ALEC has topped out the 57-storey Tower B, of the Dubai-based ‘One Za’abeel’ project, one of the most powerful symbols of engineering ambition and innovation under construction right now. Tower B is one of the two towers that are going to make up the development, along with a 230-meter long cantilever floating 125 meters above the ground. This connective element is the world’s longest cantilever, weighs 9,500 tonnes, and it’s going to host restaurants, lounges, and various attractions itself.
The towers are going to be used for luxurious residence duplex and simplexes, offices, and hotels. They obviously hold space for a whole lot of things, including an automated car parking system that features three lifts and four shuttles, traveling at 0.9/sec and 2.0m/sec respectively. In total, each tower will be able to accommodate 242 vehicles in seven basements.
Το complete this massive endeavor in just a few months, some cutting-edge technology had to be used. To get an idea of the size here, for the construction of Tower B alone, 35,000 tonnes of rebar and 176,536 m3 of concrete were used. One example of innovative solutions was the deployment of a semi-automated drill, the “Hilti Jaibot”, which takes care of overhead drilling, leaving engineers to just monitoring its progress by looking into data.
Tower A is midways, but it won’t be long before that’s topped out too. That one is going to be larger, standing 304 meters high, 63 meters above Tower B. The construction is going according to schedule, and all milestones have been reached thus far. The completion date, should everything continue to go as plan, is set for November 2021, so this is around when the One Za’abeel will shine with all its glory in the desert of Dubai. Even for United Arab Emirates standards, this is an undoubtedly iconic construction.
