Adrian Smith

Adrain Smith is an architect born in Chicago, Illinois that moved to California and soon after attended Texas A&M. Adrian worked with the architecture company Skidmore, Owings, and Merril. Adrian designed many great buildings. Smith has designed 3 of the world's tallest towers. Two of which are the Burj Dubai (Infinity Tower) in Dubai, and The Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, China.

The Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai Tower is currently the fifth tallest tower in world. The building construction bagan in 1994 and was completed in 1998. The building contains 88 stories and is 1380 feet tall. The top 38 floors of the building works as a hotel (The Grand Hyatt Hotel) and the lower 50 stories is office area. The hotel rooms are the second highest hotel rooms in the world. Like the Petronas Twin Towers the buildings proportions revolve around the number eight. a number associated with prosperity in Chinese culture.

The Burj Dubai also known as the Infinity Tower is currently the tallest building in the world. The construction of the tower was put on hold because of Dubai's worsening economy and instead of being completed in 2008 it was completed in 2010. The building is located in Dubai and is 2717 feet tall. The Burj dubai passing the second highest building the Taipei 101 by over 1670 feet, and is almost twice the size of the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois. Adrian Smith got his inspiration for this building from Frank Lloyd Wright's "The Illinois" a mile high office building that was never built, and the flower called the Hymenocallis. The building is gigantic compared to any other building in the world, and is also eco-friendly. Dubai's climate is very humid and hot so when it comes in contact with the cool building it condenses into water. That water is collected and supplies 15 million gallons of supplemental water per year. Because of the buildings monstrous size a new kind of structural system is required. The engineer Bill Baker created the Buttress Core Structural System, which is a hexagonal core reinforced by three buttresses that form a "Y" shape. This system allows the building to support itself laterally and keeps it from twisting. On the opening ceremony 10,000 fireworks were used along with pyrotechnics, water, light, and sound performances.