Gulf Construction Online - Green mall makes its mark

Mirdif City Centre

The oasis-like mall interiors

Green mall makes its mark

The $817.4-million Mirdif City Centre is not just another addition to Majid Al Futtaim’s City Centre line-up, it also marks a new milestone as the region’s first mall built to ‘green’ specifications

01 February 2010

Majid Al Futtaim Properties is poised to set a new benchmark when the region’s first shopping mall built to ‘green’ specifications opens its doors in Dubai next month (March 16).

Mirdif City Centre will be the leading retail and leisure pioneer’s 10th shopping centre, joining an impressive line-up of nine malls that are currently operational offering 720,000 sq m of gross leasable area (GLA), including four in the UAE, two in Egypt, two in Oman and one in Bahrain.

Currently, the finishing touches are being put to the mall while shop fit-outs are in the final stages, according to Jonathan Emery, senior vice president – project management, Majid Al Futtaim Properties.

Work on the two-storey shopping centre, located in Mirdif on Emirates Road, was launched in 2006 and has involved an investment of around Dh3 billion ($817.4 million).

According to Majid Al Futtaim Properties, the centre is the first shopping development in the region that has adopted the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (Leed) standards in its design and construction. Leed is an internationally-recognised rating system developed by the US Green Building Council as the methodology for measuring and certifying sustainability. It is aspiring a Gold Leed rating.

The new mall, with a built-up area of 573,770 sq m, will feature a strategic retail mix of 430 stores, 200 of which will be unique brands to the Northern Emirates. Anchor stores will include Carrefour, Debenhams, Centrepoint, Borders, Home Centre and E-max.

The mall aims not only to service the immediate community but to create a destination for tourists and visitors beyond the trade area, according to Emery.

“Mirdif City Centre is a super regional centre with unique offerings, including dedicated community services (community areas, medical clinics, spa, personal grooming facilities and a fitness centre), and over 25,000 sq m of superior leisure and entertainment offer,” he says.

The massive entertainment space, the equivalent area of 96 Wimbledon Courts, account for around 12 per cent of the mall’s 196,000 sq m GLA.

The entertainment facilities include Playnation, a brand new entertainment concept which is expected to create waves when it opens. Playnation will feature five unique concepts that include iFLY Dubai – an indoor sky-diving centre, Cite Des Enfants – a children’s role-play edutainment centre, Soccer Circus – a fully interactive football attraction – claimed to be first of its kind in the region and Yalla! Bowling, a 12-lane cosmic 10-pin bowling attraction, featuring advanced video simulation and video games.

The mall will also feature Aquaplay, a new water-based ‘edutainment’ recreation facility offering interactive ‘aquatraptions’ aimed at two to eight-year olds and Cinestar with 10 state-of-the-art cinema screens.

Mirdif City Centre will have two food-court areas, both unique in their design and feel. While one will boast a Victorian décor, the other will reflect a variety of environments inspired by Alhambra, the Middle Eastern courtyards and traditional suq corridors.

Architectural concept

Designed by renowned architecture firms RTKL and Holfords Associates, the mall has been given a simple rectangular, racetrack layout with nodes at the intersections providing spaces for the mall’s eight anchor stores. Its entrance faces the residential side of Mirdif, at the east, opening the centre to its neighbourhood, while the three-level car-park opens towards the roundabout and the roads at the west that facilitates easy access to the centre.

Mirdif ... poised to become a super regional centre.

“At the heart of Mirdif City Centre’s design is a vision to provide an open feel to the customer that would be warm and inviting, whilst offering easy views and access to its many attractions. With this in mind, the interior has been divided into a series of interconnecting rooms, each displaying a unique character of its own but all intelligently integrated,” says Emery.

“The mall’s most dramatic feature, the main central galleria, is designed as an active urban street and town square that progresses from the landscaped entrance through the heart of the scheme, forming a series of themed interconnecting rooms, with roof structures spanning up to 20 m high,” he says.

The surroundings in this part of the mall are upscale but welcoming. The internal landscaping features a number of water features and tall palms, creating the impression of an indoor ‘oasis’ that provides a relaxing environment to meet both family and friends. Provisions have been made to allow these public spaces to host a variety of events throughout the year.

The garden area outside the mall’s main entrance – which is expected to be a popular zone during the cooler months – integrates seamlessly with the indoor landscaping through the prominent use of skylights and solar-reflective glass. This helps in maximising on natural light during the day, while at the same time protecting the building from becoming overheated.

In keeping with the sustainability focus, a majority of indigenous plants, which need less water and are easy to maintain, have been used around the property.

The shopping mall offers car-parking facilities for 7,000 vehicles over an area of around 3 million sq ft on three sides of the centre, with the main car-parks being located to the west/southwest and north-east of the site. The car-parks comprise ground plus two floors, with the upper level effectively being open parking at roof level.

