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  Essential Architecture-  Dubai

The Palm Islands 

architect

 various

location

 on the Jumeirah coastal area of the emirate of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates

date

 2001

style

 Postmodern

construction

 created using land reclamation by Nakheel, a company owned by the Dubai government

type

 artificial islands
 
  The designs of the three palm islands.
 
  The Palm Jumeirah photographed from the International Space Station.
 
  Palm Jumeirah
 
  The Palm Deira on 1 May 2007.
 
 
 
The Palm Islands is a series of artificial islands in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on which major commercial and residential infrastructure will be constructed. To date, the islands are the largest land reclamation projects in the world and will result in the world's largest artificial islands. They are being constructed by Nakheel Properties, a property developer in the United Arab Emirates, who hired the Dutch dredging and marine contractor Van Oord, one of the world's specialists in land reclamation. The islands are The Palm Jumeirah, The Palm Jebel Ali and The Palm Deira.

The islands were commissioned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in order to increase Dubai's tourism. Each settlement will be in the shape of a palm tree, topped with a crescent, and will have a large number of residential, leisure and entertainment centers. The Palm Islands are located off the coast of The United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf and will add 520 km of beaches to the city of Dubai.

The first two islands will comprise approximately 100 million cubic meters of rock and sand. Palm Deira will be composed of approximately 1 billion cubic meters of rock and sand. All materials will be quarried in the UAE. Between the three islands there will be over 100 luxury hotels, exclusive residential beach side villas and apartments, marinas, water theme parks, restaurants, shopping malls, sports facilities and health spas.

The creation of The Palm Jumeirah began in June 2001. Shortly after, The Palm Jebel Ali was announced and reclamation work began. In 2004, The Palm Deira, which will be almost as large in size as Paris, was announced. Palm Jumeirah is currently open for development. Construction will be completed over the next 10-15 years.

Construction
The Palm Islands are technically artificial peninsulas constructed of sand dredged from the bottom of the Persian Gulf by the Belgian company Jan De Nul and the Dutch company Van Oord. The sand is sprayed by the dredging ships, which are guided by DGPS, onto the required area in a process known as rainbowing due to the way the sand arcs when sprayed. The outer edge of each Palm's encircling crescent is a large rock breakwater. The breakwater of the Palm Jumeirah has over 7 million tons of rock. Each rock was placed individually by a crane, signed off by a diver and given a GPS coordinate. The Jan De Nul Group started the work on the Palm Jebel Ali in 2002 and finished by the end of 2006. The reclamation project of the Palm Jebel Ali includes the creation of a 4 km long peninsula, protected by a 200 m wide and 17 km long breakwater built around the island. 135,000,000 mł of rock, sand and limestone were reclaimed (partly originating from the Jebel Ali Entrance Channel dredging works). The slope protection works for the crescent include approximately 5,000,000 mł of rocks.

Palm Jumeirah

The Palm Jumeirah ( Coordinates: 25°06′28″N, 55°08′15″E ) consists of a trunk, a crown with 17 fronds, and a surrounding crescent island that forms an 11 kilometer-long breakwater. The island itself is 5 kilometers by 5 kilometers. It will add 78 kilometers to the Dubai coastline. The first phase of development on the Palm Jumeirah will create 4,000 residences with a combination of villas and apartments over the next 3 to 4 years.

Residents began moving into their Palm Jumeirah properties at the end of 2006, five years after land reclamation began, according to project developer Nakheel Properties. This signaled the end of phase one of construction, which includes approximately 1,400 villas on 11 of the fronds of the island and roughly 2,500 shoreline apartments in 20 buildings on the east side of the trunk.

Nakheel Properties will mark the arrival of the first residents by bringing one of the world's largest airships to Dubai. It has agreed to a deal with Airship Management Services Inc for a 197 feet long, 250,000 cubic foot Skyship 600 dirigible.

According to Nakheel Properties officials, the process of adding 78 kilometers of beach is under way, while eight of the 32 hotels on The Palm Jumeirah have begun construction, including the Taj Exotica Resort and Spa, which is planned for completion in late 2008 or early 2009. The first phase of Atlantis, The Palm, is scheduled to be completed by December 2008.

The "Golden Mile", the strip of land located along the center of the trunk overlooking the canal, is set for completion in the first quarter of 2008. Construction has also begun on the Palm Monorail, which will take three years to complete and will serve as a transit system between the Gateway Station at the trunk of The Palm Jumeirah and the Atlantis Station on the crescent. (Emirates News Agency, WAM)

The Palm, Jebel Ali
The Palm, Jebel Ali began construction in October 2002 and is expected to be completed in mid 2008.[1] The Palm Jebel Ali is expected to accommodate 1.7 million people by 2020.[2] Once it has been completed, it will be encircled by Dubai Waterfront. The project, which is 50 percent larger than the Palm Jumeriah, will include six marinas, a water theme park, 'Sea Village', homes built on stilts above the water, and boardwalks that circle the "fronds" of the "palm" and spell out an Arabic poem by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum:[1]

Take wisdom from the wise
It takes a man of vision to write on water
Not everyone who rides a horse is a jockey
Great men rise to greater challenges
One of the first buildings on The Palm Jebel Ali is already known. Nakheel invited several architects to design a building on a 300,000m˛ area. The winning design was a building by Royal Haskoning, who also worked on several other projects in Dubai.[3] The building can be seen here.

