AMBIKA HINDUJA MACKER'S QUEST FOR BEAUTY AND BALANCE REFLECTS IN HER DUBAI HOME, A SANCTUARY IN THE SKY.

When designer, artist and curator Ambika Hinduja Macker stepped foot into what would become her first Dubai home, she was greeted by a magical vista.

- PRATYUSH SARUP

"When we walked in, all you could see was a blanket of clouds," she recalls. "It felt like we were suspended in serenity and, to me, the view was an invitation to exhale, release and simply be present in the moment."

While a penthouse in a high-rise in Dubai International Financial Centre was not where she had envisioned living-since Ambika and her husband, the entrepreneur Raman Macker, moved to Dubai in 2017, the dream was to live by the water-it offered something else: an oasis in the very nucleus of the dynamic energy that had attracted them to the city. And if there was any doubt remaining, the Foster + Partners-designed building's several green credentials-which includes its east-west orientation that is intended to minimise internal solar gain and reduce the tower's overall energy consumption-clinched the deal for the climate-aware duo.