Trump International Hotel &Tower - A Sense of Glass

Trump Tower Dubai, or The Palm Trump International Hotel and Tower, is slated to be the jewel in the crown that is the Palm Golden Mile – a man-made island, located on the trunk of the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai.

This iconic building is the Trump Organization's first project in the Middle East and has been designed by Atkins architects. This tower will also be among Dubai’s greenest constructions.

Standing at a height of 270 metres, this 62-storey skyscraper hosts a luxury hotel, exclusive residential apartments, a three-storey entrance lobby, boutique offices, a swimming pool, restaurants, a dramatic sky lobby suspended high above a beautiful park, a business centre and so on.

With the ‘split-linked’ design, the towers stand on a four-storey bisected podium structure that houses the main car parking facility. At the tips of the two asymmetric elements sit twin sets of glazed, diamond shaped pinnacle structures that embrace the restaurants and sky bars. A spacious triple volume lobby is suspended between both towers above the park. This lobby is encased within a clear, light weight glazed roof, which gives it an exotic look.

Façade

The façade is nothing short of an awe-inspiring marvel in clear and tinted glass, white and silver aluminium panels, coloured granite and marble-faced blade walls and stainless steel. The vertical spacing of the façade will be based on the floor-to-floor height of 3.6m while the horizontal spacing will be based on a combination of the structural grid and the widths of the bedrooms and living areas to achieve a maximum number of vision bays for each room. Balconies have been restricted to the narrow ends of the floor plates only, allowing the external skin on the main façade to remain part of a sleek and smooth, glazed curtain wall.

Residence Collections

There are 3 collections of residences that have been designed in and around the south towers, namely Platinum, Titanium and Pinnacle collections. These residences incorporate ultra-premium kitchens and baths with finest European cabinetry, appliances and fixtures.

Viewing desk and restaurants are situated on the topmost floors of both towers and these will be designed as multi-volume, glazed spaces which will encompass dinning and viewing galleries. This Hotel & Tower will be expected to be completed by the summer of 2011.

“Reflections” – Glass Towers With Green Roofing

Master architect Daniel Libeskind has successfully completed construction of the very first ultra-green tower - “Reflections”, a waterfront habitat at Keppel bay, Singapore. The brilliance of the architecture of Reflections showcases Singapore as the home of world-class seafront residences.

Reflection covers a shoreline space of 750m, giving an unobstructed view to the waterfront, the Keppel club golf course and the lavish surroundings. Reflections is located in the southern bay of Singapore with six glass towers and a 11-villa apartment block which hosts 1,129 luxuries homes. The towers are crowned by lush green sky gardens on the sloping rooflines and are linked by sky bridges, providing pockets of open spaces and platforms with 360-degree views of the spectacular surrounds. The six glass towers range from 24-storey to 41-storey height, whereas the villa apartment blocks range from 6-storey to 8-storey.

Ar. Libeskind uses very different innovative design features for this spectacular residence to give each and every unit a unique shape. The floors of the residence look slanted due to the curved façade but in reality are flat units are with no balconies.

Reflections, with its many green credentials received the Green Mark Gold Award by the Building and Construction Authority in 2008.

Elegant Glazing of Capital Gate Tower

Abu Dhabi will be home to one of the world's great buildings - Capital Gate, an iconic and avant-garde building that blends the beauty of the wave with the power of technical advancement.

Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC) has revealed that glazing work on the iconic Capital Gate Tower, currently under construction next to Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, is almost complete. This “Capital Gate” has been designed by the New York firm RMJM architects.

Capital Gate forms the focal point of Capital Centre, the business and residential micro city being developed by ADNEC around the thriving Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre. When fully complete, Capital Gate will feature the 5-star hotel - 'Hyatt at Capital Centre' besides playing host to some of the most exclusive office space in the UAE capital. The Capital Gate is a 160m-tall leaning tower in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The architecture of the Capital Gate tower is dotted with monster glass panels. Monster glass panels for Abu Dhabi’s 'leaning tower' development have arrived on what the project team claims is the world’s biggest flat bed truck. The panels are for the Capital Gate building, which architect RMJM recently submitted for the Guinness Book of Records as the ‘world’s most inclined building’. It has a tilt of 18 degrees – over four times more than the Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa.

More than 12,500 individually shaped glass panels have been installed on Capital Gate's façade in a complex engineering feat which has taken ADNEC and its construction partners ten months to complete. In an intricate operation, 728custom-made glass panels have been used. Each pane of glass had to be a slightly different shape and fitted at a different angle due to the building's unique lean and its curved profile. The first two glazing panels are weighing approximately 5 tonnes each.

The tower's unique shape and character made the installation of the glazing particularly challenging for our engineers. It is a compliment to all involved that the installation took place during ADNEC's busiest year ever for exhibitions and events; yet, there was no disruption to the visitors or exhibitors.

The glass panes on Capital Gate make up more than 700 larger glass "diamonds," and were manufactured in the United Sates with the steel frames holding the glass precision-cut in Austria before being shipped to the UAE. ADNEC stored the glass panels away from the construction site and delivered them as needed, on enormous flatbed trucks. Once they reached the Capital Gate construction site they were meticulously placed into the correct position by on-site engineers.

The RMJM project team is using the glass to create a new kind of glazing system called ‘Cardinal C240’, which is anti-glare but also highly transparency. The glass used is a highly energy-efficient and low 'e' category glass. This glass has two silver coatings which minimise glare and maximise light transmission. The double glazed façade will allow natural daylight into the building while boosting energy efficiency and shielding users from harmful glare.The use of this advanced variety of glass is a 'first' for the UAE. The 'pressure-plate' system that has been developed for the steel frame which holds each pane in place guarantees the water tightness of the façade and allows thinner panes of glass to be used, thereby reducing the weight of the glazing system.

The lean and curve of the building added considerable complexity to the glazing process. A few glass panes have deliberately been left out to ensure that adequate ventilation exists prior to the installation of the air conditioning.

Due to its unique shape, Capital Gate is being constructed on top of a concrete raft with a dense mesh of reinforced steel. The steel Diagrid sits above an extensive distribution of 490 piles that have been drilled 30m underground to accommodate the gravitational and wind loads. The angles and dimensions of the building facade have been meticulously designed to ensure that each individually shaped panel accurately defines the shape of this magnificent structure.