O - 14 Tower - New Feature for Dubai

O-14 Tower , a twenty-two story tall commercial tower perched on a two-story podium in the heart of Dubai's Business Bay, comprises 300,000 square feet and will be located along the extension of Dubai Creek. The design of O-14 fundamentally shifts away from the architectural norm in current Dubai towers by eliminating the now obligatory curtain wall solutions and above ground parking, in favor of a shade-producing, concrete load-bearing shell and an open public space at the tower base achieved through below ground parking. the design avoids the glass curtain so typical in dubai architecture and instead uses a perforated concrete shell to provides shade.The Architects Jesse Reiser and Nanoko Umemoto of RUR Architecture designed O-14 in collaboration with developer Shahab Lutfi. The result was a fruitful relationship between developer and architect- both Reiser and Umemoto comment on the significance of their working relationship with Lutfi, with particular regard to his outlook and enthusiasm for innovative architecture.

The design of O-14 fundamentally shifts away from the current architectural norm in Dubai building design, by not employing the now ubiquitous curtain wall solutions and above-ground parking which have typified new developments in the area. Instead the architects have favored a shade-producing, concrete load-bearing shell and an open public space at the tower base, achieved through employing a below ground parking solution. The design element that provides the O-14 with its individual look is a forty centimeter-thick concrete shell, interspersed with over a thousand openings that create a lace-like effect on the buildings facade. Chief architect for the project, Jesse Reiser states that they wanted something original, which would “turn the normative idea of a tower literally inside out…we discarded the idea of a typical Dubai structure early on.”

In order to achieve this, the designers cast super-liquid concrete around the original steel mesh work of the building before removing the thousand or so fill-ins, thus giving the tower its distinctive perforated shell. These perforations help serve as a solar screen to the occupants of the tower, and a one-meter gap between the O-14’s concrete shell and its main enclosure will create a ‘chimney effect,’ causing hot air to rise and creating an efficient passive cooling system.

The project has recently generated extraordinary international interest in the architectural press as it is among the first new innovative designs to be constructed among a sea of generic office towers that have come to be the standard in Dubai's current building boom. As of September 2008, the first nine floors and exterior shell of O-14 have been cast, revealing the beginnings of the perforated concrete shell exoskeleton - the building will be completed in the Spring of 2009.

More Information and Source: http://www.reiser-umemoto.com/

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