AEDAS' GLOBAL FORCE delivers designs of unrivalled sophistication to the Middle East.

Currently the fourth largest architectural practice in the world, Aedas employs over 1,700 staff in 26 offices in the leading cities of London, Hong Kong and New York and in the rapidly growing economies of China, SE Asia, India, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Poland and Brazil. The global force offers a wealth of experience and expertise in Architecture, Interior Design, Urban Design, Landscape and Graphic Design across a diverse range of market sectors.

In Europe, Aedas is driven by a growing complement of 680 staff throughout Britain in London and 10 other offices in the country and a further 30 staff in Warsaw and Moscow. They have designed some of the largest and most important commercial and residential schemes in numerous regional cities in Britain. The Practice also has a long history of producing notable successes on public finance initiative school projects and also has a solid presence in healthcare, pharmaceutical and bio-pharmaceutical industries. In Central and Eastern Europe, Aedas projects range from apartment blocks to major waterside residential developments, business parks and hotels.

In Asia, Aedas employs over 890 staff in Asia and is now the largest architectural practice in Hong Kong with offices also in Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Macau, Mumbai and Dubai. Aedas is well known for its master planning and cutting edge high density mixed commercial designs particularly in China, notably, R&F City with a GFA of 1.3 million m2 in Beijing, HKI Properties’ Fortune Plaza in Beijing, Hutchison Whampoa Properties’ Mixed-use Development with a GFA of 2.4 million m2 in Chengdu, and International Cruise Terminal in Xiamen.

Aedas brought this large scale mixed-use expertise to the UAE in 2004 and since then has carried out over 1.8 million sq m of adventurous designs in Dubai & Abu Dhabi. A selection of their diverse range of portfolio includes UBORA Tower Mixed-use Development in Business Bay Dubai, Emaar Commercial Towers near Burj Dubai, Dubai TV Station, DAMAC Ocean Heights Residential Towers at Dubai Marina and Dancing Towers Mixed-commercial Complex in Abu Dhabi. Aedas has migrated also their rail expertise to the UAE for an enormous contract consisting 43 rail stations and 2 depots in the country. Aedas has a substantial track record in creating Asia’s key transportation network including 24 rail stations and 6 depots throughout Asia, 11 buildings at the HK International Airport and 6 seaport terminals for the world’s busiest container port in HK.

Aedas has successfully transformed all of Hongkong Land's retail portfolio in Central HK into the world's premier shopping precinct and has vastly expanded shopping and dining experience at the HK International Airport. Aedas retail expertise has opened huge opportunities for the Practice to work on cultural, leisure and entertainment projects. Key projects include several massive casino and resort integrated developments for
Venetian Macau, West Kowloon Cultural Development, Ngong Ping cable car journey to the world’s biggest Buddha statue and the Redevelopment of Ocean Park.

In America, Aedas employs over 120 staff in New York, Washington DC and Sao Paulo. The Practice is among the USA's leading architectural design firms known for innovative solutions to complex design challenges. In North America, they are one of the premier designers of academic facilities and civic projects. The Practice is currently serving as Design Architect for the World Trade Centre Memorial Museum and as Associate Architect for the World Trade Centre Memorial. In South America, Aedas has additional expertise in the design of commercial research and manufacturing facilities.

The rational behind Aedas' globalization is to maximize the diversity each Aedas office offers. Under the Aedas brand, they have successfully orchestrated into a global force, providing a wealth of experience and expertise across a vast range of market sectors including retail, commercial, education, healthcare, hotels, residential, resorts & casinos, museums, pharmaceuticals and transportation. The value of sharing resources and exchanging ideas is evident in the collaboration of their offices for a major Mixed-use Development in London, the Dubai Light Rail network and more recently the UK Cross Rail.

The Emaar Towers – Emaar Properties PJSC
Located immediately across the street from the future tallest tower in the world – Burj Dubai Tower, The Emaar Towers, to be completed in 2008, stand at the gateway into the Burj Dubai development. Both towers, with a gross floor area of 100,000 m2 , focus toward the main entry to greet the visitors. As one continues into the site the towers rotate their orientation as a gesture of respect to their towering neighbour across the street.
The two towers of 36 and 30 floors contain grade A+ office space and are clothed with an articulated skin recalling the veils and layers of traditional Islamic architecture. As the figures rise, they bend inwards forming two deep shadowed arches up to the sky and beyond – toward the top of the Burj Dubai. The design strives to fit appropriately into this development as a respectful icon to the community. The relationship of the forms and their articulation derive from both its contextual response and as a symbol representing modern Islamic architecture set appropriately within the most modern Islamic city in the world.

