DUBAI | UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
FIRST ABU DHABI BANK
CLIENT
FIRST ABU DHABI BANK
DATE
SEPTEMBER 2022
SERVICES
INTERIOR DESIGN
DUBAI | UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
FIRST ABU DHABI BANK
CLIENT
FIRST ABU DHABI BANK
DATE
SEPTEMBER 2022
SERVICES
INTERIOR DESIGN
The Brief
First Abu Dhabi Bank came to Ten Eight with a headquarters commission framed, from the outset, as a departure. FAB had selected a full floor at Emaar Square Building 2 as their new Dubai home — 25,000 square feet to accommodate the CEO’s Dubai office, multiple departments, a series of boardrooms and meeting suites, and a substantial reception lobby. The brief made one thing clear: this was not to feel like a traditional bank office. FAB wanted a next-generation workplace — one that broke the conventional office hierarchy, gave employees genuine reason to come back post-COVID, and reset expectations for what a corporate environment could be. The reception was to combine the atmosphere of a hotel lobby with the openness of a coffee shop. The workplace itself needed to feel less like a place people had to be, and more like a place people wanted to be. We were being asked, in effect, to design the future of FAB’s corporate estate.
The Approach
We found our answer in the desert — specifically, in the oasis. A point of convergence where people gather, replenish, and connect. That idea became the governing design language of the entire floor. Biophilic design runs through the project as its defining principle. Living green walls and mature planted zones sit behind glass partitions as spatial anchors, softening the corporate floorplate and bringing life into every sightline. The material palette is drawn from the desert itself: warm sand tones, natural oak, and travertine, punctuated by considered pops of ochre yellow against deep green — the exact colour dialogue of the oasis translated into interior architecture.
The Approach
The reception delivers on its hospitality brief in full — a signature arched feature wall with an illuminated FAB logo, and a vaulted arched ceiling that carries the design language through the lounge and circulation zones. Throughout, the traditional office model has been deliberately dismantled: 70% fewer private offices, significantly reduced hierarchy, replaced by generous collaborative zones, meeting hubs, phone booths, and focus areas — all supported by acoustic materials that keep the atmosphere composed at scale.
The Outcome
The Emaar Square headquarters has set a new standard for FAB’s corporate estate. The client response has been direct and telling: FAB is now actively rolling this concept out across their other offices. Employees from Abu Dhabi have been requesting transfers to Dubai simply to work in the space — a rare and powerful measure of a workplace project’s success. In a post-COVID landscape where every office has to earn its relevance, this one earns it easily.
