces here.
03:54Hi Richard.
03:55Are you Bashar?
03:56I'm Bashar.
03:57Nice meeting you.
03:58I thought you'd be ages, that was very quick.
04:01Just one floor away.
04:02Well, you're just...
04:04Are you down here?
04:05I am.
04:06If I ran this building, I'd have the tallest office in it.
04:08Basically, we are holding it on our shoulders.
04:10OK, fair enough.
04:11Would you like to go around?
04:12I'd love to, yeah.
04:13Let's go.
04:15As I was saying, the Burj Khalifa is a building of many uses.
04:20It has almost a thousand apartments, 160 hotel rooms, 37 floors of office space.
04:27And last year, it was visited by three million tourists.
04:31There are bars, restaurants, gyms, and with so many people visiting, living and working in it.
04:43At its base is one of the biggest shopping malls in the world.
04:46It's an entire vertical city, divided into districts.
04:51And like any city, it's got its own transport network.
04:55Not buses and trains, but 57 lifts.
04:58Hang on.
04:59We're going down.
05:00Yeah, we're going down to go up.
05:01What?
05:02Yes, indeed.
05:03This is a vertical city.
05:04Right.
05:05And we need to shift like you use the metro.
05:06OK, so we're going to get on another line.
05:07Yep.
05:08So the lifts are more like trains, then?
05:09It is indeed.
05:10You have the express ones, then you have the local ones.
05:11So that was a little local one?
05:12That was a little local one.
05:13Now we're taking the express.
05:14You will see now, it is a one-stop lift.
05:15What does that mean?
05:16Please wait serving up a deck.
05:17We have people riding on top of us.
05:18So there is another lift car on top of this one.
05:19Two lifts in one lift shaft.
05:20Yep.
05:21Right, here we go.
05:22This is one of our fastest lifts.
05:23It travels at 10 meters per second.
05:24We are traveling 452 meters now, and we will finish this in under a minute.
05:26Look at that.
05:27Two and a half floors per second.
05:28Two and a half floors per second.
05:29It is indeed.
05:30It is indeed.
05:31You have the express ones, then you have the local ones.
05:32So that was a little local one.
05:33That was a little local one.
05:34Now we're taking the express.
05:35You will see now, it is a one-stop lift.
05:36What does that mean?
05:37Please wait serving up a deck?
05:38We are traveling 452 meters now, and we will finish this in under a minute.
05:42Look at that.
05:43Two and a half floors per second.
05:45To put that another way, this lift is traveling at 36 kilometers an hour.
05:50My ears are popping really heavily.
05:53Making it faster than the New York subway.
05:55Right.
05:56We're here.
05:57Here we go.
05:58Oh, wow.
05:59That's for the first time.
06:00Can I go and have a look?
06:01Yes, please.
06:02All of a sudden, you get an idea, apart from anything else, where you've built it,
06:07because that's the desert.
06:08It is indeed.
06:09It was just like that 10 years back.
06:11And how far up the building are we here?
06:13We are 448 meters.
06:16This is only halfway.
06:18But I'm heading even higher, because it turns out I'm allowed to take a sneak peek around
06:24the building's luxury apartments.
06:26Living at such a prestigious address can cost millions of pounds.
06:30This is the other side of the Burj Khalifa.
06:33This takes me into the residential world.
06:36This is one of the residents' lifts, so these are private.
06:39I have to borrow a special card to give me access.
06:42I'm going to meet Mrs. Cantanet, a resident who divides her time between here and New York,
06:48presumably because the skyscrapers there just aren't high enough.
06:52That's nice and familiar.
06:54It's quite suburban.
06:55It doesn't seem to stop.
06:57Mrs. Cantanet.
06:58Good morning, Richard.
06:59How are you?
07:00Hello.
07:01I'm very well.
07:02Nice meeting you.
07:03Nice meeting you.
07:04Thank you very much for letting me have a...
07:05Oh, my word.
07:06This is spectacular.
07:08How long have you lived here?
07:09December will be nine years.
07:11Have you got bored of the view yet?
07:12Never.
07:13My background is real estate development and construction, and I wanted to be part of history.
07:18I wanted to live in the tallest, the most amazing building in the world.
07:23This is what we consider vertical living.