U-BORA TOWER at Business Bay, Dubai –
Bando Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd.
The 250 meter high U-Bora Office Tower, die for completion in 2009, is located prominently on the main axis within the Business Bay Development. It was designed as an anchor on this axis and within its own development. Along with the 462 meter Burj Alam, located across the street of this main axis, the two towers work together and act as a gateway into the development. The tower position is rotated from the orthogonal at the street level to help focus the office space down the future view corridors toward the water and past the surrounding developments. As the tower increase in height its four faces respond directly to their three dimensional context. They all twist at varying degrees and angles to re-orient their faces to maximize available views.

The project weights the office space toward the top by starting with smaller 1,100 m2 floors at the bottom, slowly increasing towards the top 2,000 m2 floors. This maximizes prime view space by containing 70% of the office towers’ 80,000 m2, in the top half of the office tower. The 30,000 m2 residential block deliberately does not compete with the surrounding towers in height and instead keeps low and focused to the adjacent water body to the south. By designing the block as a linear bar rising from 12 stories at the tower end to 15 stories at the western end a significantly greater percentage of units get an uninterrupted view of the water.

The third component of the project is 7,000 m2 of retail. All three components are glued together with a 10,000 m2 public, densely landscaped deck which has accessibility from all three exposed sides of the project. Aedas is Lead Consultant and Architect for this project.

DAMAC Ocean Heights & Ocean Heights 2 – DAMAC Properties Co. LLC
Ocean Heights, located in Dubai Marina, is a 310-meter residential tower. The design evolved to maximize views toward the ocean with a deliberate twist on three of its faces. This allows the units, even in the back, a view toward the water beyond. The 82 storey tower is planned for completion in 2008. The building immediately starts its twist of its three faces at the base. As it rises, the tower’s floor plates reduce in size, allowing the rotation to become even more pronounced. At fifty stories, the building rises over its neighbors. This movement allows two faces of the building unobstructed views to the ocean. A challenging aspect of the design was accommodating the client’s strict requirement of unit layouts within a changing envelope. What resulted was a rational 4-meter module, which tracks its way down through the entire building and only changes at the facade. The shifts in geometry were taken as soft gradual moves over the 310 meters of height resulting in a sculpted and dynamic object – but with a rationalized structural system and modulized facade….. essential in the projects viability of common sized residential units for Dubai’s market.

Ocean Heights 2 is 460 meters in height and 105 floors, it will be the tallest tower in its vicinity. However, unlike its predecessor, the requirements for more modulized units up to the 60th floor, forced a different approach while intending to maintain the spirit of its sister.

The first 60 floors of the tower are intended to be serviced apartments, which in order to be marketable, needed to have the majority of units standardized. The curved shape of the tower improves views past its densely located neighbors. The “playfulness” of this tower was concentrated into the two most visible faces allowing for units to bend up the tower in two blades. These blades were still modulized up to the 60th floor before the tight restrictions of unit area fluctuations become more relaxed. At this point the modules drop off and the blades continue up tapering and bending into the sky.

Empire Island Tower, The Shams, Abu Dhabi – Empire Holdings
Due for completion in 2009, the client’s request for Empire Tower was for not “pushing the limits” too far. The concern was that this residential project is located in the middle of a master plan filled with potential icons so the design standardizes the units to accommodate the client’s request but manipulates the section to develop dynamic solution, which holds its own amidst the visual clutter of its neighbours. The dramatic design maximizes the towers’ presence on the street with vertical layers spreading out and bending backwards away from the large commercial tower across the street which then allowed for an enlarged view corridor between the central park of the community and the sea, one block away. The splayed vertical layers converge while rising up before bending forward together as the 230-meter tower with a gross floor area of 94,716 m2 rises towards the sky, whilst maximizing views between the park and sea.

Dancing Towers of Abu Dhabi Mixed-use Development, UAE –
Capital Investment
Located in the heart of Abu Dhabi and due for completion in 2008, Dancing Towers was designed to fit appropriately in scale to its surrounding neighbors. The challenge was how to achieve this when the project is 70,000 m2 and adjacent properties are relatively small, averaging floor plates of 900 m2. Two slender towers vs. one singular tower was the first step but the site itself being constrained, forced a close proximity between the two buildings. This site constraint is intensified in achieving a viable connective retail podium between the commercial and residential towers, drop-offs to the lobbies and access to supporting functions. The buildings were placed deliberately to maximize the uses down low. However, the two towers quickly lean, rotate, bend and warp to respond to each other, the adjacent sites and ultimately the view to the ocean at their horizon. These two figures fluidly respond to each other, dynamically engaged and flowing – ultimately embraced together in a passionate dance. Aedas is Lead Consultant and Architect for this project which includes serviced apartments of 31,169 m2, a business hotel of 23,497 m2, office space of 5,465 m2 and retail of 371 m2.