Zayed University recently opened its third and newest campus at Khalifa City in Abu Dhabi. Anna Mitchell explores a vast installation encompassing some of the latest teaching technologies in the AV arsenal.
As you approach Zayed University, situated on the edge of the city of Abu Dhabi, at first all you can make out from the surrounding desert are glimpses of boxy, uniform buildings. Then, gradually, as the Khalifa City campus begins to take shape, the sleek, curved heart of the complex comes into view.
The new extension to Zayed University is of audacious proportions, it covers nearly 20 hectares; impossible complexity, it houses 215 classrooms, 123 meeting rooms, and four lecture halls; and breathtaking expense, it was built at a cost of three billion AED (approximately €640 million). But this is no mirage in the desert.
It is the latest addition to a university that was established in 1998 and has steadily grown to boast a current student body of nearly 10,000. Hadi Teherani, an acclaimed architect best known for a string of high profile projects in his home country Germany, designed the building.
Al Habtour Leighton was the main building contractor for the ambitious new Abu Dhabi campus with AV and security installation contracts subbed out to Genesis Integration and Bond Communications respectively.
For a detailed look at the equipment specified in this no-expense-spared project read ‘Shifting sands of education’ in InAVate Active