Tall Buildings in Dubai—Converting Architecture into Reality

In just over two decades, Dubai has transformed from a desert served by a single port to a flourishing metropolis. Dubai alone is the home to 20% of the world’s tallest 50 buildings. This transformation brings new challenges to the city during construction and post completion. The surrounding areas will be affected by these skyscrapers from transportation, traffic constraints, parking, power and water consumption and other factors. The cost of building a skyscraper remains the major obstacle with the need to source out new materials other than steel and concrete. Also, moving people around efficiently in super tall buildings is another challenge for engineers keeping in mind the unique designs that architects are looking after. Once all design aspects are concluded and approved by different stakeholders, it will move on to the next phase which is construction, that is called: Reality. Construction realization is the focus of this paper. It will discuss the actual facts and surprises which will be encountered during the transformation of the design into shop drawings and tangible concrete. A physical case study from a busy district in the city of Dubai is the main focus of this study along with the core challenges and obstacles faced the team during the execution phase. Also, this review will debate couple of design elements that were considered as a design feature then developed to be a real construction challenge. Originality/value: the paper will focus on a case study of a high-end skyscrapers designed and built in the city of Dubai in a dense area and the challenges faced by the team during construction. These challenges are beneficial to understand since they will help architects and designers to take into consideration during their studies.


Introduction
Dubai is located on the Eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, in the south west corner of the Arabian Gulf. Before the oil discovery in Dubai in 1966, the city was fully dependent on trading and its main industry was pearling. The discovery of oil changed everything though, Dubai's reserves were insignificant compared with other emirates, the ruler of Dubai, was determined to turn the city into a trading hub. The first major "free zone" was launched in 1985, and this was a key boost in the economy since foreign companies could operate with almost no taxes or customs. With the accelerated wealth in the city after the year 1998, the government put into effect a plan to turn the city into the world's top tourist destination. The city became well known for its rich culture, diversity, and popularity. With thriving business community, luxurious hotels, sophisticated infrastructure, Dubai managed to be a very attractive city to tourists and businessmen receiving millions of leisure and business visitors each year (Dubai tourism authority). Today its economy is diversified to trade, manufacturing, leisure and entertainment. By introducing free trade policies this has distinguished it from the other emirates within the UAE, making it a special economic area similar to Singapore and Hong Kong (Importing urban giants: Re-imaging shanghai and Dubai with skyscrapers, 2013). Today the city of Dubai is considered a wealthy city and most modern anywhere, boasting the highest skyline in the Middle East including the tallest tower in the world (Burj Khalifa) and two of the tallest hotels in the world. It attracts a booming tourist business, drawn in part by major sporting events including horse races, boat races, tennis matches, and air shows. It is also considered as a major shopping destination and an international city. Dubai has emphasized on the creation of a world class city comprising skyscrapers, shopping malls, hotels, leisure and entertainment which will evolve around the city's vision to be an attraction and a tourist destination. The city has expanded within a decade to an enormous scale in order to cope up with the real-estate boom which took place between 2002 and 2009, however, due to this growth and expansion, many fundamental infrastructure networks were running behind, especially the transportation system. Many large developments were left out without basic transportation network only depending on private cars and taxis. The government of Dubai has realized this issue and started addressing it by creating several projects such as Dubai metro, Dubai Tram and other roads and bridges around those developments (Jacobs, 2018).

Background
The term "skyscraper" was first used in 1885 to describe the 55-meter high Home Insurance Building in Chicago (Binder, n.d.). The history of skyscrapers and tall buildings in Dubai began with the construction of Dubai World Trade Centre in 1979 comprising of 39 floors and 149m tall, which was considered as the first high-rise building in the city. At the time of its completion, it also stood as the tallest building in the Middle East until the completion of the Burj Al Arab 20 years later (Binder, n.d.).
Dubai World Trade Center Tower, is a symbol of prosperity ( Figure 1) and it represents the start of a new era in the past decades and was a turning point for Dubai, a city that, back then, did not have any www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/uspa Urban Studies and Public Administration Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 101 Published by SCHOLINK INC. significant high-rise buildings. The Dubai world center means a point of no return in the way of the small fishing settlement that dreamed of being a macro-metropolis (Xixerone, Asia, Dubai, Middle East, 2015) (Figure 2).

Figure 3. Burj Al Arab Luxury Hotel
Following the year 1999, and the construction of Burj Al Arab, the city realized its strength, fortune and ability to accept the challenge of constructing towers and skyscrapers all over the city. As of 2015, the skyline of Dubai is ranked sixth in the world with 48 buildings rising at least 100m in height and ranked the 4th globally in terms of skyscrapers with 95 towers reaching 200m or greater in height by the 2017 (Binder, n.d.).  (Binder, n.d.).  These buildings and skyscrapers are distributed along the city of Dubai, however, majority of them are buildings were constructed in that area which is considered a construction phenomenon by itself. The construction methodology and techniques which were used to complete these buildings are considered top-notch and a civil engineering achievement. Majority of the towers are between 250-300m with few between 300m-400m.

Dubai Marina
Dubai Marina ( Figure 5) is built along a 3 km stretch of an artificial canal; it has a population of 45,395.

Figure 6. Jumeirah Lake Towers
The other major development with multiple towers is Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT) ( Figure 6) consists of 80 towers being constructed along the edges of three artificial lakes. The total area covered by the lakes, waterways and landscaping is approx.730,000 m2. The towers range between 35 floors to 45, except for the centerpiece which is 66 floors (Xixerone, Asia, Dubai, Middle East, 2015).

