Dubai has built one of the world's largest retail developments (over 12 million square feet) alongside Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower). Burj Dubai is expected to be the world's tallest building when it is completed for occupation in September 2009.
By 28 May 2008 the building had reached 160 floors (but was up to level 170), 636m (2,087ft) and there will be no more inhabitable floors but there are still four steel framed communications floors to be constructed that could push the height to over 800m. The Burj is currently (June 2008) the world's tallest manmade structure having surpassed the KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota at 628.8m.
The retail mall and the tower are being developed by EMAAR Properties PJSC who have made investments of AED800m and AED3.9bn, respectively, for the two projects.
The Burj Dubai is designed to be at the centre of a large mixed development including 30,000 homes, nine hotels, six acres of parkland, 19 residential towers, and the 12-hectare Burj Dubai Lake. The whole development including the Burj Dubai and the Dubai Mall is expected to finally cost about $8bn.
DUBAI MALL PROJECT
The Dubai Mall project comprises a 12.1-million-square-foot mall (nine million square feet of retail space), and residential and retail facilities. The actual mall will cover the equivalent of 50 international-sized soccer pitches and will be the largest shopping space in the world, larger than any existing malls in the USA.
When completed in 2008 (scheduled to open on 31 August 2008), it is expecting to receive 35 million visitors in the first full year of business, followed by annual increases of 20%–30%.
Known affectionately as 'the Emerald Necklace', the 3km-long Burj Dubai Boulevard (located on the interchange between Sheikh Zayed Road and Doha Road) will incorporate a 73m right of way, three traffic lanes on each side, a landscaped parkway, pavement and plaza. The pedestrian pavement will be lined by date palms and shrubs and will feature outdoor cafes and restaurants. There will also be 14,000 underground car parking spaces, with additional parking above ground.
The Burj Dubai Boulevard pedestrian pavements will open out at intervals in four main piazzas (named Piazza of Water, Wind, Fire and Earth), each one accommodating events and activities to suit the diverse tastes of visitors.
The Boulevard will lead to Tower Park, which surrounds the Dubai Tower. Tower Park will amount to 15ha of land containing water cascades, manicured lawns and exotic plant terraces. The Boulevard will also lead to the Island Park, a 2.6-hectare site laid mainly to lawn where visitors can relax, picnic and participate in outdoor sports.
Resembling an ocean liner from the outside, the interior of the Dubai Mall will accommodate over 1,200 individual shops located in between 10 and 15 distinct 'malls-within-a-mall'. The three-storey glass façade mall will house the world's largest gold market (Souk) with 220 retail stores and will be adjacent to a 12-hectare artificial lake. There will also be two major department stores (one will be a Galeries Lafayette), 150 food and drink outlets and a 440,000ft² fashion island.
"The 3km-long Burj Dubai Boulevard is known affectionately as 'the Emerald Necklace'."
Entertainment will be catered for in the Dubai mall by Kidzania, an 80,000ft² 'edu-tainment' concept and also an 85,000ft² SEGA entertainment complex. In addition there will be a 22-screen Cineplex, an Olympic-size ice rink and a five-Star hotel, The Grove, which will form part of the mall is an indoor-outdoor streetscape with a fully retractable roof.
The main centrepiece, Waterworld, will incorporate a water terrace, fountain oasis, waterfront atrium and an aquarium.
The aquarium will be three storeys tall and feature glass 'walk-through' tunnels that will contain sharks, stingrays, turtles and other exotic marine life.
Construction started in late 2004, for completion in 2008. The mall construction is well underway according to the latest (2006) reports. Dutco Balfour Beatty-Al Ghandi & Consolidated Contractors International Company (DBB / AG & CCC) are the main contractors for the mall development. The architects are DP Architects PTE Ltd. The Civil and Structural Engineer is Meinhardt (Singapore) PTE Ltd. The main roof contractor is Arabian Profile.
DUBAI TOWER
EMAAR Properties contracted architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (Chicago, USA) to design and engineer the Burj Dubai. Located on Sheikh Zayed Road, it will be the centrepiece of the mixed development that will combine residential, commercial, shopping, hotel, entertainment and leisure outlets with open green spaces.
The tower topping-out will occur in late 2008 (communications sections of the tower) and it will be ready for occupation in September 2009. Its final height is being kept a well-guarded secret until completion (but as of May 2008 no more habitable floors were to be added). It is estimated that the height will be 800-810m.
Ground breaking occurred in September 2004 and the Burj Dubai has been under construction properly since 15 April 2005. The total number of habitable floors is 160.
The height to the roof of the final building is 636m while the remaining spire from the 156th floor onward to the top, will be a four-storey steel-frame structure, unlike the lower portion's concrete. Emaar has stated this steel section may be extended to beat any other tower to the title of tallest, however once the tower is complete the height cannot be changed.
Burj Dubai has set a new world record for vertical concrete pumping for a building by pumping to over 460m (1,509ft). The construction has required an estimated 330,000m² of cement, 39,000t of steel rebar and 142,000m² of glass. The foundation slab of the tower is 80,000ft² in size and the piling is over 50m deep.
