Crystal Tower to merge inner and outer realms

The Crystal Tower, photographed in June.

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Merging the indoor and outdoor and the natural springs with modern building are just two of the unifications attempted in the design of Saudi Arabia’s Crystal Tower complex in the King Abdullah Financial District, according to the asrchitect of the project.

Jacob Kurek, principal at Henning Larsen Associates in Riyadh, explained yesterday that the underpass beneath the bridge connecting the two-tower building attempted to provide the perfect gateway between the Wadi area with the start of the Financial Plaza.

“It’s the geometry of the project that makes it sustainable, and we tried to emphasise and link the Wadi on one side with the Financial Plaza on the other,” he said.

“The bridge, or podium is 70 metres, and there is a 65 metre shaded space underneath where people will be able to meet, with shops there too. So there is a transition: you have the public realm underneath and the towers essentially frame the Financial Plaza from the side of the Wadi.”

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The Crystal Tower is one of the most iconic buildings planning in the Financial District, a mega project dominated by contractor Saudi Binladin Group, which has awarded numerous sub-contracts for the construction of around 30 of the 50 towers.

One tower of the two in the Crystal Tower structure will be 18 floors, and one 26 floors, with four basement floors over a total gross floor area of 93,000m². Construction on the project had reached ground level at the time of a site visit by CW in June.

The facade will be studded with shimmering ‘studs’ of glass embedded deep into the thick walls, according to Kurek.

“The windows are set deep so that they do not have direct sunlight in the midday. We’d thought about this, and the positioning of the building, in order to reduce the heating effect,” he added.