A striking 200-m-high twin tower complex - echoing the mountains that were the abode of the legendary land of Shangri-La - is now home to the Hong Kong-headquartered Shangri-La group's first property in the Middle East.

Shangri-La means 'paradise on earth' and within the striking Al-Jaber complex on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, the Abu Dhabi-based Al Jaber Group - which owns the hotel - aims to provide the heights of hospitality to the business and leisure traveller.
The Shangri-La Hotel, Dubai had a soft opening in early July and will be formally opened next month (September) ahead of Dubai 2003 - the annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF.
Offering stunning views of the city, the hotel is set to become a highly prestigious address in the city, offering extensive facilities, including two health clubs.
The Al Jaber complex gives the impression of being two towers but in fact is one composite structure. It comprises two basements, a ground floor plus 43 levels. The project also includes a multistorey car-park.
Construction work on the project started in July 2001 and the hotel soft opened early last month (July). The remaining fitout is ongoing and extensive landscaping works are under way in between the main building and the car-park building, says Nic Alford of Mace International - project manager on Shangri-La Hotel.
Norr Group Consultants International was the lead consultant and designer and has carried out the architectural, structural, mechanical and electrical design of the building. The interior design for the hotel guestrooms and public areas was done by Wilson & Associates of Singapore. Al Habtoor Engineering/Murray & Roberts Joint Venture (HMR) was the main contractor.
The Shangri-La features 301 hotel rooms with two Executive Club floors, plus 126 serviced furnished apartments, 62 unfurnished serviced apartments and four office floors. The complex features 16 high-speed elevators configured in four separate lobbies in order to provide individual identity for each resident group, says Raafat Ezzeddine, senior resident architect with Norr Group.
'The furnished apartments range from studio to three-bedroom apartments - the idea being to accommodate the overbooking from the hotel in this section. The unfurnished segment has one to four-bedroom apartments.
The complex also features two banquet halls of 450 and 300-people capacities respectively, two health clubs and eight food and beverages outlets. Six of these outlets have been completed while the seventh is to be completed late October and the Level 42 venue will be completed next year.
Describing the project, Ezzeddine says: 'In contrast to its neighbouring glass towers, the granite-clad exterior of the 'towers' harkens back to the early 20th century American skyscraper. The exterior cladding is articulated with a strong vertical rhythm of granite and glass with the tower tops terminating in a series of steps to create a dramatic new addition to the Dubai skyline.'
The basement levels are for the kitchens, laundry and back-of-house services.
The ground floor has a grand four-storey-high entrance lobby incorporating the main hotel reception and all-day dining areas. Level one comprises a Chinese and Vietnamese restaurant and a bar, while level two has a Moroccan and a seafood restaurant.
A business centre and conference facilities are located on level three. The entire fourth floor is dedicated to the health club and includes a gymnasium, outdoor swimming pool, Jacuzzi, plunge pools, sauna and steam rooms, spa treatment rooms and squash and tennis courts. This level is connected by a footbridge to the roof of the car park building, which has a leisure deck.
The next four floors - level 5 to 8 - are dedicated for offices. Level 9 has double-height banquet halls and pre-function areas. 
Level 11 is a technical floor. The next eight floors (level 12 to 19) comprise unfurnished apartments while levels 20 to 27 consist of furnished apartments. Level 28 is a technical floor.
The hotel guest rooms are located from level 29 to 39 and include standard rooms and suites - a combination of bedroom, lounge and dining areas. Each of the guestrooms is richly-designed and spacious, being furnished using soothing colours, woods, and modern curves. The rooms are complete with all the modern amenities, such as electronic safes, broadband internet access, tea and coffee-making facilities, satellite TV, a full-size executive writing desk which faces the large floor-to-ceiling windows (all plugs and sockets conveniently positioned above the desk), duvets and a choice of pillows. The luxurious marble bathroom includes a bath with a handheld shower and a separate shower stall complete with an overhead Rain Forest fixed showerhead and a handheld showerhead.
Levels 40 and 41 comprise the executive floors also known as the Horizon Club. The executive rooms offer features similar to the guest rooms but are larger in size. Level 42 houses a health club and swimming pool for the exclusive use of the executive floor.
The Presidential suite is located on level 42/43.
'Facilities at the hotel have been designed to the highest specifications, in keeping with the five-star hotel status,' says Alford. 'Finishes are contemporary and of very high quality. These include the extensive use of natural materials, marble, wood, veneers as well as stainless steel and glass.'
Paintings by talented local Arab artists adorn the atrium lobby,  the rooms and the public areas.

