Image © SOM
Conceptualized as a gateway to the budding tourist destination city of Bahrain, the Four Seasons Bahrain Bay Hotel looks like it could measure up to its zealous marketing. The vaguely H-shaped building comprises two textured concrete piers supporting a stack of 17 hotel floors at lower elevations, and two additional floors of restaurants and conference rooms above. These suspended floors are effectively like glass boxes sandwiched between the piers—which themselves contain guest rooms—each floor featuring floor-to-ceiling windows on the north and south sides of the building.