The beachfront villas on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah shimmer with a unique brilliance under the Arabian Gulf sun. The buildings’ facades are largely cut from 304 stainless steel, their streamlined designs echoing the curves of the ocean waves. Local architects have admitted that this material was initially chosen to cope with the unique coastal climate: the sea breeze, with a salt content of up to 3.5%, is extremely corrosive, and ordinary steel would rust within three years.
The 304 stainless steel has proven its worth over the past decade. The panels on the villas’ exteriors look like new, and professional testing has shown a surface gloss retention rate exceeding 90%. Designers favor its standard 1.22-meter panel width, which reduces the building’s facade joints by 80%, enhancing both aesthetics and wind resistance. Architects are drawn to its 180 MPa yield strength, which, even in winds of 120 km/h, provides the panels with a stability that appears to be native to the wall. As the early morning sun shines through the morning mist of the Arabian Gulf, the light reflected from the stainless steel surface dances with the waves. At this moment, the 304 stainless steel plate is no longer a cold building material, but an architectural poem carefully carved by time.
