File 16.0 - Etisalat Building

78 photographs
190 drawings : 30 pencil on tracing paper, 67 ink on tracing paper, 7 pencil on vellum, 5 pencil and dry-transfer on vellum, 4 veilum prints, 30 ink on mylar, 6 ink and dry transfer on mylar, 3 cronaflex, 7 multi-media, 15 photocopies, 14 optinegatives, 2 watercolour on board

File includes:

• 190 Drawings: 4 site plans, 51 plans, 20 sections, 3 8 elevations, 3 6 exterior perspectives, 11 interior perspectives, 5 diagrammatic sketches, 1 aerial view, 22 details: floor patterns, general patterns, elevations, dome geometry; 2 combination drawings: 1 plan I section, 1 plan I elevation
• 78 Photographs: 61 prints of model, 17 miscellaneous

Building on the success of the Abu Dhabi project, the client, the Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, requested a design for its Dubai site. It would be a variation on the themes developed for Abu Dhabi. The functions were to be virtually the same but on a substantially larger site than that of Abu Dhabi. The site provided in Dubai was near the Dubai Creek opposite the Sheraton Hotel in a zone scheduled for future development of major buildings. As the first in this zone, Etisalat sought to address a future visual corridor to the creek and to the other major cultural buildings. The scheme developed into a 16 storey office tower with a facetted curtain wall similar to that of the Abu Dhabi plan but with curved core walls on the east and west faces. The principal materials included granite, green tinted glass and painted aluminum. The project also utilized a radome and the combination of the curvatures of the rotunda. The walls of the tower and the radome, together with the stepped forms of the parking building, have created a most interesting play of forms, finding great favour with both the users and the Dubai citizens alike.