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A new academic center will transform the skyline of the UAE’s third-largest city thanks to a partnership between a renowned architect and an ascendent academic institution dedicated to the study of Africa in the Arab world. © Adjaye Associates Adjaye Associates has released its designs for... View full entry
With temperatures in Dubai regularly surpassing 115 degrees Fahrenheit, the government has decided to take control of the scorching weather. Scientists in the United Arab Emirates are making it rain — artificially — using electrical charges from drones to manipulate the weather and force rainfall across the desert nation. Meteorological officials released video footage this week showing a downpour over Ras al Khaimah, as well as several other regions. — CBS News
View this post on Instagram A post shared by المركز الوطني للأرصاد (@officialuaeweather) Called cloud seeding, this is a weather-modification technique that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds by artificially adding substances, called... View full entry
Dubai largest listed developer Emaar Properties has halted new building work after a construction boom in recent years led to oversupply in the Gulf city, its chairman said on Monday.
Dubai’s real estate market, where supply has outstripped demand for much of the past decade, has come under additional pressure this year from the coronavirus crisis.
— Reuters
"We as a group have stopped supply," said Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman of Dubai's largest developer Emaar Properties, after denying similar claims back in April. The suspension includes work on the new Dubai Creek Harbour mega-development and its centerpiece, the Santiago Calatrava-designed Dubai... View full entry
It's official: Expo 2020 Dubai will be postponed by one year. After the UAE government asked for a delay last month, a majority of the Bureau International des Expositions member states now voted in favor of the proposal, officially confirming the new start date of October 1, 2021 and end date of... View full entry
Zaha Hadid Architects just released spectacular photographs of the new ME Dubai hotel at the Opus, a high-rise steel and glass cube the studio designed with a dramatic 8-story void seemingly punched right through it. The building, centrally located in the Burj Khalifa district near Downtown Dubai... View full entry
The UAE has officially proposed that the World Expo 2020 Dubai be moved. They have put forward a potential start date of October 1, 2021, in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
The request was made in a letter addressed to Dimitri S. Kerkentzes, secretary general of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE).
— Esquire Middle East
After hinting at a potential one-year delay of the Expo 2020 Dubai last week in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the UAE government has now reportedly proposed the new start date of October 1, 2021 and end date of March 31, 2022. The Bureau International des Expositions confirmed that it... View full entry
Abu Dhabi is claiming the title of the world's largest single-site solar project, having hit the go-button on the Noor Abu Dhabi project this week, with a reported capacity of 1.177 gigawatts, eclipsing Dubai's Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park – for now at least. The United Arab Emirates doesn't have a great record when it comes to per-capita carbon footprint, but projects like this show that it's serious about addressing the issue head-on. — New Atlas
"According to the Abu Dhabi media office, the project has sufficient capacity to supply 90,000 people and is expected to reduce Abu Dhabi's CO2 emissions by one million metric tons, or the equivalent of removing 200,000 cars from the road," reports New Atlas. View full entry
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is a project earmarked for the capital’s Saadiyat Island.
The museum is being developed near the completed Louvre Abu Dhabi, as part of the emirate’s increased tourism marketing spend by $136 million over three years.
The experimental, sculptural Guggenheim building, is the design of famed architect Frank Gehry.
— Euronews
"It's a big building, parts of it are quite complex and it should take a little bit of time to put together as it's also quite large," Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum, explains in a recent Euronews interview, assuring that the Frank Gehry-designed... View full entry
Across Dubai myriad construction projects are underway in the lead up to World Expo 2020. But it turns out there's always room for one more. State-owned investment firm Dubai Holding has released details of a huge post-expo construction mega-project, which will include a 1,804 feet (550-meter) high tower -- taller than One World Trade Center in New York.
The tower, called Burj Jumeira, is situated in the Al Sufouh area of Dubai close to the Burj Al Arab.
— CNN
Image: Dubai HoldingIt's been a few weeks since the last announcement of another megaproject in Dubai, so here's finally a new one: Burj Jumeira is envisioned to become an oval-shaped, 1,804 ft/550 m supertall skyscraper with a flamboyant facade that is covered in a digital display, enabling it to... View full entry
Back in March, Zaha Hadid Architects emerged victorious in the competition to design the new Aljada Central Hub in Sharjah, UAE. Today, the firm announced that phase one of the $6.5 billion development is scheduled to be complete in the first quarter of 2019. Rendering: Cosmoscube.Rendering... View full entry
Sharjah is looking to transform the discussion around urban life with its new initiative, the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, which has announced the curator for its inaugural exhibition.
Adrian Lahoud, dean of the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art in London and a researcher on Arab cities, will curate the new initiative’s flagship event, to be held in November 2019.
— The National
Research work of RCA Architecture Dean Adrian Lahoud focuses primarily on urban spatial forms and large scale environmental change, particularly in the Arab world and Africa, making him a qualified candidate to establish this new triennial program for Sharjah, Dubai's neighbor and third largest... View full entry
But the building has proven controversial for other reasons. The 50-storey portal may be the tallest picture frame in the world, but its architect wants to add another title to the stats: for him, it is the biggest stolen building of all time.
“They took my project, changed the design and built it without me,” says Fernando Donis, the Mexican architect whose frame proposal won an international competition in 2008 for a “tall emblem structure to promote the new face of Dubai”.
— The Guardian
The controversial Dubai Frame opened to the public yesterday, finally offering tourists a 360-degree view of the city. While construction only began in 2013, the new 150 meter landmark has been a decade in the making, blighted by controversy surrounding its stolen design. Beginning with a... View full entry
MVRDV will be making their mark in the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi with a new project called “Pixel”. The mixed-use project will be part of the 18-hectare Makers District development near the Saadiyat Island cultural hub. The 76,000 m2 Pixel development will have seven mid-rise... View full entry
The Mars Science City structure will be the most sophisticated building the world, and will incorporate a realistic simulation environment replicating the conditions on the surface of Mars.
A team of Emirati scientists, engineers and designers, led by a team from the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre and Dubai Municipality, will carry out the project, in cooperation with internationally renowned architects Bjarke Ingels.
— Al Arabiya
The United Arab Emirates is set to begin work on a $136M project to build a city stimulating conditions of life on Mars. The project is a part of the country's Mars by 2117 strategy, launched earlier this year by HH Sheikh Mohammed, in which the Gulf state seeks to lead the global scientific race... View full entry
The French architect Jean Nouvel has defended his Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi, a massive domed complex that opens in November, from accusations it was built by exploited and abused migrant workers. [...]
In an interview as the finishing touches are put to the colossal construction, the architect dismissed accusations over exploited workers as an “old question” and insisted conditions for those building the museum were better than for some employed in Europe.
— The Guardian
"A 2015 a Human Rights Watch report," The Guardian explains, "suggested migrants working on the Louvre museum and neighbouring Guggenheim, part of a £18bn 'cultural hub' on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, were subjected to conditions amounting to forced labour including summary arrest and... View full entry
