The Museum of the Future (MOTF, Dubai, United Arab Emirates) is one of the most complex and challenging projects in modern architecture. Opened in February 2022, it is described as “the most beautiful building in the world” by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Advenced Fiberglass Industry (AFI) was awarded the manufacturing of the GRP Lobby, 7 level seamless GRP staircase, and the Oval lights for the car park (228 units). The main challenges involved to split, engineer, manufacture and install the lobby in 225 panels.

More importantly, installed together onsite to form 1 single seamless lobby without a single joint in the 2800m2. Please note that the lobby is designed with Arabic letters (calligraphy) which is based on the quotes of His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai. Therefore, it was very important to make sure that the lobby being built in 225 different segments, when joined to form the exact design of the calligraphy with millimeter perfection. The second main challenge was to manufacture the complete lobby without incurring the costs associated by following the traditional methodology (proposed by various composite companies) of manufacturing the plugs and molds individually for each panel. This would increase the cost to 200% than the actual budget of the job.
AFI had a challenge not only to secure the job after winning the competition against various competing composite specialists globally, but to also fit within the budget of the client not allowing the client to look at other more budget friendly solutions i.e., Gypsum or Corian which would eventually compromise the design, and its final finishing and feel of the panels.
Therefore, we found a solution in Denmark and procured the Adaptive molding machine (Adapa) which was initially designed for GRC and not GRP but was modified by (AFI) inhouse making it compatible to manufacture GRP panels to maintain the curvature of each panel that differs due to the oval design of the lobby. Whereas, for the Calligraphy we manufactured foam blocks, CNC cut to form the exact letters and placed it on the Adapa released GRP panel with the help of laser projection to excel the exact placement of letters. The blocks were temporarily placed with sharpened industrial wooden sticks till Surface B (of GRP laminate) would be laminated and formed on top of it. Both surfaces A (Released from Adapa) & surface B (laminated on temporary foam blocks) were then bonded together to form one single panel with 2 GRP surfaces. The temporary foam was extracted manually.
To conclude, not only this combination of ideas created an important part of the world’s most beautiful building but also reduced a lot of waste (eco-friendly methodology) that would emerge by using the traditional method of CNC milling plugs (with Foam which is wasted after making a mold) & molds (built out of composite & wood – also wasted after the panel is made).