Dubai’s incredible sand palm tree is well worth a modern residential and hotel building, and this one well deserves the best of Spanish cuisine.
If there is a sector that, in my humble opinion, can unseat architecture as the most influential in our lives, this is, without a doubt, gastronomic. Now, their realities are so disparate that it can be said that they complement each other perfectly. And this may not only be my thinking. Since most of the complexes that are being executed in the world today revolve around these two wonderful axes, as we have seen on occasion.
Of course, when you have the obligation to dazzle the world with a new feat of architecture, you must reserve an important space for restoration. And, if possible, at the level you intend to give your building. In Dubai, where glare is just another subject, they have built a new icon, right on a sand palm tree that can be seen from space. A new construction that is perhaps the most modern and daring residential and hotel building. Is there a bigger prize? Yes, having the chef and philanthropist José Andrés, perhaps the most popular and beloved Spanish chef in the world.
Royal Atlantis Dubai the new jewel of the United Arab Emirates
For the powerful Kerzner International it was not enough to have the iconic Atlantis The Palm, a hotel that you have surely glimpsed visiting in your moments of better humor, if you have not already done so. It is an imposing building at the end of the artificial sand palm that the Emirates imposed on the Persian Gulf, called the Palm Jumeirah. So, neither short nor lazy, they looked for a new area in the palm tree where to create another icon. One more modern and daring than the aforementioned and more in line with new needs and predilections.
They obviously found it, and hired leading international architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. It is one of those studios that work around the world, with offices in emblematic places, and that manage to create some of the most current and advanced buildings. This time the order was clear: a new unprecedented space has to be built, to raise the user experience, at the same time as environmental and energy demands are raised.
Two impressive towers, linked by a suspension bridge
The result is about to see the light, since its structure is already finished and its interior is quite advanced. The building will be called Royal Atlantis Dubai, it will have about 193,600 square meters built, housing 795 hotel rooms and 231 exclusive residences. Be careful, the most important thing about the building is not its totally generous and volumetric shape, protected by an effective design that is based on the division by modules of the rooms of the building, distancing them and creating a kind of three-dimensional spatial frame.
The genius is not that one building has been started to generate two. On the one hand, the 43-storey west tower, with a height of 193 meters, where the hotel is located. On the other, the 38-story east tower, which will house the apartments. Nor that the towers have been distanced by about 600 meters, creating between them a bridge 80 meters long, with three floors, intended for entertainment and fun, and a mega luxury apartment. No, it goes.
Royal Atlantis Dubai, an architectural genius
It is not the only genius to have placed an infinity pool on this bridge. We have seen this in some other impressive complexes, although it does not detract from its merits, especially when this pool is joined by restaurants and spaces for events. Nor is it something strictly meritorious to have dissected the building volumes, separating them to create terraces between them. Spaces for the private use of hotel or apartment users.
But the creators of this sand palm tree not only wanted to provide terraces to the buildings, but also prepared them to locate generous gardens where palm trees and other species had room to give freshness and color to the desert. In addition, in a show of mercilessness with the builders, they have a linear building, but rather designed a curved building, with its convex part and its concave part, in such a way that from the air it simulates a wave, and from the sea it is not visible. he knows if he is going or coming. Like the Galicians, you already know.
The genius of this impressive sand palm tree
To reach the different levels and sections, six main nuclei have been arranged in which there are stairs, elevators, facility entrances and main ducts, etc. Between each one there is a distance between 25 and 30 meters. And from them to the ends, 1.5 meter high beams join and support the entire complex. None of this is in itself great. Not even the fact that the building’s windows were deeply recessed into stone frames, to guarantee their shade in the most difficult hours, and to allow an extra transparent and low reflectivity glass, a rarity in Dubai.
It is no genius to have included large conference rooms in the design, to have created a heart-stopping lobby between the two towers, just below the main airlift called the Arch of Atlantis. Nor have they had professionals from different branches, such as the architects Dynamic Engineering Consultants, the aquatic engineers of WET or the interior design companies GA Design and SM Design (Sybille de Margerie).
The Royal Atlantis Dubai will house a hotel and several luxury residences
Actually, the genius is not having watered green areas around the building. Neither have access to the nearby artificial beaches, nor have 17 bars and restaurants spread throughout the complex, one of them from our José Andrés. Not that the lobby has one of the largest jellyfish tanks in the world, not the fact that guests will have access to one of the largest water parks in the world, Aquaventure, still under construction. Nor does the design of the complex allow passive ventilation, thanks to the increase in facades and their contact with the air from the coast, and the increase in shaded areas.
The genius is the confluence of everything described and, above all, the daring of creating an architectural spectacle of this level. By the way, if you intend to buy in this amazing sand palm tree, you should know that the prices of the apartments range from 1.6 to 8.6 million euros. But the Skycourts or duplexes of the building with four rooms, a private garden and a glass swimming pool, are sure to achieve something more of value. Wonderful building.