(2008) Burj Khalifa Downtown Residences

Michael Graves & Associates and The Cassia Group (xCassia) completed designs for a 120,000 sqm mixed-use development comprising two upmarket residential towers in the Burj Khalifa Downtown district of Dubai.

The buildings are splayed in plan to maximize views toward the water and Burj Khalifa Tower. The towers are sited on top of a common parking plinth that is being developed as a landscaped promenade.

The development contains 569 residential units; there are 324 apartments in the 27-story tower, and 245 units in the lower building. This project was fully documented prior to the construction downturn that affected Dubai early in 2009. Designed to provide high-end residential apartments within the renowned Burj Khalifa District of Dubai across the lake from the Armani Hotel and Burj khalifa Tower, with two towers of 25 and 39 stories each with 245 and 324 apartment units respectively– rise above a four-story mixed-use podium with retail, offices, residents’ amenities and four below-grade levels of parking.

The overlapping scales of façade articulation recall the great Art Deco skyscrapers of the 1920s and 1930s, adapted to the materials, colors and forms characteristic of Dubai. The recurring tapered flat arch motif recalls the stylized figurative decoration of palms and lotuses common to the Gulf region and the traditions of Arabic ornament.