쌍용건설

Ssangyong E&C’s Royal Atlantis Resort and Residences Construction Site Wins the Grand Prize in the Architecture Category at the 2020 Money Today Overseas Construction Awards

 

A strong player in the overseas high-end construction market, Ssangyong E&C is busy constructing a mega-scale landmark hotel, continuing its legacy after completing the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore.

 

Awarded the Grand Prize in the Architecture Category at the 2020 Money Today Overseas Construction Awards, the Royal Atlantis Resort and Residences project involves the construction of one super-luxurious 44-story hotel building and two swanky 38-story residence buildings on the Palm Jumeirah, an artificial archipelago in Dubai.

 

Featuring 795 hotel rooms and 231 housing units, this complex boasts a unique exterior design, resembling the shape of an “S” when seen from above and elaborately stacked Lego blocks when seen from the front.

 

Each section of the complex will be linked to 14 “sky courts” (open spaces in the middle of the buildings). The complex will also feature a total of 109 swimming pools (including 80 private ones) for hotel guests and residents and an outdoor oasis with gardens.

 

The hotel and residences are essentially two separate buildings connected by an 80-meter high skybridge. The skybridge features a bridge suite with its own private swimming pool and court garden, with a 90-meter rooftop swimming pool commanding a scenic view of Dubai’s skyline and the Arabian Gulf.

 

To create the skybridge, the project team had to lift the main structure weighing over 1,300 tons to a height of 80 meters, using the “strand jack-up” method, a technique previously used in the construction of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.

 

The company’s high-end construction technology was also utilized in the façade cladding of the complex. “There are hardly any buildings in the world featuring Lego-like blocks that are all curved, Site Manager Seung Pyo Han (Managing Director) said. “The building is so complicated that even the 33,000 wall finishing panels are all curved.”

 

The project was ordered by the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), Ssangyong E&C’s largest shareholder and one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. As a main contractor, Ssangyong E&C formed a joint venture with Belgium-based BESIX Group and secured this mega-project in December 2015. It is worth a whopping USD 840 million. The project period is 52 months from July 2016 to October of this year.

 

The complex’s unique design features made the construction that much more challenging, requiring the involvement of 54 consultants from 14 countries, including Canada, the UK and France.

 

The joint venture partner BESIX is well-known as the builder of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower with 163 floors. Even BESIX commented that this project was much harder than the Burj Khalifa, an anecdote showcasing the project’s full-fledged utilization of high-end construction design and technology.