Some may have considered Ahmad Abdelrazaq's late 2004 move from architect-engineer Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to contractor Samsung Corp. a missed opportunity. SOM had just issued the foundation package for the supertall Burj Dubai-and Ab-delrazaq had been working on the design for a year. Why give up the chance to help engineer what was touted as being the world's tallest building? Perhaps because Samsung finally made Abdelrazaq an offer he could not refuse; to lead the Seoul-based contractor's high-rise building and structural engineering group. "I had helped them expedite construction, through design, on a 93-story Seoul project, which went up very fast," he says. Abdelrazaq moved to Seoul not knowing he would end up working on the Burj Dubai from the other side of the fence. "I joined Samsung, and then we started bidding the but]," says the engineer. Samsung, which also built one of the 452-m-tall Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, won the Dubai job on technical merit, say sources. It is not a surprise, considering the input of a 17-year veteran of SOM's Chicago office. "The client knew me, the designer knew me, and Samsung knew me," he says.
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