The tower design is derived from the geometries of an indigenous desert flower (Hymeocallis), as well as incorporating patterns found within Islamic architecture. The design was originally proposed by Skidmore Owings and Merrill for the Grollo Tower in Melbourne, Australia.
Designers shaped the structural concrete Burj Tower – which resembles a fat 'Y' in cross section, with a stepped-back profile – to dramatically reduce forces on the tower, keeping the structure simple.
The tower has 15 tiers or groups of commonly shaped floors over 100 storeys. They are staggered in a spiral stepping pattern as you go up the building. This causes the tower's width to change at each setback – designed to 'confuse the wind', therefore keeping forces weaker. The building will use DOKA formwork systems for its initial structure.
"The Burj Tower design is derived from the geometries of an indigenous desert flower (Hymeocallis)."
INTERIOR DESIGN OF THE BURJ DUBAI
The interior of the tower will be decorated by Giorgio Armani's design team. An Armani Hotel (the first of its kind in the world) will occupy the lower 37 floors.
Floors 45–108 will have 700 private apartments on 64 floors (which, according to the developer are already sold, having been bought within eight hours of going on sale).
The hotel will include exclusive corporate suites, a business centre, four luxurious pools and spas, an observation platform and a 150,000ft² fitness centre.
Corporate offices and suites will fill most of the remaining floors, except for a 123rd-floor lobby and 124th-floor indoor / outdoor observation deck. The spire will also hold communications equipment. An outdoor zero-entry swimming pool will be located on the 78th floor of the tower. The tower will also feature the world's fastest elevator, at 18m a second (40mph).
TOWER CONTRACTORS
Bauer Spezialtiefbau of Germany, along with Middle East Foundations (UAE), was awarded a €14m contract to construct the foundations of the tower. A deadline of mid-July 2004 was set for the foundation and this was completed with little delay.
Samsung Corporation of South Korea along with Besix and Arabtec are the general contractors for the project, with assistance from Grocon of Australia and the project management services of Turner Construction Corporation.
OTIS and Lerch, Bates and Associates Incorporated will provide the elevator engineering, installing double-decker elevators. Otis of the US has been awarded a contract to supply and install up to 54 lifts, while Switzerland's Schmidlin has won a contract for the tower's cladding. Construction subcontractors include Al Naboodah and Laing O'Rourke.
COOLING SYSTEMS AND HVAC
Trane, the air conditioning systems and services business of American Standard Companies, was awarded the supply contract of one of the biggest district cooling networked systems in the world for the whole Burj development. Trane will provide 20 CenTravac centrifugal chillers (four were ready for installation in November 2005 and the remainder were delivered in January 2006).
EMAAR has also instigated an ambitious project to build three district cooling plants (DCP), designed by Allied Consultants, at the Burj Dubai site. These will support a sophisticated system that will offer a total capacity of 145,000t of refrigeration. An estimated 41,000t of air conditioning equipment will be involved in servicing the Burj Dubai tower and The Dubai Mall.
"Eight international chain and boutique hotels will be an integral part of the 500-acre Burj Dubai development."
Due to the height of Burj Dubai, in order to achieve design temperatures at the top of the tower, Allied Consultants decided to use special low-temperature chillers. The ice storage will serve as a back-up cooling system in case of a major failure.
The central cooling plant will use the latest technology, based on low-temperature chillers run on a special glycol solution, to deliver chilled water to the buildings. Emaar District Cooling, a newly established company, will be operating and managing these central plants. The Burj Dubai's water system will supply an average of about 946,000l (250,000gal) of water a day.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
Eight international chain and boutique hotels will be an integral part of the 500-acre Burj Dubai development. These will add over 2,000 rooms to the Dubai hotel industry. Emaar Properties has recently signed an agreement with Southern Sun Hotels, the leading hotel group in the southern hemisphere, to manage and operate two hotels within the prestigious development (these were opened in 2007).
The Business Park at Burj Dubai will consist of a number of commercial towers. Bu Haleeba Contracting and Al Nakhreh Contracting have been awarded two packages for the construction of office towers (each contract is worth AED300m).
The main centrepiece of Dubai Mall, Waterworld, will incorporate a water terrace, fountain oasis, waterfront atrium and an aquarium.
Water Terrace - view from Doha Road.
The aquarium will be three storeys tall and feature glass 'walk-through' tunnels that will contain exotic marine life.
Resembling an ocean liner from the outside, the interior of the Mall will accommodate over 1,000 individual shops.
The Dubai Mall project comprises a 5 million ft² mall, residential and retail facilities.
Location of Dubai Mall in the shadow of Burj Dubai.
Night shot of the outside of the Dubai Mall.
The three-storey glass façade Mall will house the world's largest gold market.
Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) will be the world's tallest building when it is completed in 2009.
The Burj Tower across the ‘World’ development in Dubai.
The top floors are now being added to produce a tower of over 800m.
The development will give Dubai a world-class shopping mall and a superb centrepiece for the city.
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