Project overview
Marina Mall is a shopping centre on the waterfront in Abu Dhabi, recognisable by its tall viewing tower and white tent roofs. Wrenze Steel carried out structural design for the mall’s facade upgradation work, for WME as client and consultant.
Facade upgrades on a mall of this size usually happen while the mall stays open. That puts the focus on new structure that can be installed in stages, fixed to an existing building and kept clear of shops, entrances and car parks.
Our scope
Our scope was the structural design for the facade upgrade. On facade work, the steel engineer designs the structure behind the visible finish: the frames, brackets and fixings that carry cladding, glazing or feature panels back to the building.
That work generally includes:
- defining the loads from the new facade, mainly self-weight and wind pressure and suction;
- designing secondary steel frames and support members;
- designing brackets and steel connections to the existing structure;
- checking that the existing structure can take the new loads at the fixing points.
Facade and cladding supports, including cold-formed steel systems, are one of the engineering services Wrenze offers alongside primary steel design.
The structure
A facade support structure is secondary steel. It does not hold up the building, but it carries the facade, and on a large building that is a lot of surface area exposed to wind.
The main design issues are wind and movement. Wind acts as pressure on one face and suction on another, and both must be resisted without excessive deflection, because glass and cladding panels crack or leak if their supports move too much. Fixings into an existing building also need care. The original structure was not designed with these new brackets in mind, so the location and capacity of each fixing has to be confirmed.
Steel close to the sea is also exposed to a more aggressive environment, which affects the choice of coating and detailing to avoid trapped moisture.
See our other retail and facade projects and work in Abu Dhabi, or request a quote for facade steel.
