Home to about a third of the world's cranes, the emirate of Dubai is skyscraper heaven, a permanent construction site. The world's fastest-growing city (more of a city state, in fact) plans 616 high-rise buildings by 2009, from around 250 now. Only Shanghai comes close.
This has made Dubai architect heaven and the world's top skyscraper building designers have a presence here. Heading the list is South African Shaun Killa, who is design director in the region for Atkins, the world's third-largest engineering design firm.
In the 680-strong Dubai office of Atkins, Killa runs a team of 120 architects. They have been credited with revolutionising energy-efficient construction technologies for skyscrapers and have global awards to show for it.
The most spectacular of Killa's skyscraper designs now include wind turbines. The Atkins-designed World Trade Centre in Bahrain uses wind turbines to provide significant energy savings. It's set to be commissioned early next year (see photo). Less obvious are spandrel panels, window glazing and other features that make skyscrapers energy efficient, particularly in Dubai, where millions are spent in each building on air conditioning.
On his latest project, a 400 m tower design in Dubai, Killa says: "We are aiming to reduce energy consumption by 65% and water consumption by 50%." The project has already been nominated for the world's foremost architectural prize for its sustainability.
Killa, an architectural graduate from the University of Cape Town, left SA in 1998 after working for four years on a number of projects, including the first phase of Cape Town's V&A Waterfront.
"I left because I was in search of bigger work, more expressionist architecture," he says. Killa ended up in Dubai working on the Burj Al Arab, the 7-star hotel, built by SA construction giant Murray & Roberts, that is widely viewed as Dubai's landmark building.
He hasn't looked back. When he joined Atkins it 1999, it employed 50 people in Dubai. Now it's 14 times that size and Killa estimates he has been involved in the design of at least 40 skyscrapers in the region, including of late the Trump Tower and the 21st Century Tower, which for four years was the world's tallest residential building.
"When we first started, the design element and energy efficiency of skyscraper construction was less pronounced. Now it's absolutely vital and we have thrived on that," Killa says. "Dubai allows you to push the design envelope further and, for an architect, that's where you want to be."
Killa is settled in Dubai with his family but has not lost his SA involvement. On the contrary: when Dubai World won the bidding for the V&A Waterfront, they asked Atkins to participate. Killa is involved with the "new vision for the V&A", as he puts it, taking him back to the project that started his career.
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