Headquarters of the BEEAH Group

One of star architect Zaha Hadid's last projects was the headquarters of the BEEAH Group in Sharjah, which was subsequently continued by her office principal Patrik Schumacher and Associate director Sara Sheikh Akbari at Zaha Hadid Architects.

In the middle of the desert of the United Arab Emirates, the architects designed an iconic building in the shape of desert dunes for the BEEAH Group, under the patronage of their Director of Civil and Architectural Projects Nada Taryam. The desert wonder building does not only combines the high demands of sustainability and energy efficiency, but also design and architecture. Electricity is generated by the building's own solar panels, lighting and temperature are adjusted according to the time of day and grey water is recycled on site. Yet even during construction, reuse, avoidance and recycling of construction waste was already a major issue. Thanks to many different interlocking measures, the new headquarters even achieved LEED Platinum status. The interiors were designed in such a way that a lot of natural light enters the rooms without requiring many glass surfaces. Instead of glass, glass-fibre reinforced concrete elements were used for the façade and roof to additionally regulate the temperatures in the building. The GFRC elements are also better suited for the extreme weather conditions in the Al Sajaa desert.

Lindner Steel & Glass was responsible for the design, manufacture, delivery and installation of several building envelope areas of the headquarters – including the triangulated and twisted ribbon facade, the inclined skylight roof, the sloped facade in the entrance level and the inner courtyard facade. Automatic entrance doors and windows as well as aluminium hinged doors complete the service package. Lindner Steel & Glass produced bespoke steel mullions and transoms of the highest architectural quality for the components of the building envelope, as well as the corresponding high-performance glazed units with thermal coating.

The entire building envelope was constructed as an eye-catcher in the homogeneous desert, yet designed to blend in perfectly with the surroundings: The exterior facade consists of slanted glass panels that skilfully adapt to the building's geometry and therefore create a dune-like appearance. A special highlight is the inner courtyard facade made of vertically curved glass, which challenged the team in fabrication and installation due to the tight radii. All elements of the Steel & Glass building envelope were manufactured in the United Arab Emirates specifically for the project: On the one hand, in order to save CO₂ emissions, and on the other hand, to meet the high quality standards of the architects and the client.