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“It was refreshing to work on a design that is not typical. A Zaha Hadid design is always ‘flowing’, and the form of the design is a driving factor.” Rikus De Kock, Lighting Project Director, Illuminate Lighting Design
T
he marriage of Zaha Hadid’s iconic architectural vision, and the ever-expanding opulence of Dubai would seem to be a perfect match to most architecture aficionados. This dream pairing was brought to life with the
completion of the Opus earlier this year.
Home to the new ME Dubai Hotel, the Opus is located in the Burj
Khalifa district adjacent to Downtown Dubai and Business Bay on the Dubai Water Canal. Exploring the balance between solid and void, opaque and transparent, interior and exterior, the design was
presented by the late Zaha Hadid herself way back in 2007, and is notable in that it is the only hotel in which she created both its architecture and interiors.
Spanning 84,300sqm, the Opus was designed as two separate towers that “coalesce into a singular whole”, taking the form of a cube. The
cube has been “eroded” in its centre, creating a typically Zaha Hadid free-form void that is an important volume of the design in its own right. The two halves of the building on either side of the void are linked by a four-storey atrium at ground level, as well as an
asymmetric, 38-metre-wide, three-storey bridge 71-metres above the ground.
“The precise orthogonal geometries of the Opus’ elemental glass
cube contrast dramatically with the fluidity of the eight-storey void at its centre,” explained Christos Passas, Project Director at Zaha Hadid Architects.
The cube’s double-glazed insulating façades incorporate a UV coating and a mirrored frit pattern to reduce solar gain. Applied around the
entire building, this dotted frit patterning emphasises the clarity of the building’s form, while at the same time dissolving its volume
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