Fantasy island

The project took five years to complete and employed over 300 companies and 250 designers. It finally opened its doors on 1 December 1999.

About halfway through the 15 km journey south from Dubai city centre to the resort, the hotel suddenly bursts onto the horizon, dominating the skyline long before it is reached. The splendour of the Burj Al Arab contrasts strongly with the low-level concrete buildings that surround it.

From a distance the building looks big. But the bulk created by its billowing sail-shaped facade belies its true scale. Officially billed as the world's tallest hotel (beating its nearest rival by one metre) 321 m of structured concrete and metal stand proudly atop a man-made island 290 m into the Arabian Gulf.

Steel cladding panels on the outside of the building are 1·5 m wide by 3 m tall and the double-skinned Teflon-coated woven glass fibre fabric which makes up the front of the building stretches to 54 m x 180 m.

A single, snaking bridge is it's only connection to land and the remainder of the resort. Through the undercarriage of this slender bridge all building services are provided to the hotel. No back door was allowed for deliveries or to hide equipment, so everything must enter via this route. The main source of floodlighting for the tower is also provided from here¹. "It took a lot longer to work out the services in the belly of the bridge than to lay out the bridge itself, " stated W S Atkins project architect Paul Roberts.

During construction the bridge changed from straight to curved to accommodate a larger beach and the water park. Piles put in then had to be removed when it changed to its final shape. This shape determined the depth of the structure, "becoming instantly thin to contrast with the Tower", explains Roberts.

Inside the building, features range from elaborate gold and Austrian crystal chandeliers to delicate mosaic patterns. With around 8000 m² of 22-carat gold leaf and gold paint, at £35/ounce, this hotel is not exactly catering for your average tourist.

Building a monument

The design and construction management of the entire resort fell to British consultants, W S Atkins, the company having won the contract by competition. Construction management was chosen for cost control and speed of building.

The initial brief was for a holiday resort which would "make a statement" and provide Dubai with a world-recognised icon. W S Atkins' architects, in their search for heritage on which to base the resort, opted for a "marine theme without the portholes".

The scale of the project necessitated the breakdown of work into smaller, individual procurement packages, with each being tendered separately. Design work started on-site on 2 January 1994, the contract having been won the previous November. The first piling began for the Jumeirah Beach resort in late 1994, and by the middle of the following year floors were being completed at a rate of one per week.

The legal system in Dubai dictates that no project can be carried out by an entirely foreign conglomerate, and requires that all contractors have a local company as a partner or sponsor. A form of partnering was therefore used throughout some areas of the project, and with some success, according to the engineers.

The scheme has generally been completed to British Standards, with National Engineering Specification used for the mechanical services. The fire protection sprinklers in the Burj Al Arab were designed to NFPA Codes as these were considered to be more appropriate.

Working with the elements

The intense heat and humidity in Dubai was a major challenge for the British engineers. Working in safety boots and helmet was said, unsurprisingly, to be difficult in a region where summer temperatures sit at around 45°C.

The conditions also had an effect on building materials. The concrete was "significantly different" from that used in the UK and had to be constantly sprayed while curing to prevent it from setting too quickly.

Services plant will be affected by the high saline and humidity content of the air – life expectancies are likely to be reduced and maintenance levels will be higher than usual. Wind-blown sand is one of the biggest problems, contaminating air handling unit filters and chillers, the latter being pressure-washed every three months to remove the sand.

Corrosion is also "a big problem" said project engineer Steve Phillips. "From external light fittings where paint just peels off, to corrosion of stainless steel. People are surprised to see how much work is needed to keep [the stainless steel] clear and well maintained." This maintenance is down to the management group, Jumeirah International, who will run the resort. W S Atkins will vacate the site at the end of the one year defects liability period in September.

With the steel joints of the building 'frame', measurements of adjoining parts had to be taken at the same time in order to account for differences in size caused by the heat.

Everything about the structure seems oversized when compared to an average UK building. Each suite is a two-storey affair larger than most dwellings – these reach a building depth of 14 m. The main pea-pod shaped trusses which stretch diagonally up the two sides of the building, seem to hold the structure effortlessly. And so they should. Each one of these is 85·6 m long, weighs 120 tonnes, and is held by a 350 mm diameter steel pin at either end. They were also transported as complete pieces by road.

This is one area where constructing in Dubai certainly had an advantage over, say, London. As the resort lies out of the city centre, the engineers were able to close a six-lane main road for an entire day. The trusses were then transported to site on extended 80-wheel flatbed lorries specially imported from South Africa.

One slight quirk to the construction process came from the labour. The majority of the site workers were Pakistani and Indian, nations that are well represented in Dubai generally. They are also very religious nations and the Muslim faction among the workforce was high. Irrelevant one may think? Not when there are deadlines to keep and the workers down tools five times a day for prayers.

