CRYSTAL Fountains, one of the world’s leading international water feature specialists, collaborated with local design-build contractor Belhasa to deliver three dramatic and multi-functional water features for the newly-developed Yas Hotel on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The hotel, built by main contractor Al Futtaim Carillion, spans the new Formula One track, with part of the circuit running right through, and was inaugurated to coincide with the first-ever Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on October 30.
Designed by New York-based Asymptote Architects, the stunning  85,000-sq-m, 500-room Yas Hotel is part of Aldar Properties’ ambitious $40-billion Yas Marina Development that includes golf courses, theme parks and villas. The water features were fast tracked and erected in record time to ensure they were ready for the much-anticipated Grand Prix.
Located in the periphery entrances to the hotel, the three sequencing water features incorporate Crystal Fountains’ latest technology.
Programmable water and lighting effects on all three features truly enhance and reinforce the visual impact of this iconic hotel.
Crystal Fountains was involved in the hotel’s water features from start to finish. The company provided technical design, supplied all specialist components needed, and programmed and choreographed the three fountains to produce an array of effects. Belhasa appointed Crystal Fountains to work on this high-profile development.
Suresh Kumar, senior project manager at Belhasa, says: “We had an extremely short time frame in which to construct these iconic features; it was only due to Crystal Fountains help and support that we could execute them within two months. We are delighted with the water features and their effects; having worked with Crystal Fountains in the past in Kuwait we knew they were the right people to provide the right technical support and products for the job.”
Stephen Vincent, project director based in Crystal Fountains’ Dubai office, comments: “These striking water feature designs coupled with the hotels’ futuristic architecture creates a real spectacle.”
The significantly fast-tracked project, which had to be designed, built and commissioned to coincide with the Formula One Grand Prix, was a major challenge. The building of the hotel’s water features draws some parallels with the Formula One Grand Prix itself. A race against time was undertaken to install the water features, using the most innovative technology to create dramatic displays and effects.   
Crystal Fountains enabled the features to be built in just two months through the use and invention of new, cutting-edge technology. It managed this through developing, testing and manufacturing in record time a new generation of high-performance smart light-emitting diodes (LEDs) which not only produce 30 W of power, a first for the industry, but can be serviced as much as 80 m away from the light fixture.

Smart LEDs
Traditionally, LED lights have needed to be serviced within 10 to 15 m of pit chambers. Pits are remote underground chambers that house the power and data supplies controlling the LED lights.
In the past, dozens have needed to be located adjacent to the water feature pools. This is a particular problem in the Middle East where ambient heat especially in the warmer months require service pits to be drained, and air-conditioned for them to function. Due to the sheer number of pits needed, initial infrastructural costs are high, and maintenance costs increase dramatically not to mention the construction time required to construct such a large number of pits.
The use of smart LED lights eliminated the need for pits, allowing lighting fixtures to be serviced directly from the main plant rooms thus significantly reducing costs and the speed at which the water features could be built. 
This new generation of lights that produce 30 W provide a more intense lighting effect than ever before.
Michael Denman, director of commercial projects at Crystal Fountains, says: “Taking our latest generation of LED technology from prototype stage right through to a completed, manufactured and tested product in a short time frame required great effort and teamwork. Our R&D (research and development), applications engineering, manufacturing and technical service teams were constantly interacting at every stage to make it possible. We hope our efforts will be recognised by the wider viewing public through the splendid effects of the water features. The new, custom-made technology has given us the extra capability to create something special at the Yas Hotel and will help us on other projects in the future.”

Visual effects
The three exterior water features include a linear row of nine deck level niched choreoswitches which are located adjacent to a beach entry pool.
A series of four raised pools with a total of 41 individually-controlled choreoswitches, complete with slab-hung LED lights, and the main “ballroom” entrance fronting the Formula One circuit, incorporate a total of 200 individually-controlled choreoswitches complete with LED lighting.
Choreoswitches use clear stream individually-programmable effects to shoot water a maximum height of 3 m in the air. The smart LED lights incorporate full RGB (red/green/blue) digital colour mixing technology to provide endless combinations of coloured lighting effects at night.
All three water features are highly versatile and dynamic. They can create up to 30 different water shapes including a travelling wave and a continuous spinning wheel effect that was specially designed to complement the race track and the Grand Prix.
Crystal Fountains’ design and technology on the features generates highly impressive shows. The water features can be transformed through a variety of different moods and modes providing continuous water shapes. In the evenings they become more dynamic and entertaining devices when LED lights create colourful displays in collaboration with the water.

The hotel
The hotel’s main design feature is a 217-m gridshell component on the buildings’ exteriors made from sweeping, curvilinear forms of steel and 5,800 diamond-shaped glass panels.
This gridshell affords the building an architecture comprised of an atmospheric like veil that contains two hotel towers and a link bridge constructed as a monocoque sculpted steel object passing above the Formula One track that makes its way through the building complex.
It visually connects and fuses the complex together while producing optical effects and spectral reflections that play against the surrounding landscape.