Avoid Midday Heat Places in Abu Dhabi

ADGM Building (Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange)

A glass hall the size of a football pitch, lifted 27 metres into the air on four granite piers above a circular pool.

Abu Dhabi

ADNOC Headquarters

342 metres of granite-framed restraint on the Corniche — a monumental arch standing against the Gulf.

Abu Dhabi

Abrahamic Family House

A mosque, a church and a synagogue as three identical 30-metre cubes — equality argued in Omani limestone.

Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi Central Bus Station

Mint-green concrete wings folded over a 1989 terminal — Gulf modernism still doing its day job.

Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi Corniche Promenade

Eight kilometres of reclaimed waterfront on an undulating line — the city's front room, facing the Gulf.

Abu Dhabi

Al Ain Oasis & the Falaj Channels

147,000 date palms watered by channels dug three thousand years ago — and still running.

Abu Dhabi

Al Bahr Towers Responsive Façade

Twin cylinders wrapped in 2,000 folding umbrellas — a mashrabiya that opens and closes with the sun.

Abu Dhabi

Al Fay Park

The Middle East's first urban biodiversity park — 2,000 native trees, textile canopies, and a hundred-per-cent birdsong guarantee.

Abu Dhabi

Al Gurm Corniche & Eastern Mangroves Promenade

3.5 kilometres of continuous shade pushed six metres out over the water, facing the mangrove forest.

Abu Dhabi

Al Maryah Island Waterfront Promenade

A financial district with a waterside walk around its edge — planned to ring the whole island at 5.4 kilometres.

Abu Dhabi

Al Qana Waterfront Promenade

2.4 kilometres of canal-side promenade with buildings cantilevered twenty metres into the air above it.

Abu Dhabi

Capital Gate (The Leaning Tower of Abu Dhabi)

An 18-degree lean, four times Pisa's — a skyscraper built deliberately off-balance and held there by steel.

Abu Dhabi

The Liwa Desert

The northern edge of the Rub' al Khali — the largest continuous sand sea on Earth.

Abu Dhabi