Mall of the Emirates is the largest shopping centre outside of North America. Strategically located in the heart of 'New Dubai' this 223,000m2 leisure, entertainment and shopping centre offers a broad and impressive range of facilities. The £250 million development is home to over 400 retailers and features some exciting venues for those wishing to do more than shop. These include Ski Dubai, the first indoor ski destination in the Middle East, a Magic Planet, the largest indoor family entertainment centre in the country, a 14-screen Cinestar Cinemas and Dubai Community Arts and Theatre. The mall holds 65 restaurants and coffee shops ranging from fast food to a la carte themed restaurants and exclusive dining alternatives. The development also incorporates two hotels, which contains restaurants, tennis courts, swimming pools and spas. The 5-star Kempinski situated at the south end of the mall provides guests the opportunity to enjoy views of the ski slopes from the comfort of their own suites. Concept to completion Majid Al Futtaim Group appointed Mott MacDonald as structural engineer for the main mall, car park and Kempinski hotel at Mall of the Emirates. We worked alongside Architects F+A, local architects Holfords, WSP and Hyders to provide an integrated project team. The initial lead came from project concept studies and architectural perspective impressions. The design team provided initial advice during the design development stage followed by project documentation deliver for issue to the contractors for the build period of 23 months. To achieve such a short project construction programme the project team had to come up with various value engineering ideas during the early design stage. One innovative approach, which pleased the client, saw us adopting mass concrete foundations compared to traditional piled foundations, combining basic design principles with imagination and lower cost, locally available raw materials to save time and money. Key to the success of the mass concrete foundations was to keep the overall placed concrete temperature variations to a minimum. To keep core and surface temperatures down, we used a blended mix with an increase in the aggregate size and curing technique of overlaid polystyrene and temporary backfill. After conducting site and laboratory tests on the concrete mix we sized the foundations based on a design principle of a 45 degree spread of load, using the foundation block as the medium. This design principle with temperature control techniques meant internal tension stresses could be kept to a minimum and reinforcement was not necessary. Other challenges that had to be overcome to meet time, cost and quality expectations included high temperatures and humidity, a technically complex structure, variations in substrate load carrying capacity and depths and unreliable plant availability. The innovative architecture design to create a mixed use shopping and leisure environment included: operational and energy efficient building quality to meet both client and visitors expectations value engineered designs with focus on cost and construction programming optimising return by maximising cost/value commitment from the design and site team to achieve the highest expectations that this project will be delivering to the residents and visitors to Dubai Achievement The 23 month construction programme in the aggressive Dubai market building growth plan was the focus for the project site consultants teams, client and project managers. From start to finish, planning and contractor co-ordination had the team working closely together to overcome the pull of local and imported materials to other developments within the Middle East. Mall of the Emirates’ huge success since its opening in September 2005 brings many benefits for the surrounding community. Our support to Majid Al Futtaim Group resulted in us being appointed as lead consultant and engineer for the £200 million Bahrain City Centre Mall.