A German consortium is planning to build a massive $1 billion residential, leisure and commercial development on Dubai's Shaikh Zayed Road near the Emirates Towers. The Crystal Dome is a modern concept which will symbolise the hi-tech and touristic activities of Dubai as well as being a world benchmark in architecture, said a spokesman.
The Crystal Dome will be the biggest 'exterritorial' of the world. It will touch a height of 455 m, with a gross area of about 2.3 million sq m. The InterGlob Euro-Arab Consortium is developing the property, which will also serve as a main station for the Dubai Magno Metro, when implemented.
Construction work will start in January or February and the project will be implemented in stages in five years, said Prof Alexander Wagner, chairman of the group. He said the project has secured provisional approval from Dubai authorities and financing has been arranged from a German real estate fund. The dome will have unique features that offer fast access to the building; new elevator technology (tilted diagonal spiral elevators); emergency slides (spirals) instead of endless stairs; Safety against air pirate terrorism; Comfort car parking at personal floor-level - own cars are parked in the backyard of the apartments.
Instead of building two separate buildings - one as a parking house and one for business and living - with the disadvantage that the walking distance is long, the Crystal Domes combines both areas. This gives a maximum comfort to the inhabitants. The Crystal Dome will provide space for about 3,000 residences or luxury apartments and 500,000 sq m of space for business offices. It will have clinics, sport facilities, conference space, and a six-star hotel, food and other shops, as well as a leisure park for children of the working parents and a wellness centre.
The project is estimated to cost around $1 billion. Most of the costs will be covered by the sales of the luxury apartments. The Crystal Dome will be optically 'wrapped' by a golden colour glass spiral-ramp (enclosed like a tube) forming a 'necklace', while going up to the top. (The most modern magnetic transportation facility will run upwards on the inside). The Dome is wrapped by two spirals (one upward, the other downward) at a distance of 10 m.
Considered a gradient of 1:15 it takes 3 km to climb up the 450 m. With a speed of 60 km (which is low) it takes 3 minutes to the top, which is very comfortable. One turn of the spiral is about 600 m with a gain in heights of 90 m. This gives 5 windings of the spiral up to the top if a steepness of 15 per cent (8.5°) is considered. For the up and down spiral it gives 10 windings in total. The spirals are used also for emergency escape instead of stairs. Both spirals (up and down spiral) can be used as emergency slide exits.
The dome will also address the issue of air-terrorism. The domes are Kamikaze-crash protected. Like an aircraft carrier warship, which catches arriving fighter-jets with landing ropes, the vertical ropes or 'tow-rods' of the Dome, which are holding together the spiral arms, will protect the Dome. The spiral ramp, which wraps around the Dome - and in which the magnet train moves - is linked vertically with strong and highly resistant glass-fibre ropes or tow rods, that will catch any aircraft which might try to aim at the Dome in a suicide-attack.
Cooling of high-rise domes in a hot climate, consumes a tremendous amount of electrical energy, which increases the cost of living considerably. The concept of the Crystal Dome provides a solution, by designing the light tube in such a way, that the tube is used simultaneous as a fresh cool air supplier to all of the hundred floors. The tube creates an artificial tornado, that reaches up to 3 km - 5 km high, and sucks down the cool air, that has a temperature of only 0° - 10° (or less) at this altitude (Vortex effect).
The inhabitants can breathe fresh, natural, and clean air, without any pollution, which is sucked down from those cool altitudes. The Dome will have a central tube 'atrium' for bringing down light and air. This 50 m diameter central tube is surrounded by offices.
The office rooms will obtain their light from the mirror system of the central tube (atrium) and will take in also the cool air from there. The apartments have a distance end to end (radius segment) of 25 m and a personalized width, which can be individually chosen by the companies.
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