Mohammed Bin Rashid Library, Dubai, UAE

The development consists of an 8-storey library building located in Al Jaddaf, Dubai. The library will hold more than 1.5 million volumes, 1 million audio books and 2 million e-books, making it the world’s largest electronic collection and the biggest library in the Arab world.
The project also includes administrative and technical sections, reading halls, a children’s library, a business library, an exhibitions center, a conference center, service areas and training halls as well as a large central atrium.
The Rehl is the traditional lectern. The Rehl, carries books in general and more specifically the Koran. In the same way a library carries and preserves the cultural treasures of a nation in the form of literature, periodicals and audio visual media. In this respect the architectural concept of the library is based symbolically on the lectern, the Rehl, and translates this into a modern 21st century vocabulary.
Vortex Fire developed the fire strategy for the development and validated the atrium smoke extract system design using CFD fire and smoke modelling.