Martin

British architecture studio Asif Khan has designed the Expo Entry Portals, gateways to the Dubai Expo 2020 woven from carbon fibre to create 21-metre-high mashrabiya-style lattices. The three Expo Entry Portals are all 30 metres long and sit on top of bridges spanning roads around the site of the World Expo to be held in Dubai in 2021.

British architecture studio Asif Khan has designed the Expo Entry Portals, gateways to the Dubai Expo 2020 woven from carbon fibre to create 21-metre-high mashrabiya-style lattices. The three Expo Entry Portals are all 30 metres long and sit on top of bridges spanning roads around the site of the World Expo to be held in Dubai in 2021.

Terra – The Sustainability Pavilion, designed by UK-based Grimshaw Architects – is meant to meet the highest available accreditation for sustainable architecture – LEED Platinum certification. The building aims to be net-zero energy and net-zero water throughout its lifetime of operation, while minimising material environmental impacts from construction. The building also aims to act as a living laboratory that will inspire visitors to live more sustainably.

British architecture studio Asif Khan has designed the Expo Entry Portals, gateways to the Dubai Expo 2020 woven from carbon fibre to create 21-metre-high mashrabiya-style lattices. The three Expo Entry Portals are all 30 metres long and sit on top of bridges spanning roads around the site of the World Expo to be held in Dubai in 2021.

Located next to the historic Union House on the Dubai waterfront, the Union Museum honors the 1971 signing of the document that created the United Arab Emirates and celebrates the rich culture and history of its people. Much of the museum is underground, including permanent and temporary galleries, theatres, event spaces and archival facilities. The dramatic entrance pavilion rests lightly upon a reflecting pool and plaza, its undulating parabolic curves representing the parchment upon which the unification agreement was written and its tapering golden columns representing the pens with which the document was signed. (Text by architects: Moriyama and Teshima)

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 Zaha Hadid in 2007 and is the only hotel in which she created both its architecture and interiors. Spanning 84,300 square metres (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 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 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. (Text by Zaha Hadid Architects)