07:25You have the hotel, the restaurants, one of the biggest mall.
07:29Anything you need, it's all there.
07:32Do you ever feel it move?
07:33Sway?
07:34Well, the building does.
07:35It's designed to sway.
07:36And we do have something called the Shamals, and I think those are the strongest winds coming
07:41from the ocean.
07:42The first time it happened, I got my bag and I ran out.
07:47Because the windows were like...
07:48Yes.
07:49I don't want to be here.
07:50Like this.
07:51And the entire space was creaking, and I said, oh, my God.
07:54I packed my bag, I collected, and I left.
07:57I'm out of here.
07:58Yes, I'm out of here.
07:59But that was like within a week of moving.
08:01These windows, I wouldn't want to clean those.
08:04Well, I don't have to clean them.
08:06The building cleans them from the outside.
08:08It's a very long stick, isn't it?
08:09No, they hang.
08:13Cleaning the windows of the world's tallest building is a Herculean task.
08:19There are 103,000 square metres of glass, and the responsibility for keeping it all clean,
08:25so that the residents can enjoy a spotless view, lies with a fearless crew of squeegee specialists.
08:34Today, team leader Pieter has got an extremely reluctant new recruit, with a very real fear of heights.
08:41Is it really the case that this is the best way of doing this?
08:44Yeah.
08:45It's the only way.
08:46Think of it as joy.
08:47That's the worst pep talk I've ever heard.
08:49I'm guessing these are going to be too big.
08:52Nice pair of safety boots, just for you.
08:54What's safe about them?
08:55Uh, steel caps.
08:56Safety boots here would hover.
08:59Steel caps are going to make no difference.
09:02Oh, it doesn't quite fit.
09:04Probably better if I don't do it.
09:05It's never comfortable when you get into it.
09:07It's only comfortable when you sit outside.
09:09Nothing about this is comfortable.
09:12Can I have a quick look over the edge?
09:13Oh, you're more than welcome to.
09:15Oh, my word.
09:17How far is that?
09:18That's a long way down.
09:19It's 152 metres above the ground.
09:21There are more floors above us than below us.
09:23About a fifth of the way up there?
09:25About that, yeah.
09:26So this is going to be terrifying, but I won't even look like cool and heroic.
09:29Right.
09:30Now you get a helmet.
09:31Oh, that'll make a difference.
09:32You're just going to swing around slowly.
09:35Yeah.
09:36So that you can sit on the outside.
09:37I'm very scared, but I'm trying to style it out.
09:38Bend your legs.
09:39And...
09:40Comfortable, right?
09:41No.
09:42Rajesh, can you pass us the buckets, please?
09:45No.
09:46No.
09:47No.
09:48No.
09:49No.
09:50No.
09:51No.
09:52No.
09:53No.
09:54No.
09:55No.
09:56No.
09:57No.
09:58No.
09:59No.
10:00No.
10:01No.
10:02No.
10:03The what.
10:04Yeah, you're going to get a bucket.
10:05I don't want a bucket.
10:06You're going to clean glass?
10:07I don't want a clean glass.
10:08I just want to get down alive.
10:11Everything is tied on.
10:13There we go.
10:14You have a bucket?
10:16Now, flip your rope over.
10:17Like that?
10:18Yeah.
10:19And we're going to start going down.
10:20Very slowly.
10:22Let's go down.
10:23Mm!
10:24Ha!
10:25Slow down.
10:26Slow down.
10:27Slow down.
10:28Now we're just going to clean these glasses right in front of us.