Jumeirah Beach Residence
Another great development in the same area is the Jumeirah Beach Residence known as (

Municipalities, Authorities and Design Guidelines
Dubai municipality is officially the main authority that is supposed to govern all urban development related aspects of the city. However, many authorities, such as JAFZA (Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority),

Project Description and Design Discussion
The project has been designed in an exclusive technique in order to maximize the sea views. The core is facing the street allowing enough elevators to provide exclusivity to residence and guests. A huge steel structure has been added to the street façade to cover the core and to give the project a unique design. The rear façade facing the sea is a full curtain wall of aluminum cladding and wide glazing with 3m cantilevered balconies capitalizing on the fabulous sea view. Penthouses have been introduced at the higher levels with exclusive lifts and dedicated car parking. The building has been elevated above the ground to provide a drop off area with a large glass atrium covered with a 12m cantilever of steel structure which is part of the façade design. From a discussion point of view, and to support the originality of this paper, the design did not consider many construction aspects which might be challenging from constructability aspect and this will encounter additional cost and time to the development.

Project Challenges
During the design stage, architects focus on geometry, function and other design aspects leaving the construction challenges to the site team. In other words, some design elements may look appealing on drawings but yet very challenging and costly to build. Furthermore, designers should take in to account the project location and surrounding restrictions in their design criteria which may have major impact during construction phase.
Below is a list of major challenges faced by the team during the construction phase which were not considered during design phase:

Site Analysis
The first step into such development is understanding the site location ( Figure 13) and context, entrances and egresses, day light orientation and views. The site is located in a very busy area with high volume of cars since it is tourist attraction. Also, on both sides of the plot falls 2 hotels served by one-way road ( Figure 14). This has made the delivery of construction material very difficult due to restricted vehicle size allowance as well as the availability of laydown and storage area. On the other hand, working hours were limited as well to avoid disturbance of hotels on both sides.

Infrastructure and Utility Requirements
The second challenge encountered was the availability of infrastructure services demands. This plot is considered the last undeveloped plot in the area with an original classification of Ground floor +1 allocated for a club house.

Figure 15. Surrounding Roads
So, this means that the services tapped to the plot limit will not cover the full demand required for a skyscraper. Several design workshops took place with authorities and service providers in order to secure services demands ( Figure 15). This required additional investment in building new electrical substation and larger chilled water pipes to secure the required demands.

Vertical Transportation
The project is designed as B+G+P+47+R with 164 high-end apartments. The developer requirements were to provide exclusivity and luxury in the project. A comprehensive vertical transportation study was carried out to fulfill the design brief requirements. The recommendation was to provide 11 lifts as follows: 8 lifts, 1 service lift and 2 express and exclusive lifts all the way to the penthouses at level 46. The production program was a crucial element in the project where it was essential to operate the first 2 lifts within one year of the construction to be used for labor and material movement. Any delay in this delivery will have major impact on the finishes schedule due to delay in shifting of materials. The challenge here was to conclude all design requirements of the elevator to allow early order of the lifts.
Several design workshops were carried out at the early stage of the project in order to finalize the lift details including the cabin designs and finishes, lift buttons, final internal dimension and of course the commercial proposal. As clearly shown in Figure 16, the core and elevators consumed the majority of the core.

Fire and Life Safety
This is one of the most vital fundamentals in designing any skyscraper. With the involvement of specialized fire, life and safety specialists, the project was studied carefully from all aspect covering the curtain wall detailing, fire stoppers on each floor, special details between the apartments, fire escape route, fire pumps were installed at the basement and at the service floors (level 13 and 31) to cover the complete building. The design had to run multiple simulations to be compliant with the civil defense authority requirements. This is a big challenge for designers where buildings have to be fully compliant with the international codes. Also, the execution of such detailing has to be fully inspected at site by attested engineers.

Views and Lifestyle
Another challenge for the architect in such projects is to fully maximize the views especially in such iconic location yet feasible. The plot has a full sea view where the design was based on a single loaded corridor, all the services and main core was viewing the street and the apartments have full sea view.
The challenge here was structural complexity. Figure 17 highlights the main views overlooking the sea.

Site Mobilization and Storage Areas
This is the first challenge faced by the contractor when taking over the site. As shown in Figure 18, the plot was so limited where the basement is built on the full land this means the plot is completely occupied. On the other hand, the plot has one access on the road and surrounded from both sides with developments. The solution was to divide the project into zones where the contractor can utilize the first part as a storage area and laydown area. Figures 18 and 19 highlights zones 3 and 4 c which were kept on hold to be used as project access. Such challenge usually is not considered during the design and is captured at site.

Conclusion
The literate review discussed in details some examples of factual challenges were faced during transforming the design drawings into shop drawings then to reality. Contractors and builders need to wear the designer hat in order to understand certain details. Also, the architect needs to visit the site regularly to make sure his details are well understood and executed.

Recommendation
Skyscrapers design is a challenging task to the architect from all aspects. The designer must integrate all engineering disciplines into the design to confirm the outcome is a livable, functional, feasible and on top of that great architecture. Utilities demand, location and access are major factors that should be taken into account during the design process. Once the project moves to execution phase, different type of challenges will be encountered by the team. The surrounding of a skyscraper plays a main role in defining the challenges and risks. Designers need to understand the location and site during the design stage. Also, it is recommended to conduct several discussions with contractors to integrate their comments in the design. Some design and architectural elements introduced in the design may have great cost or time impact during execution. Such elements may require extensive detailing or even redesign to come across unnecessary complication.