Palm Islands

When innovation meets hard work, the resuls are astounding as seen at the Palm Islands in Dubai, an ambitious project visualized by Nakheel Properties, these man-made islands were constructed to accommodate the ever-growing tourist influx in Dubai. Shaped to resemble a palm tree, the Palm Trilogy defines everyday luxury living.

 

 

Palm Islands

The Palm Islands (Atlantis) are an artificial archipelago in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on which major commercial and residential infrastructures will be constructed. They are being constructed by Nakheel Properties, a property developer in the United Arab Emirates, who hired Belgian and Dutch dredging and marine contractor Jan De Nul and Van Oord, some of the world's specialists in land reclamation. The islands are the Palm Jumeirah, the Palm Jebel Ali and the Palm Deira.

Each settlement will be in the shape of a palm tree, topped with a crescent, and will have a large number of residential, leisure and entertainment centers. The Palm Islands are located off the coast of The United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf and will add 520 kilometres of beaches to the city of Dubai.

The first two islands will comprise approximately 100 million cubic meters of rock and sand. Palm Deira will be composed of approximately 1 billion cubic meters of rock and sand. All materials will be quarried in the UAE. Among the three islands there will be over 100 luxury hotels, exclusive residential beach side villas and apartments, marinas, water theme parks, restaurants, shopping malls, sports facilities and health spas.

The creation of the Palm Jumeirah began in June 2001. Shortly after, the Palm Jebel Ali was announced and reclamation work began. The Palm Deira, which is planned to have a surface area of 46.35 square kilometres, was announced for development in October 2004. Construction was originally planned to take 10–15 years, but that was before the impact of the global credit crunch hit Dubai.

Construction

The Palm Islands are artificial peninsulas constructed of sand dredged from the bottom of the Persian Gulf by the Belgian company Jan De Nul and the Dutch company Van Oord. The sand is sprayed by the dredging ships, which are guided by DGPS, onto the required area in a process known as rainbowing because of the arcs in the air when the sand is sprayed. The outer edge of each Palm's encircling crescent is a large rock breakwater. The breakwater of the Palm Jumeirah has over seven million tons of rock. Each rock was placed individually by a crane, signed off by a diver and given a GPS coordinate. The Jan De Nul Group started working on the Palm Jebel Ali in 2002 and had finished by the end of 2006. The reclamation project for the Palm Jebel Ali includes the creation of a four-kilometre-long peninsula, protected by a 200-metre-wide, seventeen-kilometre long circular breakwater. 210,000,000 m3 of rock, sand and limestone were reclaimed (partly originating from the Jebel Ali Entrance Channel dredging works). There are approximately 10,000,000 cubic metres of rocks in the slope protection works.

Palm Jumeirah

The Palm Jumeirah ( Coordinates: 25°06′28″N 55°08′15″E ) consists of a tree trunk, a crown with 16 fronds, and a surrounding crescent island that forms an 11 kilometer-long breakwater. The island itself is 5 kilometers by 5 kilometers. It will add 78 kilometers to the Dubai coastline. The first phase of development on the Palm Jumeirah will create 4,000 residences with a combination of villas and apartments over the next 3 to 4 years.

Palm Jebel Ali

The Palm Jebel Ali Umar began construction in October 2002 and was expected to be completed in mid 2008. Once it has been completed, it will be encircled by Dubai Waterfront. The project, which is 50 percent larger than the Palm Jumeirah, will include six marinas, a water theme park, 'Sea Village', homes built on stilts, and boardwalks that circle the "fronds" of the "palm" and spell out an Arabic poem by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum:
Take wisdom from the wise

It takes a man of vision to write on water

Not everyone who rides a horse is a jockey

Great men rise to greater challenges

Palm Deira 

The Palm Deira was announced for development in October 2004. No timetable for completion has been announced. The first announced design was 8 times larger than the Palm Jumeirah, and 5 times larger than the Palm Jebel Ali, and was intended to house one million people. Originally, the design called for a 14 km (8.7 mile) by 8.5 km (5.3 mile) island with 41 fronds. Due to a substantial change in depth in the Persian Gulf the farther out the island goes, the island was redesigned in May 2007. The project then became a 12.5 km (7.76 mile) by 7.5 km (4.66 mile) island with 18 larger fronds. It will be located alongside Deira.