6 Falak, Dubai

6 Falak is a new commercial development located in Dubai Internet City that will deliver a cutting-edge class-A office building and enhance the local market offering.

But in reality, it is not completely “new”. During the COVID- induced downturn in the Middle East real estate market, the construction of the existing project that began in 2016 was put on hold. It has been sitting half-complete until 2022 when the project was acquired by Sweid & Sweid, a leading UAE-based real estate company, who engaged Ramboll as the sustainability consultant to ensure that the building would achieve its completion potential.

The project site is situated adjacent to the Visa CEMEA Headquarters building, on the key central artery of Al Falak Street, and is within the largest technology cluster in the Middle East. 6 Falak will deliver over 90,000 square feet of leasable area built to institutional-grade specifications. Additionally, each floor offers outdoor terrace areas, and ground level common facilities, including a private garden.

A post-COVID development giving the structure a new lease of life

6 Falak represents a new generation of commercial developments that responds to a post-COVID era, with additional emphasis on collaboration and establishing a community within the building across multiple tenants, rather than traditional and more segregated office spaces.

But for many years this building was nothing but a shell waiting to be completed. There were several options that could be considered to complete the building, including demolishing the half complete structure and starting again. However, Ramboll’s sustainability consultants believe that “every building has the right to be heard” and this building deserved the chance to realise its potential.

While traditionally, time and cost have been the key basis of decision-making for the sector, at 6 Falak, cost, time and carbon formed the basis of decision-making. While knocking the structure down and starting again would have been potentially quicker and more commercially viable, the project chose to retain the structure and engineer it for additional loads to avoid adverse carbon impact.

The most carbon sensitive approach

Prioritising using the existing structure rather than building new played a vital role in not only reducing whole lifecycle carbon and waste but was also more cost effective.

Ramboll estimated that 60% of the embodied carbon was already sitting in the existing structure and so our team worked with the structural engineers at BG&E to reimagine it as part of the future development.

Ramboll then advised on what low carbon materials could be used on the façade. This included conducting immense parametric assessments to optimise the facade and its impact on the building’s overall energy use.

Ramboll also conducted extensive dynamic modelling of the MEP engineering design to ensure a whole lifecycle carbon approach to the building that considered the most efficient use of energy in the A Grade office space.