10:30of it this hand down that's the end that drives okay so this takes three months to do the whole
10:37building yes at the end of which time you start again that is every window is cleaned four times
10:44a year yep it keeps the building looking pretty and beautiful from outside exactly and lovely and
10:51shiny inside and while we're cleaning the glass we're cleaning all of these stainless steel bull
10:56noses as well so the whole building gets above oh yeah it's a lot harder than it looks yes would
11:01it not have been easy to do this with a machine no in a basket you have two people if you want to put
11:06ten people on a rope you can right we've gone so far as putting 120 people on ropes it's the fastest
11:12most efficient way you're ever going to do it dangling precariously off the side of the world's
11:17tallest building for a living takes nerves of steel i could not do this for a job it's not everyone's
11:25cup of tea after just a few minutes on this rope my nerves are shredded all you have to focus on
11:32is slowly going down a little bit at a time no i can't no why am i moving past that rib keep calm
11:41no i'm really unhappy go down go down you're pretty much on the ground whoa slowly
11:47and you down how was it for you would you do that again no no let alone every day and after three
11:59months get to the end and start again i wish i could stop my fear of heights getting in the way of
12:08enjoying the marvel and splendor of a true beautiful building sometimes when you're doing scary stuff the
12:15fear goes away the moment you start then sometimes it intensifies that's one of the things about big
12:22sometimes big can also be terrifying next i set my sights on the summit there it's just a spike
12:31and find out how a skyscraper can stand on sand just friction it's holding back these two vehicles
12:45i'm in dubai exploring the burj khalifa the world's tallest building i want to know how you make
12:56something this big in the arabian desert a vast sunscape that makes for one of the least suitable
13:02skyscraper environments on earth to find out i've met up with bill baker the structural engineer
13:13responsible for building the bridge no we're not out having fun you're looking at two men doing science
13:21because bill and i have come out to the desert to assess this suitability for building the foundations
13:26for the world's tallest building and my assessment thus far is it's really soft and it shifts about a lot
13:38right so what we've learned from that in-depth and thorough scientific
13:43exploration is if i scrape away at this sand for like a really long way yeah it's a sort of a big
13:49lump of granite that you can anchor your building to no problem okay so so we have no bedrock here
13:54okay so under the sand what we have is ancient seashell dust a soft material called calciciltite
14:01that was deposited in some ancient ocean that's what we're sitting on but if you're building
14:06that high you need foundation what are you going to anchor it to say where you're working in snow
14:10what would you do a snowshoe yeah so that's what we did we start out with a snowshoe and i just happen
14:15to have with me a model of the base at the bottom of the burj khalifa the world's tallest building we have
14:23a big snowshoe so this is a great big concrete slab yes this shape yeah so it's the size of the
14:31building a little bit bigger so that's spreading my weight so i'm not sinking down right right but
14:35there's a bigger problem what's stopping it falling over below this we drilled 194 shafts of concrete
14:43into this calciciltite so in the simplest possible terms it doesn't sink because it's on this giant
14:50sand shoe and these piles they're still in effectively sand yes so the thing that's holding
14:57it up yeah is friction just friction yes it seems inconceivable that the world's tallest building
15:06is held up by something as simple as the friction generated between 194 concrete shafts driven into
15:13ancient seashell dust but actually friction is one of the strongest forces on the planet
15:20to demonstrate the awesome power of friction bill and i are going to conduct an experiment using these
15:26two old telephone directories and if you're under 25 and are wondering what these big books are they're
15:31what your parents used to use to look up telephone numbers before we had the internet
15:35and when we could still think and what we're going to do is interleave them page by page
15:43and you'll notice every time we do that there's a little bit of friction in evidence between those
15:47two pages it's not a lot on a page by page basis but once you've done it i don't know what is it
15:52it'll be 1600 times it should be considerably more this shouldn't take too long but while we're doing
15:59you might want to look up at the sky for a moment or two and there we go two phone books completely
16:13interleaved page by page that bill and i just did ourselves on our own under the baking sun with no
16:18help from production whatsoever the point is there's no glue holding these together they're just interleaved
16:24and i think let's have a little tug of war go grief there is no way that is an immense that is it
16:34feels like one solid block doesn't it and that is just friction action but i think we need to up the
16:41effort a bit introduce some more force it's one nil to friction so far but maybe we can even the score
