Yas Bay & Arena
Located in Yas Island, the 14-million square foot project has an investment of around $1.1 billion as part of Phase 1 alone.
What is going to be the UAE’s largest multi-purpose arena, a couple of luxurious hotels, and a two-storey car park will be integrated by a waterfront promenade forming the main components of Abu Dhabi’s newest development known as Yas Bay.
Challenges
– One of the biggest challenges on this project was the outstretched car park structure, making it crucial for visitors to park close to their destination.
– Another challenge was to seamlessly integrate the many components of the development for the large crowds of people.
Outcomes
– LIMAH ended up designing the ticket for the arena.
– Super graphics, large-scale pylons and glass were part of the design solutions to the problem of allowing for thousands and thousands of people to be in the same place at the same time.
Project Facts
- The promenade is lined with a unique mix of shops and around 50 restaurants and cafes set to entertain over 14,000 guests daily.
- The two hotels comprise of one 5-star Hilton of 900 keys and one lifestyle family hotel.
- 15,000 new residents and 10,000 working professionals are expected to be attracted to Yas Bay.
- The Arena is fully covered with adjustable configuration and has a capacity of over 18,000 people.
- The car park is a two-storey stretch throughout the development.
The elongated car park
There were a number of car parks spread across the entire site, and different user groups needed to use different car parks. This meant that the team was faced with addressing these navigational concerns and getting people to the correct car park immediately upon arriving at the site. This is further complicated by a large scale event such as the Arena, where people need to be guided to the correct car park based on where their seats are located, unlike the workings of an ordinary arena.
In the unusually elongated car park, labelling pedestrian accesses also became very important in order to avoid frustration and long walks. These access points demanded the coloured zoning of each level, also helping users subconsciously remember where they parked. Guided by colour, super graphics on walls and columns of the car park naturally followed suit.
“This project is definitely going to be one that is heavily imitated in the future by other developers. Integrated resorts are something new to the region. A place where you can get the beach, a great meal, do some shopping, people-watch and see a concert all in the same day and in walking distance is amazing. It’s sure to be a favourite place among tourists and residents alike.” - Jason Lewis, Founder and CEO of LIMAH
THE ARENA
Research and studies conducted by the team caused them to map out a customer journey, which resulted in the design of the Arena ticket. This was achieved by backtracking – anticipating the entire scenario of one booking a ticket, receiving a ticket, it’s appearance, the kind of information one hoped to find on the ticket.
The team knew the seat number people would be sitting in, and therefore could assign logical section numbers level numbers, gate numbers, area numbers and car park naming systems, so that ultimately people could navigate to the correct seat without causing congestion within the Arena.
a seamless customer journey
The strategy for a seamless customer journey through the various destinations was to zone them into different components and make them easier for people to realize where they are, find their way around them, get the shortest distance from their cars to their destinations. Serving both the wayfinding and marketing strategies of Yas Bay, large scale pylons brought in a method of both identifying zones and advertising without consequently cluttering the space with too many structures.
On one side of the pylons, was a digital screen which would allow for advertising, whereas the other side was dedicated to wayfinding – directional information as well as interactive screens, which help people search for specific shops, restaurants etc. Not to mention, ‘selfie moments’ were also afforded by these massive, multi-functional pylons for social media promotion.
"This is a significant milestone in Abu Dhabi’s journey to diversify its economy through world-class tourism and business infrastructure and a step towards our ambition to welcome 48 million visitors to Yas Island by 2022. Miral today opens a new chapter in Yas Island’s growth as a unique destination for entertainment and tourism, residential island living, and business" - Chairman of Miral, Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak
Visitors are able to connect to a map which provides additional information such as where the best place is to get coffee or shop for something specific.
Considering the square footage of the place and throngs of people, the obvious material choice for best integrating the rest of the massive pylons became glass – a sizable structure in the middle of the crowd is balanced by opportunities for transparency and reflection. They were also treated more as aesthetically pleasing sculptures rather than signage, providing illumination through significant colours.
Jason Lewis, Founder and CEO of LIMAH asserts, “This project is definitely going to be one that is heavily imitated in the future by other developers. Integrated resorts are something new to the region. A place where you can get the beach, a great meal, do some shopping, people-watch and see a concert all in the same day and in walking distance is amazing. It’s sure to be a favourite place among tourists and residents alike.”
People often go to places and don’t really understand what’s available to them despite spending a whole day there, because it’s not clearly communicated. The LIMAH team wanted a system where they could clearly communicate everything that’s possible for the user to enjoy, whether they be F&B options, retail options, going to see a show in the Arena or the multitude of services available within the resort.
LIMAH advanced the game on this project, by bringing in the concept of customer and user experiences and looking at this project from an entire experience, not very typical for a wayfinding project.
Yas Bay is expected to completed in 2019 until which time LIMAH will continue to enhance the experience for families and other visitors of the<br> Integrated Resort.
