The Capital Gate in Abu Dhabi by RMJM

The work began in 2007 and will end this year. Has an inclination of 18 degrees, almost four times higher than the Tower of Pisa, and has just been named by Guinness World Records “the most outstanding building in the world. ”

This is the Capital Gate in Abu Dhabi, designed by RMJM and property dell’ADNEC (Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company), whose leadership is in addition to that achieved last January by the Burj Khalifa as the world’s tallest building.
The tower is 160 meters high and has around 35 floors used to house offices and a five star hotel, the Hyatt Capital Gate, with restaurants, meeting rooms, reception, tea lounge, spa, fitness center, pool and outdoor terrace for a total of 53,100 sqm.

The floors of the Capital Gate are stacked vertically on the 12th floor and up the top there is also a gradual offset from 30 to 140 cm, which leads impressive inclination of the Tower.

The building also has other technical-innovative construction, including the first use known to the world of a ‘pre-cambered core’, which contains more than 15,000 cubic meters of concrete reinforced with 10,000 tons of steel. The core, deliberately built a little off center in the opposite direction to that building, was realigned with increasing height of the building and positioned vertically with the changing center of gravity and weight gain plans added.

The external structure consists of a strong exo-skeleton, called “the diagrid, a diagonal mesh of steel bearing the full brunt of the plans and avoid the hassle of internal pillars or beams. This shirt is set to 490 whose foundation pillars reach 30 meters in depth. Ben 12,500 glass panels close the openings 720, all different in slope and curvature.
For the construction were used:
- About 8,500 steel structural elements (beams, columns, plates, etc.).
- Over 12,500 different layers of glass that form the facade more than 720 different diamond shaped panels, each ‘diamond’ weighs about 5 tons and contains 18 glass panels
- A total of 21,000 square meters of glass façade
- 13,200 tons of structural steel.

The front is double glazed for greater energy efficiency. The exhaust air is pre-cooled between the internal and external façade to reduce building energy consumption by recycling the used air. The glass used on the facade of the tower is low emissivity. It is designed to maintain the building’s interior cool and eliminate glare while maintaining the transparency of the facade.
Stainless steel ‘splash’ is a shading device that eliminates more than 30% of the sun’s heat before it reaches the building, resulting in a saving on the need for cooling within the building.