INTERNATIONAL
ME Dubai hotel at BY © ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS PHOTOGRAPHY LAURIAN GHINITOIU
H
ome 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 Zaha Hadid in 2007 and is the only hotel in which she created both its architecture and interiors. Spanning 84 300m2 (907 400 square feet), 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 free-form
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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 and also connected by an asymmetric 38m wide, three-storey bridge 71m 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,” explains 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 orthogonal form while, at the same time, dissolving its volume through the continuous play of light varying between ever-changing reflections and transparency. The void’s 6 000m2 façade is created from 4 300 individual units of flat, single-curved or double-curved glass. The high-efficiency glazing units are comprised of 8mm Low-E glass (coated on the inside), a 16mm cavity between the panes and two layers of 6mm clear glass with a 1.52mm PVB resin laminate.
