Wednesday · September · 30 · 2026
“Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains.”
— William Penn
Sun & daylight
The sun rises at 06:11 and sets at 18:08 in Dubai today, giving 11h 57m of daylight. Solar noon is at 12:10.
06:11
Sunrise
12:10
Noon
18:08
Sunset
Midnight
00:10
Sunrise
06:11
Solar noon
12:10
Sunset
18:08
Solar midnight
00:10
Daylight
11h 57m
Daylight runs about 13h 41m around the June solstice and 10h 34m around the December solstice.
Daylight saving time
Dubai does not observe daylight saving time. Clocks stay on UTC+4 all year, so the local time never shifts with the seasons.
Public holidays
United Arab Emirates has no public holidays in September 2026.
Architecture
Dubai builds tall and fast, and most of what goes up is an image before it is a structure. The exceptions are the buildings where the structure and the image turn out to be the same thing.
Completed 2023
Nikken Sekkei
Two towers on either side of the Za'abeel road, joined by a horizontal block above it. Nikken Sekkei ran a two hundred and thirty metre skybridge between them and let a section of it cantilever past the far tower with nothing beneath. The bridge was assembled at ground level and lifted into place over live traffic. The result is a bridge with towers rather than towers with a link.
Completed 2017
Rem Koolhaas
An exhibition space in the Alserkal warehouse district at Al Quoz. Rem Koolhaas fitted four movable walls of translucent polycarbonate that pivot to change the plan, so the room can open to the yard or close into separate halls. The concrete is left as cast, matching the industrial units around it. It is a small building in a city of large ones, and the flexibility is the entire brief.
Completed 2013
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
A residential tower at Dubai Marina that turns through ninety degrees over its height. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill rotated an identical floor plate by just over a degree at each level, so one set of formwork could be reused the whole way up. The twist turns the balconies away from the western sun as they rise. The shape is a repetition rather than a sculpture, which is why it could be built at that height.
Opened 2011
Reiser + Umemoto
An office tower in Business Bay standing behind a perforated concrete shell. Reiser + Umemoto made the shell the structure, which frees the floors of columns and relieves the core of lateral load. Over a thousand openings vary in size according to the forces at each point, and the gap between shell and glass works as a chimney that pulls hot air upward. The facade is doing structure, shading and ventilation at once.
Completed 2010
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
The tower at the centre of Downtown Dubai. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill set three wings around a central core in a Y, then stepped the wings back in a spiral so the width changes at every setback. The changing profile stops the wind from organising into a single rhythm against the building. The plan was drawn for stability first, and the silhouette is what that produced.