SOM, along with Seddiqi & Sons Investment and Dubai Contracting Company, celebrated the inauguration of the Rolex Tower on 7 November 2010.
George Efstathiou, SOM’s managing partner for both Rolex Tower and Burj Khalifa, stated that the building has been conceived by SOM to personify the classic design elegance of the iconic timepiece that shares the tower’s name.
Rolex Tower contains 30 floors of office space, 25 floors of residential apartments and is capped with two exclusive residential penthouses one of which has a private pool on the 57th level. Behind the tower, a nine-storey parking garage and entrance plaza leading to the tower’s lobby provide easy access to the tower. The building’s design, which features a glass curtain wall, embodies a sense of understated elegance amid the lively context of Sheikh Zayed Road. The size of the site dictated the design of the Rolex Tower along with its close proximity to adjacent buildings. The SOM architects addressed the site by stacking the offices, residential units and amenities, creating a refined columnar shape. Rolex Tower stands as a quiet neighbour amongst the other tall towers along Sheik Zayed Road, reinforcing the existing ‘urban street wall’.
The building is veiled in a curtain wall of high performance, patterned green glass, which fades as it ascends, further expressing the height of the tower. This specific glass has been chosen to respond to the building’s desert location. In the bright Dubai sunlight, Rolex Tower sheathed in glass, appears to shimmer like a desert mirage. With two setbacks as sky terraces, the three tiered massing reflects the change of uses in the program – office, residential and amenity. The design for the base of the building is intended to counter the hyper activity on the street, while the vertical light well located at the upper portion of the residential tier forms a visual link between the walls of towers on Sheikh Zayed Road.
The luxurious ground floor lobby and mezzanine will house a variety of upscale retail facilities. The lobby also includes an art installation by James Clar called ‘Soundwave’, a dynamic sculpture made of stainless steel that hangs in the lobby of the building, derived from the artist recording his own voice, saying ‘Rolex Tower’.
The tower located on Dubai’s Sheik Zayed Road is the second tower to be completed by SOM in 2010 along with the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, also located in Dubai.
