The proposed West Bay Office Tower is a highly efficient expression of SOM’s advanced sustainable engineering capabilities. The design of the 50-story office complex responds to the topography and climate of the Gulf region while subtly referencing vernacular building types.

Project Facts

Building Height: 230 m
Number of Stories: 50

SOM designed a three-story glass lobby for the tower, enabling views across the landscape and surrounding site. The landscaping around the tower emulates the soft, windswept contour of the desert’s sand dunes. The diagonal steel frame and horizontal sunshades of the tower were designed to create an effect similar to that of the ornamental screens ubiquitous in Middle Eastern architecture. The tower’s oval form is precisely sited to maximize the use of daylight while avoiding heat gain and glare through the use of innovative sunshades and light shelves on each floor. The light shelves admit an even glow of daylight which extends across interior ceilings to the building’s core. At the same time, the shelves block direct sunlight for most of the day, ensuring comfort for inhabitants of the tower’s perimeter rooms. The light shelves vary in depth: their depth is determined by the arc of the sun, rendering them deepest on the east and west facades, and shallower on the south. Minimal shading is required on the north side.

The light shelves are attached to the prefabricated steel and concrete “diagrid” frame (rather than directly to the building’s core), enabling economies of material construction. The configuration of the stone-clad structural elements was designed using a digital optimization algorithm. As the building ascends, the diagonal structure tapers and becomes increasingly slender.