Servicing a giant

When construction began on-site, servicing also began, literally from scratch. In Dubai, the norm has been to build first, service later; hence many buildings are serviced by septic tanks and small generators. Some don't even have roads to them until long after they are complete.

The fact that the resort would lie in an area of low development played a big role; there was no substation large enough to provide the 60 MW connected load required, and the municipal council baulked at handling the wastewater in the existing sewerage system. There was a plan to extend the city's drainage system to the area, but to account for the resort, the local council accelerated its plans by over four years – this pipework was then laid in around ten months.

Initial ideas for central services included storing plant underground in front of the Jumeirah Beach hotel, putting water-cooled chillers in the basement of the Burj Al Arab and using seawater for cooling. These were all rejected in favour of storing essential plant for the entire resort together on an area opposite the main site which was intended for staff accommodation.

Rows of chillers tail off into the distance in this central plant area. 32 McQuay air-cooled chillers to be exact, with an installed capacity of 30 MW; the total demand for the resort is around 27 MW.

The bulk of the heat for the resort is provided by heat recovery from the chillers, standby electric heating being used as top-up only when required, but that "hardly ever comes on", according to Phillips. The summer heating demand for dehumidification is larger than the winter heating demand for the hotels, so supply and demand patterns fit neatly, most heat being generated by the chillers in the summer.

Electricity supplies are provided via a 100 MW, 132 000 V sub-station, built by the local electricity company in line with the scheme programme and to serve future developments in the area. This supplies 18 hv sub-stations around the complex, including switchgear to link in two 1·8 MW standby generators located in the central plant area. The generators supply emergency power at 11 kV to both hotels; the Burj Al Arab also has a 380 V generator for life safety services as back-up in case of damage to the bridge. Six of the sub-stations, each with two transformers, serve the chillers in groups of six.

Also on-site are six reverse cycle McQuay heat pumps, which are purely for the swimming pools in the Jumeirah Beach hotel and the Wild Wadi water park. These have a 4 MW heating and 3 MW cooling capacity and change over simultaneously depending on whether the water park requires heating or cooling. A standby capacity of one unit is included, but the facilities managers have chosen to share the load and tend to run all units together.

All potable mains water is treated before being dispatched to the hotels to maintain a consistent and known standard. The mains supply is said to be of good but variable quality – it can be heavily chlorinated at times and sand is prone to entering some of the pipework, spreading through the system. To counter this, all water is passed through sand and carbon filters, after which it is softened, blended and treated with chlorine dioxide before being stored for pumping to the hotels.

Primary chilled water pumps circulate around 1200 litres/s to the top of the Jumeirah beach hotel and to floor eight of the Burj Al Arab. The height of the latter means the water pressure would be around 40 bar at the bottom if not controlled. Everything above floor eight is therefore served via Alfa Laval heat exchangers in the subsidiary plantroom on this level.

The hotels are served from two duplicate sets of pipes which run from the plant area under the main road to the resort. At this point it splits into two 500 mm pipes, one for each hotel. This duplication was provided due to concerns over the potential for damage during future roadworks given the distance of the central plant area from the hotels – 1003 m from the Burj Al Arab and 500 m from the Jumeirah Beach.

Winter design conditions of 8°C, 100% rh and summer conditions of 46°C db, 32°C wb mean closely controlled services are required to maintain setpoint conditions. For this, a Landis & Staefa bems in the central plant area links to individual controllers throughout the resort.

The vast expanse of glass for the buildings had also to be carefully selected to ensure minimal solar gains. Glass with a U-value of 0·32 W/m2K was used on the spandrel panels, and glass of 1·7 W/m2K on the other areas. A low-emissivity coating was also applied to the glass – something that is uncommon in this region.

Thermal modelling was carried out at W S Atkin's Epsom office to determine the most efficient servicing strategy for the building and to ensure smoke extraction met fire regulations. In the breathtaking 180 m-high central atrium of the Burj Al Arab, heat gains were estimated at 650 kW. Computer modelling of air movement in this area was therefore vital to ensure an even temperature throughout. An airflow rate of 100 m3/s is maintained through the atrium under normal conditions, for smoke extraction should a fire occur, this rises to 350 m3/s.

Living in the lap of luxury

When a hotel can lay claim to two 18th floor swimming pools, you know your every possible whim will be pandered to. And it is.

The level of care taken over the servicing is fully evident in the rooms. It is hard to comprehend the conditions outside when standing in a room with setpoints of 23±3°C, 55% rh. Mini air handling units are fitted in every suite. These are linked to the main bems, from where the conditions in each room can be monitored and individually adjusted. Inside the room, the guests can control conditions from a wall-mounted panel.

Nothing like this has ever been done before, and the chances are, they never will be again. To find a second client with the finances, foresight and determination to see a project of this scale through to completion must surely be a one-off. Making the resort, truly world-class.