An unusual and striking icon located in Dubai’s prime business district
Work has recently commenced on the construction of the Iris Bay, a 170m high, 32- story commercial tower situated on the Sheikh Zayed Road at the south west corner of Dubai’s prestigious Business Bay. The innovative Atkins design commissioned by developer Sheth Estate International Ltd is in the form of an ovoid and adds yet a further dimension to the distinctive urban development taking place in this burgeoning CBD. The design comprises two identical double curved pixelated shells which are rotated and cantilevered over the podium. The rear elevation is a continuous vertical curve punctuated by balconies while the front elevation is made up of seven zones of rotated glass. The tower, which will incorporate both passive and active environmental features, sits on a four-story perforated podium that floats over a double height arcade and houses retail and commercial space totaling 36,000 m2.
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About Global Dubai
More than just a spectacle, Dubai is positioning itself to become one of the world’s preeminent cultural and economic capitals.
The megacity of Dubai, one of the seven federal states of the United Arab Emirates, will be the new economic and cultural capital of the world, spanning its neighboring emirates of Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and beyond in one urbanized mass, rich in the biggest source of renewable energy—sunlight—a pioneer in sustainability and new technology, and conveniently located within easy travel distance of a population of more than two billion in the Middle East, Europe, India, and Africa. In the six years since the Twin Towers fell, a thousand skyscrapers have been rising on the Arabian Gulf.
But for the real substance behind the city you have to look beyond the spectacle of its thousand skyscrapers, malls, resorts, islands, and theme parks to the scale of its land-use patterns as manifested in the hundred or so individually master-planned residential, commercial, financial, and industrial districts.
The more than $310 billion in total construction under way or planned over the next decade includes not just mountains of curtain-walled skyscrapers and the over-the-top theme parks that have become patented clichés of Delirious Dubai, but a financial center, an academic hub, an information-technology center, a free media zone, and a minicity devoted to the worldwide distribution of humanitarian aid, as well as environmentally friendly projects such as self-powered buildings, a solar water-desalinization plant, a subway, and a light-rail system. The tourist spectacles are great publicity and a growing part of the economy, but they’re mainly distractions from the serious business happening here. The doubling in size of Jebel Ali port, the building of a new international airport, and the launch of the Dubai stock market two years ago are more telling signs of Dubai’slong-term goal of positioning itself as the central economic hub between London and Singapore.
By: Stephen Zacks. Read the Full Story Here
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