16:48with the help of two dune buggies and 344 horsepower we've bolted brackets to the spines but the books
16:57and buggies are still held together by nothing more than the friction between the pages
17:05okay bill in three two one begin we're now having a tug of war we're held only by friction
17:14it's holding back these two vehicles at full throttle all i can do is dig a hole it seems
17:31i think the book's won i think i'll have a look at that bill you buried it mate friction one yes and
17:46that is the effect that holds up the tallest building in the world yes on the british california there's 194
17:54piles that go down uh into the ground they have 40 000 square meters of concrete against
18:0140 000 square meters of the ground yes so you had a 40 000 square meter page of concrete yes against
18:07a 40 000 square meter page of sand yes that's a lot of friction that's right so it's enough to hold up
18:12the world's tallest building in fact the friction is so strong that the burj khalifa all 828 gravity
18:22defying meters of it is supported by foundations stuck just 50 meters into the desert but what happens
18:31when they're really put to the test dubai can be hit by sandstorms and winds up to 100 kilometers an
18:39hour which is a big problem for big buildings but not necessarily in the way you may think cue our
18:47hurricane in a box let's turn on the wind so the wind is going this way so it's pulling the wind in here
18:55yes and it's waggling about from side to side it's not even remotely trying to do no no no that
19:00no that's gonna do that yeah if a tall building were ever to fall over in the wind it would probably
19:04fall over sideways not in the direction of the wind and this is the tall building problem when wind
19:09swirls around a building it forms small whirlwinds called vortices these alternating pockets of low
19:16air pressure create forces on the building that can cause it to rock from side to side not as much as
19:23this obviously i've exaggerated it to make a point but you get the idea all skyscrapers have a natural
19:29frequency the rate at which they like to vibrate just like this swing if i push it gently it'll
19:34settle down and settle into its natural frequency now the bit where it gets fun because i have a go
19:40imagine this swing is the skyscraper and my legs are the wind on a perfectly flat-faced symmetrical
19:48skyscraper the wind can work with that natural frequency to actually increase the rate at which
19:54i'm swinging it's called harmonic resonance on a swing we use harmonic resonance to go higher but on
20:03the world's tallest building it could cause it to sway more and more until it fell over to stop that
20:11happening bill and his colleagues had to design the skyscraper radically different from any other this is
20:17essentially the burj califa the key aspects of this is how the shape of the floor plate constantly
20:24changes as we go up there's 27 different shapes in the tower and each of them will generate vortices
20:32slightly different than the ones above or below them so you never get really large forces on the building
20:37because they're always coming off at different rates and because of that the wind never gets organized
20:42we actually call this confusing the wind in order to make sure the wind is well and truly confused
20:50the burj khalifa isn't square like a traditional skyscraper it's y-shaped it gets narrower as it rises
20:59its edges are curved and its cross section is constantly changing and this design breaks up the force of the wind
21:07what the birds does is what my legs are doing now which is not working in harmony with the natural
21:15frequency of the skyscraper and as a result there's barely any swing getting going because i've only got
21:21two legs the burj effectively has 27 because it has 27 different levels of its length to break the wind up
21:28so it doesn't get organized and established harmonic resonance it's good this harmonic resonance harmonic dissonance
21:37this slender asymmetric design has opened the door for future skyscrapers to get even taller
21:47so where are we going now we are going to the very top of the building good and we have four lifts to
21:54pick four it's a four lift journey four left my mate bashar has asked me to help him with a unique
22:00maintenance job like a behind the scenes behind the scenes on a vital piece of equipment which helps
22:07to keep not just the burj khalifa but the whole of dubai safe so this is our last lift we call this one
22:13the washing machine oh this is a lot more basic
22:16oh yeah so this is the top of the building
22:27not yet what we still have 47 more floors to go 47 floors yeah and for that we will need these 47
22:35floors of it only we've now got to climb a further 200 meters that's one and a half times the height of the
22:44great pyramid in egypt which was also once the world's tallest building a long time ago obviously
22:53i want to show you something all right oh yeah that is an astonishing view not this one oh this one
23:06oh yeah that is the highest in the world i suppose it is it is once in a lifetime opportunity could you
23:12have some privacy please oh it was the same in it you get all keyed up and then you can't go
23:23this is a bit more serious
23:30we're nearly there nearly there daylight oh yes oh my word i am literally on top of the world
23:39not yet well we can't go up there it's just a spike actually yes we can are you telling me this
