Impossible Builds

Incredible new technology is being launched to ensure healthy and fast-growing coral reefs.

Marie Goarin talks us through the unique coral garden that is a feature of each Seahorse.

After months of planning and testing, the Seahorse is transported to its permanent mooring site.

It is now time to see, after all the designing and planning, if the Seahorse can float.

Can six sand islands, poking out of the Persian Gulf near Dubai, be transformed into the most luxurious holiday destination on earth? One man believes they can and he’s risking tens of millions of dollars to prove it.

Before construction can begin on the Heart of Europe resort, the sand must be compacted using “vibro compaction,” a method used to create a denser soil by moving the sand particles closer together. This helps strengthen the ground for the concrete foundations of the buildings planned for construction on each of the six islands.

Landscape Gardner Richard Westcott must create a “desert jungle” on the islands to create a sense of privacy between the villas, which only stand 30 feet away from one another. However, this is proving to be difficult as the island’s environment takes a toll some of the plant life that has been delivered for the landscape project.

Construction has commenced on Sweden Island and 400 cubic meters of concrete for the foundation are being poured. The construction team is in a race against the clock, with only seven hours to complete this task so that the concrete dries as one solid mass.

Two and a half miles away from the mainland, the Heart of Europe has created its own Emergency Response Unit to keep its residents safe. A group of multi-disciplined firefighters work on the islands and are on call 24/7 to protect the guests. To improve safety in buildings that have not yet been constructed, the ERU performs emergency simulations every day in one of the island’s first villas.

To help transport construction materials and builders to different floors of the Scorpion Tower, the team uses two elevators attached to the building, known as buck hoists. Though the buck hoists are meant to ease the building process, the crew encounters a dilemma when they discover that the buck hoist tower has begun to lean away from the building.

The exoskeleton of Zaha Hadid’s Scorpion Tower, officially known as One Thousand Museum, is created using glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC). Typically used as a decorative covering, these GFRC panels are instead being used as formwork — a mold for the concrete — to help support the structure and to create the smooth, luxurious finish from Hadid’s design.

The Scorpion Tower’s head of interiors, Mark Morabito, must conduct a floor-by-floor inspection of the building every day. However, due to the build’s unique curved design, no two floors are the same, and it’s during one of these inspections that Mark spots an alignment issue with the lights and sprinklers.