Situated in the heart of Dubai’s new Business Bay in close proximity to
SOM’s Burj Dubai, the Dancing Towers are a mixed use development,
including offices, hotel, residential, and retail areas. The tower
development also referred to as "Dancing Towers” incorporates two link
bridges, waterfront park, and promenade on the central island of phase 1
of Dubai Properties’ Business Bay masterplan. The unusual fluid-lined
triple tower proposal is the winning design of an international design
competition including entries by Morphosis Architects, Los Angeles; RUR
Architecture, New York; and Office of Metropolitan Architects,
Rotterdam. Zaha Hadid’s design proposal is indicative of the architect’s
distinctive style with the towers reflecting a dynamic fusion of volume
and space.
The architects write: "The three towers rise above the creek and project
themselves as an icon for the surrounding developments and for the Gulf
region. The towers’ striking design creates a new presence that
punctures the skyline with a powerful recognizable silhouette. The fluid
character of the towers is generated through an intrinsically dynamic
composition of volumes. The towers are intertwined to share programmatic
elements and rotate to maximize the views from the site towards the
creek and neighbouring developments.”
The masterplan foresees the plot directly connected to Sheikh Zayed Road
– Dubai’s main commuter artery- linking it to the opposite side of the
artificial bay and the developments southern boundary marked by Al Khail
road. The site includes four different elements, leading to the idea
of the "woven” combination of connections and the interlocking public
spaces, and the triple tower configuration was developed to suite the
requirement for hotel, residential, and office area.
A common podium emphasizes the connectivity of the towers and evokes a
continual movement of activities and users within the complex. There
are numerous large multiuse complexes such as this one among Dubai’s
basket of wannabe icons, but they often tend to create an image of
severance or disembodiment, while Hadid has on the contrary sought an
inviting movement, while remaining "iconic”, irrespective of any of the
surrounding "statements” that can be expected on surrounding plots, but
also consciously and successfully connected to the developing district.
Project Facts
PROGRAM: Mixed-Use Development Competition; Offices, Hotel, Residential, Retail, Bridge, WaterfrontPark and Promenade
CLIENT: Dubai Properties, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
ARCHITECT: Zaha Hadid Architects
Design Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher
Project Architect Chris Lepine
Project Director Lars Teichmann
Project Team Chris Lepine, Stephan Wurster, Eren Ciraci, Alessio
Costantino, David Campos Hoda Nobakhti,Chryssanthi Perpatidou, Bowornwan
May Noradee, Nahed Jawad, Hussam Chakouf, Bassam Al Shiekh, Daniel
Norell, Tomas Rabl, Don Burusphat Chiara Ferrari, Erhan Patat, Inanc
Eray, Ceyhun Baskin, Jose Lemos, Josias Hamid, Arianna Russo, Carlos S.
Martinez, Judith Wahle, Vincenzo Cocomero, Agata Kurzela
Project architect [competition] Tiago Correia
Design team [competition] Ana Cajiao, Saleem Abdel-Jalil, Sophie Le Bienvenu,
Hooman Talebi ,Mathias Reisigl, Diego Rosales,Tyen Masten, Daewha Kang, Renos Constantino, Graham Modlen
SIZE/ TOTAL AREA: 350,000 m2 above ground and 300,000 m2 below ground.
STOREYS: 75; 65; 51. Max height: 357m.
More renders and description
Zaha Hadid’s design for the Signature Towers confirms the role of
Business Bay Development at the very forefront of Dubai’s rapidly
changing
future. The three towers rise above the creek and project themselves as
an icon for the surrounding developments and for the gulf region. The
tower’s striking design creates a new presence that punctures the
skyline with a powerful recognizable silhouette. The fluid character of
the towers is generated through an intrinsically dynamic composition of
volumes. The towers are inter-twined to share programmatic
elements and rotate to maximize the views from the site towards the
creek and neighbouring developments. The design quality of the towers to
act as a symbol and icon extends beyond their scale and location. These
qualities are derived from the boldness of the architectural concept,
from the ‘choreographed’ movement that combines the three towers in one
overall gesture and ‘weaves’ with a series of public spaces through the
podium, the bridges and the landscape beyond.
Context
There will, in the future, be a silhouette of towers, whose pinnacles
will represent the hearts of the new districts within the greater
metropolitan
area of Dubai. On the ground, the Business Bay development site will
become stitched into the proposed extended road and infrastructure
network of the enlarged metropolitan area. The new pedestrian routes and
roads passing under and around the Towers’ development will extend
across the creek, bringing people directly from Sheikh Zayed Road via a
grid of major and minor thoroughfares and boulevards.
Connectivity and Public Space
The site is composed by 4 different parts: (A) central circular plot,
(B) an elongated park plot, (C) the surface of the creek on axis of plot
A and (D) a rectangular plot across the creek at the west margin.
Connectivity between these parts becomes therefore central to the
project; in order to produce an articulated design that encompasses both
the scale and the different qualities of each of the parts,
transforming them into a coherent scheme. The circular shape of the plot
and attached vehicular circulation layout creates a barrier of
vehicular traffic around the site, generating an island that detaches
the plot from the waterfront promenade. By incorporating the design of
two new link bridges and a new ground the project effectively multiplies
the potential and connectivity of the site, linking the park at the
East - via the towers with the water’s edge at the West margin of the
creek.
Programme
Programming of public and private life is an active tool to inject life
into the space, integrating new layers of activity and landscape,
creating a network of synergetic uses that can develop a new urban
ecology.
The programme was addressed as a whole with the three towers
corresponding directly to the three main functions: offices, hotel and
residential. Together, the towers generate a critical mass of
sustainable programmatic relationships. The towers share a common base /
podium, designed as a materialized shadow of the towers and programmed
with retail, restaurants and amenities that support the demand from the
tower’s population. The three towers are conjoined two by two, the
Offices and the Hotel at the base and the Hotel and the Residential
at the top. Through these adjacencies, the towers are strategically
organized in a symbiotic relation, sharing certain segments of the
programme. The advantage of joining the three towers in one organism,
allows the development to be lived in a full day cycle: anchored in it’s
residential population, it reaches the peak of activity during office
hours and it mutates through the diversity of the ever-changing
population
of the hotel. The heterogeneous population mix creates a cosmopolitan
urban environment, constantly energized and renovated through it’s own
life.
