The Palm Islands of Dubai

The Palm Islands are artificial islands in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on which major commercial and residential infrastructure will be constructed. 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. 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 kilometres 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. The Palm Deira, which is planned to have a surface area of 46.35 square kilometre. Construction was originally planned to take 10–15 years, but that was before the impact of the global credit crunch hit Dubai.

Dubai or Venice

 

 

Nobody would have thought that a Venice style resort could be recreated in the shimmering desert of Dubai. The Madinat Jumeirah resort was constructed by digging 3.5 kilometres of trenches around the 40 hectare resort and was filled with 600,000 gallons or 2.5 million litres of water. The result was a dreamlike Venice on what was once a beach. Madinat Jumeirah is the largest resort in Dubai and the only one with water taxis as a necessity. Source: Here

Largest and Tallest Arch Bridge

We are back with another   megaproject concept at Dubai. Next in line is the largest, tallest arch bridge ever which is supposed to be completed by 2012.

Here's some info on the bridge as envisioned by New York architecture firm Fxfowle:

- It's one mile long and 670 feet tall.
- It will have 12 lanes for traffic.
- It will cost 817 million dollars.
- The design has Sheikh Mohammed's official stamp of approval.
- The bridge will carry more than 2,000 vehicles per hour in each direction.
- A metro line will run across the middle.
- Construction begins in March, with a slated completion date of 2012.

Source: Here

Dubai World Islands

Another megaproject in the making is the Dubai World Islands. In this project world map shaped group of islands are designed. Check out the video for more details:

Burj Dubai

Currently it is under construction - Burj Dubai is going to be the most prestigious square mile of real estate on the planet! At its centrepiece stands the Burj Dubai Tower which is set to be the worlds tallest building upon completion in September 2009. This structure will be mostly residential; but will also be home to the worlds highest observation deck inducing 517m high, as well as the worlds first 6 star rated Hotel Armani. Shadowed by the tower itself, across a massive man made lake will be home to the 'Supertall' Lake Hotel, the worlds largest ever shopping mall, over 70 highrise buildings and a beautiful 'old town' style village. All of the following will be finished by the end of 2009. Some of the demo videos:

Latest from Dubai – Floating City

The Latest in Dubai is about the Island Cities being built in Dubai, it would be a self-sufficient floating city that will never have to face a problem about finding land to build on. The "Lilypad" would take advantage of all of today's green technologies, including generating power from the sun, wind and water, and would produce zero emissions from its residents. As such there is no project started as yet for the same. but you never know.

Dubai infrastructure projects....Dubai in next few years

Dubai in 1990

Same Street in 2003

2007...

Dubai is said to currently have 15-25% of all the world's cranes. 

The Dubai Waterfront. When completed it will become the largest waterfront development in the world.

All of this was built in the last 5 years, including that island that looks like a palm tree.

The Palm Islands in Dubai. New Dutch dredging technology was used to create these massive man made islands. They are the largest artificial islands in the world and can be seen from space. Three of these Palms will be made with the last one being the largest of them all.

Upon completion, the resort will have 2,000 villas, 40 luxury hotels, shopping centers, movie theaters, and many other facilities. It is expected to support a population of approximately 500,000 people. It is advertised as being visible from the moon.

The World Islands. 300 artificially created islands in the shape of the world. Each island will have an estimated cost of $25-30 million.

The Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai. The worlds tallest hotel. Considered the only '7 star' hotel and the most luxurious hotel in the world. It stands on an artificial island in the sea.

Hydropolis, the world's first underwater hotel. Entirely built in Germany and then assembled inDubai, it is scheduled to be completed by 2009 after many delays.

The Burj Dubai. Construction began in 2005 and is expected to be complete by 2008. At an estimated height of over 800 meters, it will easily be world's tallest building when finished. It will be almost 40% taller than the the current tallest building, the Yaipei 101.

This is what downtown Dubai will look like around 2008-2009. More than 140 stories of the Burj Dubai have already been completed. It is already the worlds tallest man made structure and it is still not scheduled to be completed for at least another year.

The Al Burj. This will be the centerpiece of the Dubai Waterfront. Once completed it will take over the title of the tallest structure in the world from the Burj Dubai.

Recently it was announced that the final height of this tower will be 1200 meters.

That would make it more than 30% taller than the Burj Dubai and three times as tall as the Empire State Building. This is a city on crack.

The Burj al Alam, or The World Tower. Upon completion it will rank as the world's highest hotel. It is expected to be finished by 2009. At 480 meters it will only be 28 meters shorter than the Taipei 101.

The Trump International Hotel & Tower, which will be the centerpiece of one of the palm islands, The Palm Jumeirah.

Dubailand. Currently, the largest amusement park collection in the world is Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, which is also the largest single-site employer in the United states with 58,000 employees. Dubailand will be twice the size.

 

Dubailand will be built on 3 billion square feet (107 miles^2) at an estimated $20 billion price tag. The site will include a purported 45 mega projects and 200 hundred other smaller projects.

DubaiSports City. A huge collection of sports arenas located in Dubailand.

Currently, the Walt Disney World Resort is the #1 tourist destination in the world. Once fully completed, Dubailand will easily take over that title since it is expected to attract 200,000 visitors daily.

The Dubai Marina is an entirely man made development that will contain over 200 high rise buildings when finished. It will be home to some of the tallest residential structures in the world. The completed first phase of the project is shown. Most of the other high rise buildings will be finished by 2009-2010.

The Dubai Mall will be the largest shopping mall in the world with over 9 million square feet of shopping and around 1000 stores.It will be completed in 2008.

Ski Dubai, which is already open, is the largest indoor skiing facility in the world. This is a rendered image of another future indoor skiing facility that is being planned.

Some of the tallest buildings in the world, such as Ocean Heights and The Princess Tower, which will be the largest residential building in the world at over a 100 stories, will line the DubaiMarina.

The UAE Spaceport would be the first spaceport in the world if construction ever gets under way. I'm not joking...

Some other crazy .. The Dubai Metro system, once completed, will become the largest fully automated rail system in the world. The Dubai World Central International Airport will become the largest airport in size when it is completed. It will also eventually become the busiest airport in the world, based on passenger volume. There are more construction workers in Dubai than there are actual citizens.