Dubai's High-rise Dilemma

By Author: Alessandro Dubaldo
Total Articles: 19
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This author recently came across two media reports, which when combined together may leave a few of Dubai's well-wishers worrisome. The first one read, "Emaar Properties records an annual net profit of AED 6.575 billion (US$ 1.790 billion) in 2007", which is what many industry watchers might have expected anyway, since Emmar has constructed hoards of properties including Dubai apartments and hotels in the last few years. The emirate's booming economy has resulted into a major boost for its real estate segment as well, thus providing the companies like Emmar with handsome profits.

The reason for worry, however, stems from the other story, "1001 towers face identity challenge" by Naseem
Javed in The Gulf News. It takes a clue form the famous 1001 Arabian Night Tales to carry across its message. The author suggests, there would soon be around a thousand towers in and around Dubai with each trying to surpass the other in cost, height and advancement of their makings. The demand for commercial space, Dubai apartments and hotels was so much in the present scenario that it may take only a few years to make those towers ...
... a reality. However, the gray area is a lack of uniqueness these towers may have to end up with, something Naseem Javed seems to speaks about.

And the concern of leading their lives in a lost concrete jungle of Dubai should make any proud Dubaian worrisome. "One can find several identical or near-identical towers being built in and around Dubai even today", notes Javed. "Distinguishing them is the new challenge not only for the customers, but also for the real estate managers", he adds. Javed rightly points out at the necessity of branding various upcoming buildings in different ways. There is so much on stake in Dubai right now that the construction companies would simply refuse to accept any responsibility for the city's future. Many high-rise office blocks, hotels and Dubai apartments are merely being built to fill up the open space.

At the core of this problem lies the ease with which Dubai may have an access to the modern construction techniques. The West needed over a century for carrying out R&D to gain mastery on the same. But, with a booming economy to buy all sorts of goods and services on its disposal, Dubai is now the new hotbed for making awe-inspiring mega towers. "They are not careful in making diverse yet harmonious looking buildings", feels Naseem Javed. "Their focus is more on building taller and more glamorous structures than the previous ones", he added.

This issue may not be bracketed with Dubai alone, since there are other fast growing cities around the world with similar dilemmas. However, due to its inadequacies and a boosting economy, Dubai faces a stiffer identity challenge. And with the kind of a steep hike in the demand for Dubai apartments, hotel rooms and office accommodations we are seeing today, one should expect the whole of Arabian Peninsula to be overwhelmed by a sea of lookalike buildings very soon, unless of course the planners had something else in their minds.