Building with the world’s longest cantilever completed in Dubai

One Za’abeel, designed by Japanese design firm Nikken Sekkei, has now been completed, becoming a new landmark structure in Dubai, as well as a new gateway form visitors arriving in the city from Dubai International Airport. Located at the entrance to Dubai’s central financial district and with quick access to the downtown area, the building features two elegant towers connected along an east-to-west axis by an enclosed horizontal bridge, called The Link.

Positioned 100m in the air, The Link pushes the boundaries of design and engineering providing amazing views across its 230m long viewing platform. The Link’s 66-metre cantilever is at the moment the world’s longest cantilever, providing visitors with the illusion of floating in mid-air. The Link has been created using an outer tubular structure system with its main steel members arranged in a diamond grid pattern along four sides to reduce torsion while yielding a contiguous, column-free interior space.