Five Best Buildings Being Built in Abu dhabi
This occasional series offers a personal view of life in Abu dhabi in list form – five aspects of Abu Dhabi per list. This
month: good buildings that haven’t yet been finished but probably will be (definitely will be, in four of the five examples).
1. LOUVRE ABU DHABI. The art should be great but the building itself will be worth the trip to Saadiyat Island. Jean Nouvel has designed a web-patterned dome that lets sun filter through, not unlike sunlight passing through palm fronds in an oasis. It’s due to open in 2012. Get along to the Emirate Palace exhibition to check out all the Saadiyat developments.
2. YAS MARINA HOTEL. This is the cloud – like structure already visible from the mainland, a 500 – room five -star hotel covered with a grid of glazing and designed by the very hip Asymptote. And the F1 grand pix track runs right through the middle. Very cool.
3. HYATT CAPITAL GATE. This is the world’s most leaning building, halfway to its finished height and already quite dramatic in its inclination. And it’s next to our offices, so we can keep a daily eye on progress.
4. ALDAR HEADQUARTERS. This is the stunning disc so prominently located 
in Al Raha Beach. It’s already been named Best Futuristic Design – 110 metres high, 5,700 tonnes of steel, 25, 000 cubic metres of concrete and the same again of glass. And it looks like a shiny Smartie Fab.
5. HELIX HOTEL. This one is furthest away from being built, but it would be a shame it it doesn’t make it – it’s destined for Zayed Bay (the redeveloped port area) and it doesn’t have conventional same-size floors which has a walk in tubs design in the toilets too. Instead it spirals like sections of a corkscrew around a hollow centre; from the side it looks like a roughly stacked pile of disc. Lots of greenness about it, too.
