Dubai comes of age with The Lana

Movement and urban mobility define the design of The Lana, which underlines the success of Dubai against the odds of economic crisis and climate insecurity. Raised on tall white columns with high-level open gardens, it draws the eye through voids in the hotel and apartment complex, accentuating the sense of movement and connection to the city. The design seems to anticipate a time when we might arrive by personal air vehicle (PAV) to the landscaped upper levels, which allow movement between its two towers.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Dubai Municipality, whose modus operandi is the ‘vision statement’, was already developing a PAV vision, and such a move would no doubt be embraced by The Lana’s architect, Foster + Partners. But for now, guests and residents make do with a choice of arrival by car, water taxi or bike, or on foot. The latter two mobility options might seem banal to Europeans, but in the context of improvements to the walking and cycling infrastructure of Dubai offer the ultimate form of luxury – liberation from the tyranny of dense, road-based urban development that characterised the first three decades of its development.

The Lana, which opened in May, is a 30-storey luxury hotel that cleverly interlocks with its twin, a 31-storey tower offering 39 ‘branded residences’, with interiors for both by the French studio Gilles & Boissier. Commissioned by developer Omniyat in 2013, when the emirate was beginning to recover after the devastating crash of 2009, it was originally intended to be only an apartment building. The brief was later altered to incorporate the Dorchester Collection’s first hotel in the Gulf, reflecting the shift in confidence as visitor numbers to Dubai recovered. The combined hotel and residential buildings occupy intersecting towers that pivot to follow the edge of the Marasi Bay Marina, a section of Business Bay that was bought by Omniyat in 2023.

The pair of buildings is the first significant architectural offering at Business Bay and seals its success as Dubai’s most up-and-coming neighbourhood, with 12km of waterfront promenade close to both downtown Dubai to the south, and northwards to the newly constructed Dubai Design District where Foster + Partners is based. Completion of The Lana marks 20 years since the practice’s first commission in UAE – the Index, an 80-storey office building in Dubai’s financial district that tested new approaches to sun shading and passive cooling. The practice has since completed ICD Brookfield Place (2020), the House of Wisdom in Sharjah (2021) and the Mobility Pavilion at Dubai Expo (2020). Next year its Zayed National Museum will open at Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, a building of huge cultural and political significance which the practice won in competition in 2010.

The Lana’s design is distinguished by its fluid form and horizontal, tapered white fins which create the impression of super-thin floorplates but increase in depth to provide shading. Formed from moulded white GRC cladding, the horizontal fins wrap around the soffit of the upper terraces and of a soaring, quadruple-height elevated entrance hall where vehicles swoop in to deposit guests. Dwellers in The Lana Residences can make use of the connecting gardens to access all the facilities of the hotel, and also benefit from their own high-level swimming pool. Hotel residents have an extraordinary infinity pool on the 30th floor, with views of the Burj Khalifa.

Foster + Partners’ game with multi-level gardens is a response to several factors. The firm raised the entrance in order to maintain public access at ground level along the marina, with retail units and cycle and pedestrian routes that connect to the city’s fast-growing network of cycle and walkways. This also allowed for a separate entrance to the hotel ballroom on the ground floor, which opens onto a waterfront terrace, so that it can be run as a parallel venture to the hotel for exclusive dinners, weddings and events, in the spirit of the London Dorchester. High-level gardens respond to consumer demand for outdoor living and allow Omniyat to offer the advantages of self-contained villas with their own outdoor spaces, combined with the benefits of a tower with services on tap, spectacular views and connection to the city centre.

Dorchester Collection hotels are marked by their elegance and focus on guest service, which traditionally begins the moment you step out of your vehicle. At its Beverly Hills Hotel in LA, the swooping drive and covered entrance are renowned, and there is a nod to this at The Lana, where a curved driveway surrounded by lush planting and sculpture arrives into a soaring covered space where tall white columns lift your eyes to the surrounding city; there is a sense of expansive space, coupled with a dynamic view of the dense Dubai skyline, centred on the spectacular Burj Khalifa.

The Lana Residences have their own separate entrance which is no less grand. The latest example of the branded residence, these apartments are some of the most expensive on the Dubai property market; in May 2024 the four-bedroom, 1538m² penthouse broke the emirates’ record, selling for $37.8 million. This has given Omniyat confidence to build two more towers designed by Foster + Partners adjacent to The Lana, and to describe the area as an ‘ecosystem’ that evokes Dubai Creek, the original cultural and economic heart of the city.

The use of this environmental term to describe what many people see as the least sustainable place on earth might seem surprising. But the critics of Dubai who were so vocal during the COP28 in 2023, where Norman Foster played a key role, should not have been so hasty. Dubai aims to reduce its energy consumption by 30 per cent by 2030, and, perhaps more significantly, aims to have entirely switched to clean, renewable energy by 2050. Indications are that these are not meaningless targets – Dubai has already built the world’s largest solar park with a range of highly innovative technology including a 262m-tall solar tower, the largest in the world.

The Lana’s deep overhangs, balconies and vertical gardens reduce the need for air conditioning. But this is still fundamentally a glass building that requires constant cleaning and cooling – something that is all too apparent on a summer’s day when maintenance men hang from the south facade of the building, polishing the immaculate glazing and white fins in full sun and searing heat. I’m told there are strict regulations to protect them and that working outside at the hottest time of day is not allowed. Nevertheless, it is a relief to be on the air-conditioned side of the glass and I suspect that The Lana’s lush vegetation and outdoor spaces only come into their own during the winter months.

But the commitment of Dubai Municipality to allowing life to continue outside during the summer is genuine. The 2040 Urban Master Plan aspires to double the area of the city devoted to green and leisure spaces, and to create green corridors for sustainable mobility. Recent reports from the Colombian city of Medellín, which has also invested in green highways, suggest that such a strategy could reduce the temperature by five degrees.

The Lana anticipates a time when Dubai will be taken seriously for its architecture and urban planning instead of being dismissed as ‘bling city’ or as a ‘tombstone to capitalist hubris’ (as a Guardian headline from 2009 put it following the crash). Marking the current edge of the Business Bay development with construction plots as far as the eye can see to the south, the scheme is already a future classic that suggests the next phase of development for Dubai will be as a city for people.

Vicky Richardson is a curator, writer and former head of architecture at the Royal Academy