Car-park building
The car park building, which can accommodate 450 vehicles, comprises four basement levels, a ground floor and 11 storeys and is linked to the main complex by a bridge and a tunnel. 'The tunnel is a unique feature of this hotel. It is the first full access tunnel in Dubai,' says Alford. 'It comprises two parts - one is for passage of employees and deliveries and the second is for garbage. No other hotel on Sheikh Zayed Road has this feature.'
Level 10 of the car-park building has an electrical plant room, boilers, generators, and main chilled water supply and pump sets.
Level 11 has the pool deck area, comprising a swimming pool, children's pool, Jacuzzi and hospitality area including a tennis court.

Construction
The tabular structure  sits on a raft foundation. The main diaphragm wall for the two-storey foundation being 16-17 m deep.
The structure of the building consists of perimeter columns, beams and slabs with in-situ concreting of four central cores which contain the elevator shafts. Each half of the tower has only four columns and secondary support beam structures. It is basically a column-free complex, which has given the flexibility to design the apartments.
The building design is very complex and in order to accommodate it, transfer beams were required. There are huge transfer beams at levels 11, 28 and 42 (?) to give stability to the building. The post-tensioned beams are 3 to 4 m deep and 1.5 to 2 m wide. The 32-strand post tensioned beams span from east to west.
'The superstructure comprises reinforced concrete with precast concrete floors. We were able to streamline the construction process by using Doka hydraulic climbing formwork which enabled us to achieve a record four-day cycle per floor,' says Grahame Waite, project manager with Al Habtoor/Murray &Roberts JV.
Doka's SKE 100 self-climbing system made its Middle East debut on the project. It was used to form the cores, with concrete pouring having taken place every day and the formwork system hydraulically jacked up one floor every four days.  The cores vary in thickness from 800 mm on lower levels to 400 mm and 200 mm on the upper levels. Doka's D2 system was used to support transfer beams and the floor slab precast beams.
'At the peak of construction, there were around 3,500 men at site with around 60 to 65 subcontractors involved. Handling so many people and the quantity of materials involved was a challenge,' he says. 'Despite this, we achieved nine million accident-free manhours on this job, which is outstanding considering the height of the building.'
The main challenge while executing this project was the battle against the clock to complete it within two years - a remarkable achievement considering the sheer size and scale of the building, says Alford.
Three Potain tower cranes and four construction hoists were used on site.
'Mace International's involvement with the project started in August 1999. There was a change in consultants and Norr was brought in April 2000. The project was re-designed and tendered in November 2000. The main construction package was awarded in May 2001 after an extensive tender and negotiation period and work started in June 2001,' he says. 'We as project managers had to revise the earlier package strategy and introduce a number of additional packages, which would run parallel with the tendering process.  This saved significant time on overall project programme.
'We introduced a series of preliminary packages, which included diaphragm wall, piling and site preparation works, which were contracted directly by the client (Al Jaber Establishment).
' The client was very closely involved at all the stages of design and construction, which was vital for the project. Coordination with the operator was also important during the completion of the phases and for the comprehensive design guides.'
'Another major challenge was to execute the project in a cost-effective way,' he adds. GTI was the project cost consultant and assisted in the close cost control throughout all stages of the project.
The project has utilised 16,000 tonnes of reinforcement steel and 60,000 cu m of concrete, more than 21,000 sq m of structural glazing and 25,000 sq m of polished granite for the external facade of the complex.

M&E services
Of the 16 Kone elevators that service the towers, six are dedicated for the hotel areas, three are for the unfurnished apartments and two for the office levels. There are five lifts for back-of-house areas, two of which go up to level 10 and the remaining go to the top of the building. In addition, there is also one dumbwaiter. The car-park building has four lifts.
The hotel incorporates a variety of advanced mechanical and electrical (M&E) systems.
Tabreed's central distric cooling system has been used throughout the 43-storey twin tower complex, which means there is no need for massive, space-stealing air-conditioning machinery. The area previously earmarked for the air-conditioning plant has been turned into tennis courts.
The Shangri-La Hotel, Dubai is the first worldwide hotel brand in the UAE to choose the Tabreed cooling system. Tabreed's cooling facility on the Sheikh Zayed Road is permanently piping chilled water to the complex. The company has been contracted to supply cooling services to the hotel for 20 years.
Other systems include room management systems for security, climate control and energy-saving, fire-fighting and fire alarm systems, gas detectors and voice evacuation systems.
The hotel is Hong Kong-headquartered Shangri-La Group's first property outside Asia Pacific. The group will also inaugurate in September its four-star brand - the Traders - located opposite the Dubai Cinema.
Its third property - Shangri-La's Barr Al Jissah Resort, Muscat, Oman, will be launched in July 2005.