The Yas Marina Hotel is located within the Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi. It is the first new hotel in the world to be built over an F1 race circuit. The hotel’s exterior surface is designed as an environmentally responsive skin that by day reflects the sky and surroundings and by night is lit by a full color changing LED lighting system that incorporate video feeds that are trasmited over the entire surface of the building.

The Yas hotel, designed by Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture, principals of New York based Asymptote Architecture, opened in Abu Dhabi on Nov 1, 2009 to coincide with the Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. A 500-room, 85,000-square-meter structure built by Aldar Properties PJSC, the project consists of two twelve story hotel towers linked together by a monocoque steel and glass bridge and Grid Shell structure that both cross above and over the Yas Marina Circuit F1 race track.

Asymptote created and conceived of the building as an architectural landmark embodying key influences and local and global inspirations ranging from the aesthetics and forms associated with speed and spectacle to the artistry and geometries that form the basis of ancient Islamic art and craft traditions.

Of architectural and engineering significance is the main feature of the hotel?s design; a 217-meter expanse of sweeping, curvilinear glass and steel covering that is made up of 5,800 pivoting diamond-shaped glass panels. This Grid-Shell component is a key aspect of the overall architectural design and significance of the project by producing an atmospheric-like veil visible from miles away.

The two hotel towers, one being set within the race circuit, and another placed in the Marina itself, are physically linked by a sculpted steel monocoque bridge construction that passes above the Formula 1 track. The bridge along with the Grid-Shell visually connect and fuse the entire Yas Hotel complex. The Yas Hotel was designed by Asymptote to become a significant and important landmark for Abu Dhabi. The pixelated lighting design by Asymptote in collaboration with Arup Lighting creates a dynamic appearance at night, with colours flowing smoothly across the double curved surface. says in a press release

“The hotel embodies various key influences and inspirations ranging from the aesthetics and forms associated with speed, movement and spectacle to the artistry and geometries forming the basis of ancient Islamic art and craft traditions, a perfect union and harmonious interplay between elegance and spectacle. The search here was inspired by what one could call the ‘art’ and poetics of motor racing, specifically Formula 1, coupled with the making of a place that celebrates Abu Dhabi as a cultural and technological tour de force.”

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