The Mandarin Oriental Downtown began operations in November 2025 inside the Wasl Tower on Sheikh Zayed Road. The 302-metre high-rise — featuring the region's tallest ceramic façade — was designed by Amsterdam-based UNStudio with Stuttgart engineering firm Werner Sobek as lead consultant. It houses 259 guestrooms and suites, 224 residences scheduled for occupancy from 2026, and ten food and beverage outlets distributed across multiple floors.

Vertical programme distribution rather than ground-level lobby

A defining feature of the hospitality concept is the dissolution of the conventional ground-floor hotel arrangement. Instead of a ground-level reception, guests are taken via express lifts to the hotel lobby on floors 35 to 37, located at a height of 150 metres. The wellness area and pool terrace sit on floors 11 and 12, late-evening venues on floors 61 and 62. A total of 17 lifts — five of them for service operations — connect the mixed-use programme through separated circulation paths for hotel, offices, dining, and residences. The 1,000 m² column-free Oriental Ballroom with adjoining pre-function areas is structurally linked to the tower via a bridge.

Three interior design firms, three programme segments

The division of interior design work follows the building's programme structure. The hotel areas — guestrooms, suites, lobby, club lounge, wellness — are the responsibility of London-based G.A Group. The material palette is restrained: warm woods, sand, bronze, and muted gold tones, with predominantly bespoke furnishings. A curated art collection featuring regional and international artists runs throughout the public areas.

The ten F&B outlets are handled by LW Design Group, Dubai — a studio established in 1999 that has worked across multiple properties for Mandarin Oriental, Hyatt, Marriott, IHG, Four Seasons, and Jumeirah. Interior lighting design lies with DPA Lighting (London/Dubai), while the façade lighting was developed as a separate commission by Arup Amsterdam. Architect of record on site is U+A Architects, Dubai.

F&B concepts across five floors

On floor 11, "Noia by the Pool" opens onto the pool terrace as a Mediterranean-Greek daytime restaurant. Floor 36 hosts the Chinese dual concept "Yù & Mì" — cocktail bar in front, restaurant behind — alongside the Italian "Chitarra". On floor 61, "Billionaire" operates as a dinner-show format, while the topmost hotel floor houses "Lion in the Sun" as a Mediterranean concept. In preparation are the Nikkei brand "Osaka", "Pavyllon Dubai" by Paris-based chef Yannick Alléno, and a street-level eatery with an integrated "Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop" outlet.

FF&E specification: no public disclosure

Furniture manufacturers have not been publicly named — neither by the operator nor by the interior design firms involved — a standard practice for hospitality projects of this scale. From the programme volume alone — 259 guestrooms, over 2,000 m² of event space including eight meeting rooms, ten F&B outlets, a two-storey wellness area with nine treatment rooms — it can be inferred that the FF&E commission ranks among the larger single packages of the year in the region. The fitness centre is explicitly equipped with a project-specific custom edition of Technogym.

Assessment

The project is instructive for contract specification practice on two counts. First, it documents the increasingly observable dissolution of the conventional ground-level hotel layout in the Gulf region in favour of vertically stacked programme layers — a model that requires differentiated acoustic, circulation, and sightline calculations on each floor. Second, the division of work between three specialised interior design firms — hotel areas, F&B, and lighting as separate mandates — illustrates a workflow that is well established in international hospitality practice but not yet consistently standard in Central Europe.

The Mandarin Oriental Downtown was recognised at the 2025 Identity Design Awards in the Architecture: Hotel category.

Project data

Client: Wasl Group
Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Gross floor area: 107,539 m²
Programme: hotel, residences, offices, conference centre, ballroom, spa and pools, food and beverage
Height: 302 m
Completion: 2025

Planning and project team

• General planning, architecture, and interior architecture: UNS (UNStudio), Amsterdam — Ben van Berkel, Gerard Loozekoot
• Lead consultant engineering, structural and façade engineering, sustainability, building acoustics, MEP, site supervision, BIM coordination: Werner Sobek AG, Stuttgart
• Architect of record: U+A Architects, Dubai
• Structural engineering construction model: DeSimone Consulting Engineering, Dubai
• Local MEP engineering: Seed, Dubai
• Landscape architecture: Green4Cities, Vienna / Terra Firma Landscape, Dubai
• Hotel interior design: G.A Group, London
• F&B interior design: LW Design Group, Dubai
• Interior lighting design: DPA Lighting, London/Dubai
• Façade lighting design: Arup, Amsterdam
• Wind engineering: Wacker Ingenieure, Birkenfeld
• Vertical transportation: Dunbar & Boardman / TÜV Süd, London
• AV/IT consultancy: Shen Milson Wilke
• Kitchen consultancy: Sefton Horn Winch
• Pool engineering: Barr & Wray, Dubai
• Fire and life safety: Aecom, Dubai
• Cost consultancy: Kulkarni Quantity Surveyors, Dubai