As of early October 2007, construction of the island was on schedule.[2] The breakwater was completed in December 2006, and infrastructure work began in April 2007.[2] Major construction will not begin until most of the infrastructure work is complete.[2] The first buildings will open in late 2010.[2]

The Palm, Deira

The Palm Deira was announced for development in October 2004.[4] Upon completion, it will become the world's largest man-made island, housing more than a million people.[2] Although no timetable for completion has been announced, it is expected to be finished by 2015. This island is 10 times larger than the Palm Jumeirah, and 5 times larger that the Palm Jebel Ali. Originally, the design called for a 14km (8.7 mile) by 8.5km (5.3 mile) island with 41 fronds. Due to a substantial change in depth in the Persian Gulf the further out the island goes, the island was redesigned in May 2007. The project then became a 12.5km (7.76 mile) by 7.5km (4.66 mile) island with 18 larger fronds.[2]

As of early October 2007, 20% of the island's reclamation was complete, with a total of 200 million cubic metres (7 billion cubic feet) of sand already used. Since the island is so large, it is being developed in several phases. The first one is the creation of Deira Island.[2] This portion of the Palm will sit alongside the Deira shore between the entrance to Dubai Creek and Port Hamriya. Deira Island will act as "the gateway to The Palm Deira"[5] and help to revitalize the aging area of Deira.
 
The Dubai Palm has been called the eighth wonder of the world: we outline key property aspects with images below:


Palm Jumeirah (old concept design)

Property: UAE Villas

Dubai's palm tree-shaped resort island on land reclaimed from the sea will add 120 km of sandy beaches and be visible from the moon. Dubai Palm Island will include 2,000 villas, up to 40 luxury hotels, shopping complexes, cinemas and the Middle East's first marine park.


Palm Jebel Ali

Dubai Palm Island will be built in the shape of 17 huge fronds surrounded by 12
km of protective barrier reefs, extending 5 km into the sea south of Dubai city.
The islands will be accessible by 300m bridges from the mainland or boat to two marinas; the main causeway will have a monorail system.



Left: Palm Jebel Ali; Right: Palm Jumeriah, both Dubai

This Dubai project will be built on 80m cubic metres of land dredged from the approach channel to the emirate's Jebel Ali port, an operation that will deepen the channel to 17m.

Palm Island Dubai

Palm Island Dubai: Village Centre - PR

RMJM wins contract to design centrepieces for groundbreaking Palm development in Dubai.

RMJM have successfully been selected from a short-list of 11 architects to design the Village Centre for Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Jumeirah, two of the world’s largest man-made islands currently under construction off the coast of Dubai.



Dubai Palm Island - image © RMJM

The construction value of each Dubai Palm Island development is Ł250 million and will feature extensive retail, residential, business and leisure facilities. RMJM’s proposal is an all-skills design including master planning, civil and structural engineering and landscape architecture. Tony Kettle, Director at RMJM’s head office in Edinburgh is leading the Dubai Palm project team of multi-skilled professionals from the company’s Scotland, London and local Dubai offices.
“The RMJM design concept for the Dubai Palm Village Centre is based on a composition of Islamic geometry and organic structural forms. Combined with the integration of water in the form of canals and a central basin, they create highly attractive environments which can be developed to maximise the value of the mixed uses on the site”, explained Tony Kettle.



Dubai Palm Island image © RMJM

The design for the centrepiece of The Palm, Jebel Ali is inspired by the Nymphea or Water Lily and resembles the large flower sitting on a reflecting pool. This concept is used for the design of shading elements, which radiate from a central opening dome structure. These provide shade from the desert sun during the day and opening up to allow the sea breeze to pass through the building at night. Below these shading components is a geometric layout of buildings derived from a simple Islamic decorative motif of rotated squares and which provides shade to the functional orthogonal building forms below.

The Dubai Palm Island centrepiece will also represent a major transport interchange for boat users coupled with an outstanding retail experience and will include several boatlifts, utilising RMJM’s previous experience on the award-winning Falkirk Wheel.

RMJM are designing the Village Centres for the German-based international developers Innpro, who signed an agreement with The Dubai Palm developers in August 2002. The man-made islands were conceived by His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defence Minister.

Dubai Palm Islands are comprised of approximately 100 million cubic metres of rock and sand and will increase Dubai's shoreline by a total of 120km.

The first Dubai Palm Island is set to be finished in 2006. Property on the islands has already gone on sale and last year saw the residential properties on The Palm, Jumeirah sell out in a matter of days.

Dubai Palm Island: Background

Low interest rates and poor stock markets are making investment in The Dubai Palm attractive. Also the Dubai government is assisting the real estate market, attracting wealthy immigrants to the city thus much property is being retailed below market value.

The purchasers of apartments and villas on Dubai Palm Island will start to move in at the end of 2005. Property on the islands is due to take four years to complete. It is being developed by a company titled Dubai Palm Developers. The supply of property in Dubai is not keeping up pace with demand. Apartments on Dubai Palm will be for sale to foreigners as well as Emiratis

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