JOIN USDubai’s iconic sail-shaped luxury hotel, the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah, is currently undergoing a dramatic extension of its footprint with the addition of a huge floating leisure deck attached by a causeway to the base of the 321-metre-tall tower. In what is being called a ‘world first’ in marine design and engineering, the so-called North Deck, weighing around 5,000 tons, was manufactured at a shipyard in Finland and transported by ship to Dubai in six sections. They are being lifted by crane and lowered onto a grid of 90 steel piles stretching from the hotel out into the Gulf. The deck is set to officially open to guests in the second quarter of this year.
Designed by the UK-headquartered consultancy Atkins, and built on an artificial island, the Burj Al Arab is one of the tallest hotels in the world and was an early iconic building for booming Dubai when it first opened its doors in 1999. The North Deck, at 10,000 sq metres in area, will boast of two large swimming pools (a 612-sq-metre freshwater pool and an 828-sq-metre saltwater one), a restaurant, bar, and 32 cabanas, with enough space left over for 400 sun loungers.
Robert Swade, the Jumeirah Group’s chief operating officer believes that this is the first time a structure of this nature and size has been built in one country and then transported to another country to be assembled and operated. The North Deck was developed in Finland by marine construction experts Admares, who specialise in what the company calls “floating real estate”.