Prestigious projects in Dubai

The World

The World is a construction project 4 km from the coast at Dubai, intended for tourism. This will become an archipelago of small islands, designed in the shape of the world's continents close to the man-made Palm Islands.

Reason for building
Dubai, one of the seven United Arab Emirates, realised that the income from oil and gas would eventually dry up. A search for a new source of income led to tourism. Numerous investors are putting up hotels and holiday parks. One of those investors is Nakheel, by far the most daring. He realised that with only hotels and attractions Dubai was still not a tourist city. Dubai needed to make its mark on the world map, with grandiose and extraordinary projects. Nakheel, the sheikh who owns the company, started constructing an island in the form of a palm tree 3 years ago. The Dutch company Van Oord was awarded the contract for the project. Dredging contractor Boskalis cooperated on the outer ring, but Van Oord made the Palm Tree itself. This procedure received a lot of attention all over the world through the media. After successfully completing the island, Van Oord was given a new contract. This time there was no palm tree but a group of islands in the shape of the continents.

Constructing the archipelago
'The World' is the largest dredging project ever carried out anywhere in the world. It is also the largest project in size taken on by a single contractor. The World Archipelago is a prestigious project that consists of creating artificial islands in the form of the different continents. Hotels, apartments and villas are going to be built on these islands. The World is being developed four kilometres from the coast of Dubai, in front of the beach of Jumeirah, which is located approximately 15 kilometres south-west of Dubai City. The work consists of building several types of breakwaters with a total length of approximately 25 kilometres, which will require approximately 32 million tons of stone. These are the biggest breakwaters ever built.

Furthermore, the project requires creating 300 islands within the perimeter of the breakwaters, which will consist of approximately 325 million cubic metres of sand, including the construction of two ports. Ten trailing suction dredgers are being used to reclaim the land, with a hopper capacity of between 3,500 and 23,000 cubic metres, including one of the largest trailing suction dredgers in the world. These can suck up and discharge 3 million cubic metres of sand a week.

Construction method
The continents of The World are constructed with trailing suction dredgers that make use of two methods: rainbowing and dumping. After this, cutter suction dredgers are used to form the islands. Two stone-dumping vessels are used to dump the first layer of rocks to form the breakwaters.

The Palm

The Palm Islands are three artificial peninsulas in front of the coast of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

In 2004 the first island appeared as the result of a vast number of land reclamation projects.

The three Palm Islands are Deira, Jebel Ali and Jumeirah

Burj al Arab

Burj al Arab, literally 'Tower of the Arabs', is the only seven-star hotel in the world, and is located in Dubai. It is also the tallest building in the world serving exclusively as a hotel. The hotel is situated on an artificial island 280 metres from the coast and is linked to the mainland by a bridge. The hotel has the form of the sail of a dhow, a traditional Arab sailing ship. With a height of 180 metres the Burj al Arab hotel has the world's tallest atrium.

The interior is richly decorated with more than 1500 sq.m of 24-carat gold leaf and 25,000 sq.m. of marble. The hotel is home to a pair of extraordinary restaurants, of which the main one is at a height of 200 metres. The smallest rooms have a surface area of 170 sq.m. and the largest 780 sq.m. It goes without saying that all this luxury comes at a high price. You can expect to pay several thousand dollars just for the small rooms. It is not known what the hotel cost to build, but it has been estimated that it would have to be fully booked for 400 years before it could become profitable.