Reaching for the stars

When it comes to making bold architectural statements, few places do it better than Dubai. From the hotels, resorts and artificial islands to the financial district, its skyline is filled with some of the most impressive buildings in the world. The latest of these is the world’s tallest building – the Burj Khalifa.

At 828m, the tower has earned its place in the record books not only as the tallest building by all three recognised categories, but also for a number of other firsts. It is the tallest free-standing structure in the world; it has the highest number of stories (160); the highest occupied floor; the elevator with the longest distance to travel and the tallest service elevator in the world; and on the 124th floor, At The Top is the highest outdoor observation deck in the world at 442m.

With its official opening ceremony on 4 January – a stunning 11-minute sound, light and fireworks display designed by Prisme International CEO and artistic director Pierre Marcout – the tower has captured the world’s attention. But it has been a long project to get this far. It was the culmination of six years of construction work, involving at its peak 12,000 workers and contractors from more than 100 nations. Work started on the foundations in January 2004, with the construction getting underway in September of that year. In October 2009 the exterior of the structure was completed before it was officially opened by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum on the fourth anniversary of his appointment as the ruler of Dubai.

Located next to the Dubai Mall in the Down Town Dubai district, the tower is a mixed-use building containing the first Armani hotel, residential apartments and offices. It was designed by US-based architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and its unique form was derived from the patterning systems embodied in Islamic architecture. The tower has been designed to be the centrepiece of the Burj Khalifa Park, a mixed-use development that will include nine hotels, 30,000 homes, 19 residential towers, the Dubai Mall, three hectares of parkland and the man-made 12 hectare Burj Khalifa lake.

Being such a high-profile project, Burj Khalifa required a high-quality A/V system. Tasked with this challenge was Dubai-based systems integrator Bond Communications. With Samsung, Besix and Arabtech acting as the main contractors for the project, Bond partnered with one of the ELV sub-contractors for the installation Johnson Controls, to form a joint venture for the job. Johnson was leading the project and was responsible for all the CCTV (for which it opted for cameras from Bosch Security) and access control, with Bond taking the A/V side.

The systems integrator became involved with this project in the early stages. This is something that Raveendran KV, head of Bond’s Technical Department, believes helped the installation. ‘All the pre-planning made it a lot easier with the commissioning time.’ For such a showpiece structure, the owners, Emaar Properties, were looking to include all the latest and best A/V equipment. The original brief required digital signal processors for audio signal routing, equalisation and other controls; Ethernet switches; professional power amplifiers; loudspeakers of different types and sizes; music servers; Blu-ray players; A/V matrix switchers; touchscreens; and master control systems.

For the installation Bond used a BSS Soundweb London network, QSC network amplifiers with Jazz software and Tannoy CMS and IW Series loudspeakers, explains the system integrator’s technical director, Jonathan Goodwin. ‘It’s all AMX control with VoIP-enabled touch-panels,’ he continues. This is used to cover the ballroom, pre-function rooms, meeting rooms, restaurants, F&B outlets and spa.

The music system in the building uses CobraNet to transmit audio signals in real-time over a standard Ethernet network. It covers all the public areas including corridors, lift lobbies, terraces, and reception areas, so Bond needed to install Tannoy speakers for background music on all 160 floors. The music sources are centralised in one location inside the building and the music is distributed all around the listening areas. Each area is able to listen to the same centralised source or to a source different from the others without any interference.

The Armani Hotel is made up of 160 rooms and suites located on floors five to eight for the guest rooms, and 38 and 39 for the suites. A number of fine-dining rooms and bars inside the hotel have been provided with a high-end music system in order to improve the dining experience. Each of these restaurants was provided with local controls to select the desired music channel and set the volume level with the option of connecting their own local source such as CD player or iPods.

The pool and outdoor areas are equipped with garden speakers distributed at strategic locations. The hotel has one large banqueting hall that can be divided in to three smaller sections, each section is equipped with one motorised projection screen and one projector supported with a ceiling mounted projector lift. Each of these projection systems can display different materials when the room is divided or can play the same materials when one large room is formed.

Meeting rooms are provided with complete audiovisual solutions for presentations and conferencing. A/V connections are integrated in the conference table providing connections to laptop and/or other A/V devices. These rooms also feature a high definition video display, along with all the required switching and control equipment.

‘Inside each hotel room there is a complete AMX system with voice-enabled touch-panels, security cameras, AMX Mio controls for the lighting and AC, an HITV system and amenities system for calling a butler or chauffeur from the room,’ explains Mr Goodwin. For each residential apartment the same AMX touchpanels and controllers are used for lighting and AC, which are integrated to the building management system. The apartments also feature a full music system with Tannoy speakers.

The company has also installed a Nortel IP system throughout the entire building, as well as all the structured cabling, and the fibre-optic backbone. ‘It’s the highest fibre-optic riser in the world,’ states Mr Goodwin. Bond was also responsible for installing the GSM cabling, the Tetra antenna system, which is the emergency telephone system for the emergency services, and the broadcast triax cabling for Dubai TV and Abu Dhabi TV.

It has been a long project for the company, Bond has been on-site for the past three years, and will probably be there for a further six months for testing and commissioning. ‘At our peak we had 330 people on site’, says Mr Goodwin. This was made up of 30 engineers and designers, 50 administration staff, 10 health and safety officers, with the rest being supervisors, technicians, wiring people and sub-contractors.

However, despite its length, ‘It has been a very straightforward project to work on,’ says Mr Goodwin: ‘We organised everything in our workshops and built everything as a template.’ By initially building the systems in its warehouse the company was able to test all the components and ensure the system was functioning correctly before it was installed in the tower. This saved a lot of time and energy for Bond – ‘it’s better to test that something works in our workshop rather than on the 160th floor,’ suggests Mr Goodwin.
The company has invested a lot of time and money in doing the training and templating for the installation. With multiple iterations of the same system going in, it broke down the project into 50 different processes to set up a production line-style build at its workshop. ‘We built everything as a sample and then we did training courses with all the staff, so they did everything the same way each time,’ he says, explaining that this has meant commission time was reduced by about 50 per cent.

A project of this scale is always going to bring up a number of challenges for the installer, and the Burj Khalifa was no different. One of the major challenges was a lack of space in the cores. ‘The cores are small and you only have a certain number of lifts, so trying to get 300 people up a lift with about 10,000 other people was difficult.’ A further challenge came with getting stock on to the site through high levels of security. ‘It was a logistical challenge, we’ve had to work a lot with the main contractor.’

The project was, however, ultimately successful: ‘Every contractor worked together to make sure it went smoothly,’ says Mr Goodwin. ‘That was really down to the twice-weekly meetings we had. On a project this big you need to be always on top of it, and the logistics and co-ordination we had from the main contractor were really good.’

The next stage for Bond is moving into a maintenance period, for which it has an agreement for the next three years. Mr Goodwin believes this was a good project for the company to be involved with, and has ultimately proven to be a great success.

The Burj Khalifa was visualised as a shining beacon of international co-operation and progress, and an emblem of a prosperous and dynamic Middle East. It has certainly achieved these lofty aims and more. It is already an iconic structure and as the various stages open it will continue to make the headlines across the world.

www.bondcommunications.com