Dubai isn’t one to shy away from borrowing architectural designs from around the world. From the Indian and Chinese-themed courts of Ibn Battuta mall to the French and Italian-inspired developments at International City, Dubai’s architecture reflects its multi-cultural background.

Back in the early 1990s a pyramid-shaped hotel was planned to complement Wafi City’s Egyptian-themed mall. Work began on the piling for the structure but was stopped due to the outbreak of the first Gulf War.

But 15 years later, construction work has recommenced on the Wafi site, in the form of Dubai’s first Raffles hotel.
The US $140 million luxury hotel will stand 19 floors high and will just top the 100 m mark. With a total area of 165 000 m2 the structure is designed around three legs, which then go up to form a pyramid.

Construction work began on 1st May 2005 and is scheduled for completion by mid 2007. The hotel is due to open in 3rd. quarter of 2007.

Approximately 18 different consultants are involved in the project: Khansaheb is the main contractor, with the structure being developed by structural engineers RJ Crocker & Partners. Sovis is main quantity surveyor and cost-consultant.
“The two levels of the basement are completed and work is underway to lift the central core, which has just reached the fourth floor,” says Michael Warr, project director at Arif & Bintoak, the project’s lead architects.

The first two levels will have car parking for over 1000 cars and then there will be two floors of retail space. “Wafi’s retail area is currently 46 450 m2; we’re now adding on another 23 225 m2,” says Warr. This will comprise about 90 units, one of which will be an 8360 m2 department store. Two acres of gardens will be located 15 m up, on top of the retail space.
Sixteen floors of hotel space will offer 240 rooms comprising 188 standard rooms (60 m2 each); 46 suites of varying size (110 to 150 m2); four presidential suites (230 m2) and two royal suites of 460 m2.

The type of glass used on the project is thought to be a first for Dubai: graduated fritted glass is being used to try to reduce the heat gain by increasing the reflectivity of the glass.

The project will also use natural materials, including limestone, similar to that which is on the existing Wafi mall. “The stone will be brought in from Egypt where a lot of it will be carved with the hieroglyphics,” says Warr.
Such is the attention to detail that the project even has its
own Egyptologist on board — Dr Mahmoud Mabrook, a senior member of the archaeological museum in Cairo. He is being consulted on the hieroglyphics on the project, which all have an authentic meaning.

In situ concrete beams and columns will be used for all the floor planks and these will all be pre-cast in Dubai. Many of them are being insulated to improve the sound and thermal insulation between the floors, the retail area and the car parking. Unimix and Readymix are supplying the concrete, with Swissboring and Middle East Foundations doing the piling.

The cladding is made up of the fritted glass and limestone. There will be vertical shafts of fritted glass containing two high-speed lifts which go directly from the hotel lobby to the nightclub, without stopping. On the other side there will be two panoramic lifts that will stop at each floor of the hotel.

Another major challenge is building upon a city centre site with no periphery — the site is very compact and there is no spare capacity in terms of operating since it is bordered on all sides by buildings or main roads. As a result, the construction work is being carefully executed in phases.

Services were re-routed well before the construction process began. The services consultant is Hyder, with Cansult as the roads and highways consultant. The excavated material is being taken to another site on the Al Ain Road where it is being used to raise the site level.

With new hotel projects announced on a daily basis, Dubai’s developers have to work hard to make their projects stand out from crowd. A 19-storey pyramid-shaped structure, topped with a 10 m-high gold diamond, is sure to do the trick.