Access into the main car-parking areas will eventually be provided from raised access roads directly from Emirates Road to the west and Tripoli Street to the south. The car-parks are ventilated naturally and, therefore, incorporate limited services.

Turning to the construction of the project, Emery says: “At the foundation stage of the project, an assessment of the bearing capacity and the stiffness of the dense sand layer revealed that pad footings founded at the top of the dense sand layer could be adopted to support both the main mall and the car-park structures.

“As for the superstructure, the mall was designed as a concrete-braced frame structure. The column layout was 8.4 m by 8.4 m, which provided flexibility for the planning of the retail units. The multi-storey car-parks have a typical column grid of 8.4 m by 16.8 m throughout. The long spans between transverse column lines necessitated the use of deep precast hollowcore units to span 16.8 m between main beam lines.”

The main mall flooring is fully-bonded natural stone on a modified polymer screed while back-of-house areas are concrete with a polished float finish to FFL (finished floor level). The shop units are left at SSL (structure surface level) to allow the tenants to complete their own finishes.

The mall’s external facades comprise insulated cavity blockwork with a render and paint finish. The render is broken into panels by expressing joints using aluminium channels.

The car-parks are generally painted precast and insitu concrete with a folkloric elevation constructed by cladding the concrete frame with polystyrene and finishing with a through-colour-modified rendered coating.

“The mall’s high-level finishes are achieved by using plasterboard to attain sculptural ceilings, lighting coves and wall linings, which are covered with aluminium decorative screens. The exposed columns, planters and water features are clad in banded multi-coloured stone and the floor is finished in natural stone to achieve a carpet of colour,” he says.

Electro-mechanical works

The mall areas are fully air-conditioned by air handling units located at roof level, with the conditioned air being introduced into the mall via diffusers and the air extracted via the shop units. The mall’s air-conditioning requirements are served from the main energy centre, which is located in a separate building to the northwest of the site and provides a total cooling plant capacity of 53.4 MW –expandable by up to 62.3 MW with the addition of a chiller in the future. Currently, six 8,900 KW York high-efficiency HV (11 kV) chillers have been installed at the complex.

Aluminium decorative screens and banded multi-coloured stone ... distinctive features of the interiors.

“The main chiller uses a safe refrigerant – HFC-134a – that has no ozone-depletion potential and no phase-out schedule; the chillers have very good efficiencies with a peak full load COP (coefficient of performance) of 6.2 under ARI (Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute) conditions and 5.2 at actual Dubai conditions with NPLVs (non-standard part-load values) of 6.37 and 7.01 respectively, exceeding Ashrae 90.1 requirements,” Emery explains.

In addition to efficient chillers, the heat rejection system comprises highly efficient induced draft contra flow cooling towers, which are optimised with the chiller selection to provide best aggregated COPs, resulting in a condenser flow of 2.5 gpm/tonne. The capacity of the cooling tower is controlled via variable speed fans and the condenser water circuit is provided with variable speed pumps to ensure minimum motor energy consumption at part load, he adds.

The chilled water distribution system comprises a variable primary and variable secondary system with VFDs (variable frequency drives) provided throughout. The system can also operate in a coupled mode, which allows chilled water zones close to the energy centre to benefit from residual pump head available from the primary pumps.

All of the mechanical services are controlled by a fully-integrated BMS (building management system), which meets the full digital and analogue control and monitoring needs of the engineering services to maintain the specified environmental and performance requirements of the systems. The BMS is interfaced with all mechanical and electrical plant and is provided with a detailed graphics package to enable easy inspection and adjustment by the facilities management team of set points and operation of the equipment.

The lighting within the mall area comprises high-efficiency lamp sources contained within luminaries integrated into the architectural finishes and are arranged to highlight and complement the contemporary styling throughout the mall areas. It is controlled automatically so that elements are switched off when the natural daylight entering the mall space provides adequate light and are also switched off in stages to minimise energy consumption. The different levels include low/security (33 per cent), cleaning (66 per cent) and normal (100 per cent).

The glazed entrance cube and blockwork facades ... contemporary finishes.

Lighting is provided from general linear fluorescent luminaries at ground and first-floor levels and column-mounted floodlights at roof level. The internal lighting is designed to provide 180 lux and the external lighting is designed to achieve 90 lux.

When selecting the roof-mounted luminaries, consideration was given to ensure minimal light pollution to the adjacent area not only to achieve good energy efficiency but also because of the proximity of the site to local residences and the flight path into Dubai airport.

Lighting controls in the car-park area are such that the perimeter rows are switched off when the lighting levels are satisfied by the natural daylight, and are time-switch controlled to reduce energy consumption to a minimum when the centre is closed.

