Crowning Glory

Workers are completing Elite Residence.
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“If you look at the shape and the form of the building, it is an interesting blend between what people consider to be modern architecture and what is obviously a remarkable building that really drove the emerging of technologies and architectural expression,” says John Zwets, Tameer’s chief development officer.

“You can’t call Elite a traditional building, because it is simply not. I think what the architect was trying to do was give it a Dubai flavour. And by this, I mean something different to the bland sky scrapers you would see in other metropolis like Hong Kong or New York. I think what the architect tried to do was to give it a bit of soul.”

Saffarini agrees that Elite will stand out from many of the other towers in Dubai, and says that he looked at Victorian and Renaissance architecture for inspiration. This is the reason for the building’s crown, which will be fitted with 400 lights that will change colour at night.

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“The client was looking for the building to be more or less like a presidential building: the crown gives it the feeling of a classical palace,” he said.

A significant challenge for Saffarini was the small footprint of the site, which necessitated that the tower was square and very narrow in form. Another challenge was the location, on the waterfront and subject to onshore wind, sand and salt.

“We are had to use high quality colouring which is very durable, due to the sand and the salt and the weather,” he said.

But in terms of construction challenges, it is the roof that will present the biggest as Elite Residence grows towards its final 380m height. “The roof will be pre-fabricated at ground level, and lifted up to the top of the building in stages and installed by crane,” explains Arabian Construction Company’s project director Bill Parker. “The light fittings will all be pre-installed into the cladding at the factory so as to avoid having to fit the lights at height.”

Tameer hopes that the building will be completed by October 2011, but delays have not been a stranger to the development so far, as Tameer were hit by financing problems in 2009. “The recession has had an impact on the construction of Elite, I would be lying if I said otherwise,” says Zwets.

“Although we have sold the majority of the units, the financial crisis impacted on how people deployed their capital and paid their bills. One of those bills was to satisfy their agreements with the developer. It became more labour intensive to get people to make payments.”

That said, Zwets maintains that the scheduled completion date has not changed since it received RERA approval for the project in 2009.