Louvre Abu Dhabi

Description

The Louvre Abu Dhabi is a planned museum for the emirate of Abu Dhabi. The project is part of the Saadiyat Island complex and situated adjacent to a new Guggenheim project. The design is a series of low rectilinear buildings at grade, all covered by a 525 ft diameter dome. The dome is perforated to provide intricate shadow patterns throughout the spaces below.

We were engaged to work with the design and engineering teams on the dome. GT implemented Digital Project through a series of workshops with the architect and structural engineer, and continues to provide day-to-day consulting services to the teams.

Our team developed a series of tools that aid in the design and analysis of the dome geometry. Incorporating variables for shadow patterns, solar and structural performance, and fabrication constraints, the system provides the design team with a tactile and simple way to interact with a complex digital model. The team is now able to iterate through thousands of options to determine the optimal configuration for the dome.

In addition, GT generated more than 1000 tender documents and datsheets to describe and analyze the family decomposition of the discreet members of the lattice dome. Each of the 100,000 plus members were annotated, named, and dimensioned in the 3D model, thus enabling the rationalization of assembly and fabrication requirements.