23:47thing is all the way up there it's at the very top yeah right next i finally realize a lifelong ambition
23:56i'm right now the tallest man in the world that's me i am the tallest man in the world
24:09i'm on my way to the very top of the world's tallest building a place only a select few highly skilled
24:18technicians have ever been before oh my word if i'm to make it all the way i've got to climb the
24:27final 80 meters inside the spire yeah you know your tower yeah it's absolutely dazzling up to about here
24:38i'm not surprised if you don't allow your more high class clientele to come here
24:49he's taking me to perform essential maintenance on what must be the most inconveniently located bit of
24:56kit on any building in the world almost there you can see it this is the very top picture that's the
25:07sky oh my word we did it this is the highest you can be on a building this is the highest you can be
25:18on a building on this planet we are on top of the world we are on top of the world i'm looking at an
25:23airplane below us much below us that's the strangest feeling and tall buildings they have such an appeal
25:32to us as humans don't they true and do you think part of it is to be the tallest thing to have the
25:37furthest view i can see more than anybody else you know that this tip can be spotted from 95 kilometers
25:44away i'd also like to point something else out i am slightly taller than you which means i'm right
25:50now the tallest man in the world that's me i am the tallest man in the world right now
25:56so now we have to do our maintenance yes indeed where is it the thing we've come to fix it's just
26:01behind you this small container is a lightning arrester inside it is a sophisticated lightning
26:08detection system capable of identifying an approaching electrical storm
26:13so this is our lightning arrester here and we are going to replace the battery wait a minute
26:21what's up we just climbed to the top of the world's tallest building to change a battery yep we did why
26:28is it battery powered and not plugged into the mains because with lightning you can fly that out so it
26:34needs to be isolated it needs to be isolated it needs to be a battery you have to wait and see the tool
26:39to do that what that is the small thing together with that that makes this huge thing possible
26:49basically what you're telling me is this is the world's biggest smoke detector battery change it is
26:53indeed we have just climbed to the very very top of the tallest building in the world to change the
26:58battery and the device that can detect an approaching electric storm that's a different day out
27:03isn't it indeed when lightning strikes it looks for the tallest object as it provides the quickest path
27:10to ground which puts the burj khalifa firmly in the firing line
27:17but rather than repelling strikes the lightning arrestor attracts them by detecting the polarity of
27:23the lightning and giving itself the opposite charge that might sound unwise as a single bolt can contain
27:31up to a billion volts but the burj khalifa has a trick up its sleeve its steel exoskeleton acts as a
27:38giant faraday cage safely discharging the electricity around the outside and protecting everyone inside
27:48so that has been here it was hit 16 times 16 times yep and we can actually measure the intensity of that
27:56lightning really it takes roughly 50 milliseconds for it to hit and bounce back and if we could capture
28:02it it would be enough to power up this building for one full year you've got to work on that next
28:11the burj khalifa is basically dubai's lightning rod drawing strikes away from other buildings in the city
28:18they don't actually give daily thanks but i'm sure they think it
28:25this is the weirdest thing i've ever done i have a question to ask yes please is there a lift back down
28:36having now traveled up and down this huge building i've got another question how do you get out in an
28:44emergency such as say a fire when it's full there could be 35 000 people inside so its designers had
28:52to come up with a system to keep them all safe in the event of any sort of fire everybody in the building
28:59is encouraged to come to one of these refuge areas they're scattered throughout the place in here they'll
29:04find emergency supplies ready for use the whole place has been fireproof it can stand direct flame for
29:12two hours and if you're wondering why i'm shouting over the air conditioning it is extra strong in
29:17here now that's not just to keep it nice and fresh the place is positively pressurized that's really
29:23important in building fires smoke inhalation is the biggest killer so pressurizing these refuge rooms
29:32and surrounding stairwells helps to keep smoke at bay
29:35even with the door open it's just pushed away it's simple answer but very very clever and in a
29:47building the size of this one absolutely essential
29:54the safe zones are located on several floors throughout the building and each one holds around 500 people
30:02but how do you evacuate a building with almost 3 000 stairs normally elevators are shut down when
30:09there's a fire but here that's not an option when the emergency services arrive in the refuge area they
30:15take everybody to one of these there are 10 of them they call them lifeboat lifts specialized fire escape
30:22lifts they're again positively pressurized with air to keep the smoke out and these are the quickest and