A fully fire-engineered solution has been developed by WSP Fire in conjunction with Dubai Civil Defence (DCD) and comprises sprinklers across mall areas and shop units in accordance with the requirements of NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) fire standards.

The roof of the shopping centre is utilised as the main plant space and horizontal distribution area for the mall’s chilled water system and is where the majority of the centre’s air-handling units are located.

The primary chilled water pipes to the roof pump rooms are located on the roof on a combined services gantry system. Within each pump room, secondary chilled water pumps provide the chilled water to the fan coil units located within the line shops and food and beverage (F&B) outlets. Connections are made for each of the anchor stores so that their plant can take chilled water from the mall’s primary distribution system.

The electrical systems at roof level generally comprise the primary distribution cabling to serve the mechanical services plant and equipment housed on the roof and within the pump rooms. The gantry system also accommodates the horizontal containment for the distribution of all low and extra-low voltage systems.

The main security/command centre is located at basement level and will act as the nerve centre for the operation of the centre in terms of security, control of access into and out of the site for deliveries, and also be the hub for all of the plant’s monitoring and control systems. The room has been specifically designed to have two separate areas for the day-to-day operation of these facilities but, in the event of an emergency such as a fire, a central area can be used for managing and controlling the safe evacuation of the centre and tackling the fire.

The site is fully covered by a digitally-integrated CCTV system comprising nearly 850 cameras, all of which provide signals back to the central control room.

Project challenges

Commenting on the challenges faced while executing the project, Emery says: “With any project of this scale, there will be numerous challenges in bringing it to completion, from a logistics and construction point of view. However, we are always trying to learn from our experience on other projects and aim to deliver something different and unique to the marketplace.

“Our main challenge with Mirdif City Centre was that in order to achieve the Leed Gold rating, we were required to meet a list of strict performance criteria in the development of design, control of material specification and construction practices. These include: the balance between areas of glazing for natural light within the mall and solar thermal gain, higher levels of thermal insulation so the mall uses less energy, high-performance coatings to the glazing to reflect the solar gain, reducing cooling loads, and use of locally-sourced building materials where possible. All timber used during the construction and installation were to come from sustainable sources and build waste was required to be separated for recycling.”

Road access

A three-lane bridge network is currently under construction to ease access into and out of the mall. The foundations and pillars for the bridge network have already been laid with the structures of the two entry bridges connecting to the mall now complete.

Interior decorative elements ... aesthetic.

Senior officials of Majid Al Futtaim Properties describe the road infrastructure construction as one of the most superior designed around a shopping mall in the region.

For the convenience of mall visitors, the road network will have two elevated entrances – a 350-m-long, three-lane entry bridge for traffic coming from Rashidiya and the northbound Emirates Road and a single-lane, 175-m-long elevated entry bridge for traffic coming from the east along Tripoli Street. Visitors arriving from Sharjah and Airport Road will enter at ground level via the Al Khawaneej Junction of the Emirates Road.

There will also be a 350-m elevated bridge from the first floor of the mall’s car-park for traffic heading south to easily exit onto the Emirates Road to Business Bay.

The infrastructure being built is based on a comprehensive traffic impact study, which is an essential Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) requirement for work of this magnitude. This study went into great detail with regard to projected traffic flows using complex computer-generated models with the input of carefully collated data representing the present traffic situation.

Majid Al Futtaim Properties

Majid Al Futtaim Properties is the leading developer of shopping malls, hotels and mixed-use community projects across the Middle East and North Africa (Mena). An ambitious growth and marketing strategy has enabled the company to develop and manage some of the best retail and leisure centres that dominate their respective trade areas across the region.

Commenting on the company’s objective in developing the Mirdif facility, Emery says: “The long-term strategy of Majid Al Futtaim Properties has always been to develop three large regional malls in the three key locations in Dubai – Deira, New Dubai and the North East Growth Corridor. The company has since developed Deira City Centre in Deira, Mall of the Emirates in New Dubai and now with Mirdif City Centre to service the Northeastern corridor, this vision will come to fruition.”

Starting with the Deira City Centre in 1995, through to Mall of the Emirates in 2005, the company has nine operating shopping malls in the Mena region attracting more than 120 million visitors every year. Apart from the Dubai facilities, Majid Al Futtaim Properties has two other shopping centres in the UAE – one each in Ajman and Sharjah.

These developments have revolutionised the retail industry over the past 15 years with breakthrough developments such as Ski Dubai (the first indoor ski resort in the Middle East), Mall of the Emirates (the first shopping resort in the Middle East) and the popular City Centre franchise that has been exported across the region.

By 2015, the company plans to double its GLA portfolio to more than 2.2 million sq m with 14 new projects planned in the UAE, Oman, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Qatar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

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