Royal Atlantis II
Atlantis The Royal in Dubai demonstrates how computation reshapes the design process for large-scale, formally complex architecture. Dubai’s development model pushes buildings to operate as landmarks—sculptural silhouettes on engineered coastline and manufactured terrain. The resort’s stacked, stepped massing creates voids, terraces, and open façades oriented toward the Gulf. But behind the iconic form is a demanding technical reality. Every shift in plan or proportion affects hundreds of façade components and curved surface conditions. Early modeling approaches made even minor changes slow and error-prone.
To address this, a Grasshopper-based workflow was built to regenerate the curved façade and massing geometry directly from parametric floor plate footprints. Instead of remodeling each adjustment by hand, the system rebuilt the tower envelopes in a controlled, repeatable way. Iterations that once required a week could be completed in a day or two, allowing the design team to test massing strategies, optimize façade continuity, and validate articulation at full scale. Computation made complexity manageable—and constant revision feasible.
Visualization also played an equally critical role. At this level of ambition, massing alone is not persuasive; the design must communicate atmosphere, luxury, and spatial experience. Procedural shading, material overrides, and environment-driven renders allowed the project to evolve in real time, enabling clearer conversations with consultants, clients, and stakeholders. Visualization became part of the design logic: a feedback loop where geometry, performance, and representation informed one another.
Atlantis The Royal sits within a broader shift in practice, where computation is not a specialty layer, but a core design tool. It shows how automation supports experimentation, how visualization accelerates decision-making, and how complex buildings become possible only when digital workflows are treated as structure—not ornament—within the design process.
Work completed at KPF (2014).
Architectural Design, BIM Modeling, Computation Design, Visualization
