The Opus is built next to the record-breaking Burj Khalifa and Business Bay. The program includes offices, serviced apartments, restaurants and bars, and the key role is played by the ME Dubai (Meliá chain) with 74 rooms and 19 suites. This is the only hotel, as ZHA recalls, where Zaha Hadid worked on both the building itself and the interiors.
But the hotel can hardly distract from the exterior of The Opus: a rectangular block from which the core has been extracted. Architects see in the project a “dramatic contrast” that this curvilinear eight-story opening creates.
At the bottom, the two halves of the building are connected by a four-storey atrium, at the top - by a three-storey "bridge". Its total height is 20 floors (93 meters), and the garage and other premises occupy seven underground levels. The total area of The Opus is 84 345 m2.
Given the hot climate, the double-glazed facades are covered with a UV protection layer and a mirrored fritted pattern. The curved surface of the opening - and this is 6000 m2 - consists of 4300 modules: straight, curved and double curvature. Each module is made of 8mm energy efficient glass, a 16mm cavity and two layers of 6mm PVB laminated clear glass (1.52mm). The CAD system used in the design also identified areas where tempered glass needed to be applied.
The facades look mirrored during the day, and the LEDs installed in each glass panel turn on at night. Each can be controlled separately, together they make up a dynamic installation.
In the hotel, the interiors designed by ZHA are complemented by furniture designed by Hadid: these are Petalinas sofas and Ottomans modules in the lobby, Opus beds, sofas, the Vitae collection for bathrooms in the rooms.
At the beginning of 2017, the developer The Opus
announced his plans to create a memorial to Zaha Hadid in the building. Now nothing has been reported about this.
