Dubai: Innovative buildings in the city of the future
Dubai architects Wael Al Awar and Kenichi Teramoto have developed a cement inspired by the UAE's salt flats (pictured) and made from salt minerals found in desalination brine. Dubai has become a hotbed of architectural innovation. Swipe through to discover more.
Courtesy of National Pavilion UAE La Biennale Di Venezia/waiwai
3D printed Dubai Municipality building —
Claiming to be the largest 3D printed building in the world, this two-story commission from the Dubai Municipality is 9.5 meters high with an area of 640 square meters. Completed in late 2019, with walls created by US-based Apis Cor, the building was formed using a mobile 3D printer and designed to withstand harsh climactic conditions.
Apis Cor
Wasl Tower —
The Wasl Tower skyscraper will feature a twisting design finished with a ceramic facade. Already under construction, the $400 million building will use clay-based material, overlaid with fin-shaped tiles, to provide shade from the fierce Dubai heat and deflect light into the interiors.
Methanoia and Plompmozes
O-14 —
The O-14 commercial tower has a perforated concrete shell which protects the inside from lateral forces, allowing interiors to be largely column-free. Completed in 2009, a meter-wide gap between the shell and interior acts like a chimney, causing air to rise up and out while cooling window surfaces.
Kuni Takahashi/Getty Images Europe/Getty Images
Netherlands Pavilion, Expo 2020 —
The Netherlands Pavilion at the upcoming Dubai Expo will feature a "biotope," or self-contained natural environment. Designed by V8 Architects, it will use solar power to condense air moisture for water, while a cone in the center will grow vegetables on the outside -- generating oxygen -- and mushrooms on the inside, producing carbon dioxide for the vegetables.
V8 Architects
The Museum Of The Future —
Dubai's Museum Of The Future, pictured under construction on October 2, 2019. The museum features a void in the center of its torus shape -- symbolic of "what is not yet known," according to its architects, Killa Design. They used computer-controlled machining tools to cut more than 1,000 molds that support the fiberglass and stainless steel system on the facade.
KARIM SAHIB/AFP/AFP via Getty Images
The Index —
The 326-meter high Index Tower in Dubai's financial center stands at a different angle to the rest of the buildings around it, partly to reduce the amount of heat it absorbs from the sun, say architects Foster + Partners. On the south side, shades were installed to shelter the interiors from the sun's heat and reduce the need for mechanical cooling systems.
Nigel Young/Foster + Partners
Dubai Opera —
Paying homage to the region's seafaring history, the Dubai Opera was designed in the shape of a dhow, a traditional wooden vessel. In fact, the design is like a dhow within a dhow, with a large public area surrounding the inner auditorium, which can be configured as a theater, a concert hall or flat-floored exhibition space.
Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images
The Burj Khalifa —
The Burj Khalifa has been the world's tallest building for over a decade now. A number of innovations were used in its construction, including a concrete mix that could be pumped 2,000 feet up to set on higher floors.
istockphoto
Ocean Height Tower —
Ocean Height Tower in the Dubai Marina was the tallest twisting skyscraper in the world when it opened in 2010. Designed by architects Aedas, with 83 floors reaching a height of 310 meters, it incorporated new engineering technologies that have since become more commonplace. Today it has been surpassed by the 632 meter Shanghai Tower.
designed by Andrew Bromberg at Aedas
The Cayan Tower —
The Cayan Tower, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, is also in Dubai Marina. This twisting tower was a mere four meters shorter than Ocean Height Tower when it opened in 2013.