30:28safest way of getting everybody to safety when you're in a building this high there's one vital
30:35resource the burj khalifa couldn't exist without the only problem is here in the arabian desert it's in
30:43very short supply it's something most of us take for granted in our houses water but where do they get it from
30:52here and then when they've got it how do they circulate it around a building this huge the burj khalifa
30:59uses almost a million liters of water a day and with no fresh water source to draw from almost every drop
31:07of it is in fact desalinated sea water but getting it to the top of a building this high is a unique
31:15challenge water is a big problem in tall buildings and it's all down to pressure in a normal tall
31:23building of about 150 meters they just pump it to a holding tank at the top of the building and from
31:28there it falls down through pipes to serve all the stories down to ground level but in a building as big
31:34as the burj khalifa the pressure required to push the water all the way to the top is just unimaginably huge
31:42so how do they get it out there as ever bashar knows the building's secrets is this pump sending
31:49water to the top of your tower no way there is no pump that can handle that amount of pressure right
31:56so where is it sending water let me show you this way here we are this is a tank it is a tank i can't
32:06help but notice it's not at the top of the building this is at level 42 this tank serves the floor
32:11is below and through these pipes to another set of pumps who would bump it to another similar tank at
32:16level 73 and from 73 to another level then to another level until we reach 135 and that's where
32:22we pressurize the upper floors oh so the pumps only have to send it a manageable height correct just
32:28imagine burj khalifa is a series of smaller towers stacked on top of each other that is such a simple
32:35solution just do what you normally do in a smaller tower a number of times so you want to see the highest
32:40one obviously this is an extreme i want to see it oh yeah this is more like home i love what you've
32:48done thank you welcome to the highest water tank in the world where oh we're under it 544 meters above
33:00the ground and from here we have a smaller set of pumps that pressurizes the water up for the remaining
33:06few floors yeah so that can lift it up just for the last little bit that's it and what you must
33:10remember never to do is connect a pipe from here run it straight down to the floor because if you open
33:15the tap at ground level on a pipe attached to this tank up here the water would would come out well it
33:24would come out like this
33:36and you don't want that coming out your tap
33:43the arabian desert isn't just one of the driest places on earth it's also one of the hottest and for
33:50the burj khalifa that presents another problem summer temperatures here in dubai can easily soar past
33:5745 degrees and yet the outer skin of the burj is glass so what's to stop the world's tallest building
34:05becoming the world's biggest greenhouse or oven and cooking everyone inside well the answer lies in the
34:12glass itself there are 24 348 panes of this stuff and it's got a special double coating on the outside
34:21is silver to reflect uv rays on the inside is titanium to reflect infrared and working together
34:29these two coatings can dramatically reduce the effect of the sun's heat in there by about 70 percent
34:34all of which sounds very good but i think we should prove it and i'm going to do that with this
34:43frankly brilliant experiment that i've set up i've constructed these two perfect scale replica of two
34:48rooms up there in the burj the only difference between them is this one has normal ordinary glass
34:53this one has windows made of the special double coated stuff they actually used up there i also have
35:00these two eggs and in each room a small frying pan i think you can probably see where this is going
35:08i'm going to leave them here in the sun for a while see what difference this glass makes to the
35:12temperature inside and see if i can maybe cook a late breakfast in one of the rooms to start with
35:19the temperature inside each room is 33 degrees celsius which is warm but not enough to fry my eggs yet
35:27it's cooking time right room number one with the special glass egg is in close the door
35:37and leave it now the room without the specially coated glass
35:42egg in pan close door and now simply leave to cook
35:46as the sun blazes down over the next 20 minutes the temperature in both rooms goes up
35:59but the difference in the increase between the room protected by the burj glass
36:04and the one with the normal glass is quite remarkable
36:07the moment of truth first of all let's see what life is like for those living in the room with the
36:16same protective reflective glass as used here in the burj well i mean your breakfast isn't cooked but
36:24neither are you so that's astonishing if they didn't have that glass what would it be like in the searing
36:29to buy heat ordinary glass in this one well that completely works that's the difference cooked or not
36:38cooked i think a rather wonderful graphic demonstration of the effect
36:44i don't like egg next i get out of the kitchen and into the lake oh it's cold you're expecting the
