Dubai Miracle Garden A380 sets world record

Dubai has set yet another world record!

Emirates’ has entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the world’s largest floral installation through a life-size version of the Emirates A380.

The world’s largest passenger airline made a perfect landing at the iconic garden in November this year after the airline teamed up with Dubai Miracle Garden to construct the world’s largest floral installation through a life-size version of the Emirates A380, covered in more than 500,000 fresh flowers and living plants.

Starting on November 27, the Emirates A380 installation is on display for the public and can be viewed from a special platform comprising two levels in the centre of the garden

In full bloom, the aircraft structure will have an unprecedented total stem count of 5 million flowers and will weigh over 100 tonnes (take-off weight of an actual A380 is 575 tonnes).

Boutros Boutros, divisional senior vice-president, Corporate Communications, Marketing & Brand said: “The Emirates A380 is a statement-making aircraft that is tremendously popular with passengers around the world, and we hope that through our collaborative efforts with Dubai Miracle Garden we will inform, inspire and delight visitors through the sheer scale and beauty of the floral A380 installation. Aviation affects all of our lives, and the A380 on show will offer visitors the opportunity to get up close to the double-decker. The progressive environmental initiatives and methods of building and planting the Emirates A380 installation are also in harmony with the eco-efficiency of the aircraft.”

“Having an Emirates A380 is a great achievement for Dubai Miracle Garden and we are proud to have the floral installation of the aircraft as the world’s largest floral sculpture ever built,” said Abdel Naser Rahhal, co-founder and creator of Dubai Miracle Garden.

“This standing piece of art is a result of countless hours of brainstorming, designing and strategising to pull all of the details together. As our motto says: We are the green masters and bloom makers, wherever we go we make it green, whatever we touch we make it bloom.”

The flowers and plants used for the ‘living’ Emirates A380 installation were sustainably grown and harvested over a four-month period at Dubai Miracle Garden nurseries in the UAE.

Seven varieties of flowers have been used

Petunia; Coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides); Marigold (Tagetes); Snapdragon (Antirrhinum); Viola; Geranium (Pelargonium); and Gaillardia (Gaillardia aristata). Over 9,000 flowers and plants maKe up the Emirates iconic logo, and 100,000 blossoms form the enormous wings, which reach over 80.27 metres wide.

The effort

– Over 200 people worked 10 hours a day for 180 days to build, layer and mount the textural foliage on the 30 tonne steel structure

– The life-size installation is over 72.93 metres long

– The fuselage stands 10.82 metres from the ground and the tail at 24.21 metres from the ground

– The aircraft structure includes moving engine fans and other key design features that capture the essence of the original aircraft design

– The installation is the largest structure to ever be built at the garden and is set on a flowerbed of 7,460 square metres, roughly 10% of Dubai Miracle Garden.

– The structure was built from recycled materials and the flowers and plants are irrigated through a drip water system

reporters@khaleejtimes.com