To meet a Dubai owner's quest for height, Bill Baker, partner at Chicago-based architect-engineer Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, pushed into unknown territory with a structural system that will let the Burj Dubai pass the current world's tallest building next summer and eventually rise another 200 meters or more.

Michael Goodman The Burj Dubai

The final height has been shrouded in secrecy, with speculation putting it as high as 800 m but the developer confirming only 700 plus. Baker's structural team and its wind tunnel consultants at Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc. took wind engineering to new heights, virtually designing the tower inside the wind tunnel and letting the results help shape the building. The design uses the progressive setbacks of three symmetrical wings at 27 different levels that rise in a helix to "confuse" the wind and avoid resonant vibrations from vortex shedding. It also harnesses essentially every piece of vertical concrete in the largely residential tower into the lateral system.