36:50desert in it and yet more cleaning you need to use it to stop the lake with using your you're just
36:58having a laugh at my expense
37:09it's my final day exploring the burj khalifa the big building that brings big numbers of people to dubai
37:16millions in fact from all over the world to keep so many visitors entertained ima who own and run the
37:23building put on a show and because they don't really do subtle around here of course it's the world's
37:29biggest display of dancing fountains the man in charge of this water ballet is fadi al shakshir
37:36this is your world isn't it yeah this is this is like the fun part of of this area give it like 90
37:42minutes and you'll see all the shooters just firing water in there but you're getting ready for a show
37:47yes there are over a dozen displays every day but what the spectators don't see is the hidden
37:55underworld that makes them possible i've been in a vertical city and now you've got an underground
38:00underwater city and the water system of the fountains yes if you multiply with all these fires we're
38:07talking about roughly 3 to 3.5 kilometers of pipes
38:12these are the pipes which is responsible for the shoots this one the smallest one gives you around
38:20150 meters height of water there is more kit and pipework and machinery down here than there is in
38:27the whole of the town where i live all of it and it's just for fountains to look pretty just for the
38:33fountain yeah and now we're in a world of gigantic tanks this is the heart people think that dubai fountain
38:41operates on water actually operates on air oh right so these are pressurized yes these are pressurized
38:48so these fire the air that push the water that make the fountains yeah so somebody at some point
38:54said right i want really cool fountains q underground city keeping all of this machinery running is a massive
39:06operation faddy manages a crew of 170 including engineers mechanics cleaners and 18 specialist divers
39:15today he's even found a job for me
39:21hey faddy this is all a bit bon movie isn't it yeah and it's now time for action
39:27right is this our boat this is our boat we've got the tools ready jump in please i can't just jump in
39:34i'm from birmingham i don't really do boats i'm not very good at them i'm not doing that just jump
39:38no i'll do something a bit more oh right i'm off ready
39:45we're going to replace a broken water jet nozzle in one of the world's biggest man-made lakes
39:51it holds 33 million gallons of water in the middle of a desert
40:01how many of these are there in the lake more than 1 000. how will we find the one that has a problem
40:06you see that area where there are the air bubbles that's the faulty one oh there that's our problem
40:13that's our problem we fix it we're ready to go for the show right oh it's cold you'd expect in the
40:21desert isn't it oh my word that's a surprise
40:29the show runs every half hour after sunset which is now less than an hour away and the whole rig has
40:35to work in perfect harmony so there's no room for error stay cool haven't
40:40not dropping the ball not dropping the ball not dropping the ball if i dropped
40:46that nut in there when i undid it i ruined everything
40:53so that's the duff one time is running out this is the new pit okay hopefully this has fixed it
41:01there's an imminent display depending on it right well it's in they should all work now so far so good
41:07okay just do a final check richard a control room can you please put these shields down thank you
41:14right nothing's happening they've all they've all broken no wait they're all hang on yes they're all
41:19go oh hang on just there it is they've all gone they were we've done it they are all working again yes
41:27right can we get out the water now it's surprisingly cold for a desert oh we got one more job for you to
41:32do okay with some furniture you've seen this map yes you need to use it to scrub the calcification
41:38on the liquid using your foot for the whole fountain after that you're ready to you're just having a
41:44laugh at my expense not at all and if you use the machines it will damage the pen all of this high tech
41:51the world's biggest display of dancing fantasies at the foot of the world's tallest building spectacle
41:56drama opulence and glamour and it's that yeah anything to be of service thank you so much
42:12the burj khalifa has transformed dubai just a few years ago all this was desert now thanks to the
42:30power of this monumental skyscraper it's the heart of the city an entire downtown area has sprouted up
42:38around it drawing in more and more people every year which makes it more than just a building it's
42:45a global icon as tall slender and elegant as it is there is an air of defiance and determination about
42:53the burj khalifa its engineers had to battle the elements to build it that unique shape is designed
43:00to carve and sculpt the wind as it flows around they gave it a glass skin that can shield it against
43:07the scorching desert sun even the earth itself was against them they had to find a way to make it
43:12stand strong on soft shifting sand and it all worked it's redefined the way skyscrapers will be built
43:20in the future and there it stands drawing people from across the globe to marvel at the tallest building in
43:28as
43:29in
43:30no matter
43:31it's
43:35on you
43:38that it's
43:38on you
43:39it's
43:40on you
43:40on you
43:42가지
43:45on you
43:47, on you