Foster and Partners Designs for the Zayed National Museum by have been officially unveiled today by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Conceived as a monument and memorial to the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding president of the UAE, the Museum will be the centrepiece of the Saadiyat Island Cultural District and will showcase the history, culture and more recently the social and economic transformation of the Emirates.
The display spaces are housed within a man-made, landscaped mound. The galleries are placed at the bases of five solar thermal towers. The towers heat up and act as thermal chimneys to draw cooling air currents naturally through the museum. Fresh air is captured at low level and drawn through buried ground-cooling pipes and then released into the museum’s lobby. The heat at the top of the towers works to draw the air up vertically through the galleries due to the thermal stack effect. Air vents open at the top of the wing-shaped towers taking advantage of the negative pressure on the lee of the wing profile to draw the hot air out.
Here in the museum these towers are lightweight steel structures, sculpted aerodynamically to work like the feathers of a bird’s wing. The analogies with falcons and flight are deliberate and relate directly to Sheikh Zayed’s love of falconry. This theme is further celebrated by a gallery devoted to the subject as part of a wider focus on conservation. These inner spaces open up to an outdoor arena for live displays with hunting birds.
About Foster and Partners:
Foster + Partners' architecture is driven by the pursuit of quality - a belief that our surroundings directly influence the quality of our lives, whether in the work place, at home or the public spaces in between. It is not just buildings but urban design that affects our well-being. We are concerned with the physical context of a project, sensitive to the culture and climate of their place. We have applied the same priorities to public infrastructure world-wide - in our airports, railway stations, metros, bridges, communication towers, regional plans and city centres. The quest for quality embraces the physical performance of buildings.
Source: http://www.fosterandpartners.com/News/429/Default.aspx
No comments:
Post a Comment