Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Urban Towers: the Papyrus, the Narghile and the Darbukka

Marcello Sèstito, Massimo Giovannini

Undoubtedly the desert landscape where Dubai is situated, because of its evident harshness and being flat, points out problems of visibility, as if every architecture that raises should express somehow a certain exemplarity. Due to its features as well as to its height. Essentially it seems that the place itself triggers off the architectonic claims and that these meet the problem placed by the site in a more or less suitable way. But to the competitiveness due to the headlong run for reaching the highest height, as well as it happened in Italy for the San Gimignano towers, it can be opposed an architecture not very concerned to reach an expected top or a leadership at all times superable in the immediacy and converging more on the suitability or on the relevance of a project. The present skyscrapers outlines that have little of the urban towers stand with a sequence of floors which are often serialized and repetitive, and the object stands like a totem such as a bare crystalline volume with a perfect stereometry. Our project arises from some archetypes and shapes present in the area and on the figurative level they mark out a sort of a metaphorical identity of the geography or material history of the site. Anyway to the monolithicity of a single element we have set up the tripartition of the building in three distinct towers that are connected with each other, by integrating the structure in a single smooth building complex. The plan reminds the desert roses originated by crystallization, in these stones, arab and desert world real icons, we find the power of an object able to instinctively call up atmospheres and places. Thereby the form of the plan stretches out becoming entangled and setting into itself, and where three petals of this enlarged desert rose, directed so as to arrange themselves in the perimeter of the area, face each other to create unexpected and sharing patterns. The area with its persistent architectures, mostly generated by circular shapes has enabled that the same circles, which outline the whole complex, generate the structure as its natural extension, therefore some fragments of these enveloping movements have been the design expedient to define the geometry of the general structure: the shape of the lake, that act as background, with its flowing features has started off a process of apparent formal similarity up to spread all over the whole architectonic complex. Some final parts of the petals will include concert and theatre halls, where the widest one can be used as single hall or it can be divided into three parts according to the expected needs, whereas the central spaces, in a succession of full and empty spaces, will produce a strong constrast inside. The space shows enveloping and multidirectional movements, the circles designing the levels are broken up where needed by the plan. From this base, like further excrescences, three distinct towers refastened to each other at different levels by link elements will stand, such as rings which try to tie indissolubly the three prominences to each other. The first tower, heavier and more massive, is inspired by the Darbukka, the drum, the musical instrument par excellence that with its rounded shape suggests twists and turns to the tower. The object which derives its shape from the acoustics suggests a musical architecure in its proportions, as if it resounds from the inside. The second tower, is inspired by the narghile that on the whole suggests the inward ventilation system to the entire complex. As if the functioning of that smoking machine and its cooling system could be transferred, for their wisdom, to other system such as our system. Therefore hot and cold air blend inside as if the architecture followed the ventilation system of a termitarium. The top is provided with a heliport for communications. The third tower, finally, is a papyrus that with its enveloping movement hosts the library specialized in arabic texts. So each tower has its peculiarity: the first one (Darbukka Tower) hosts elements relevant to recreational activities, and a Museum of the Arab world; the second one (Hookah Tower) is related to tourism, and it hosts the United Arab Emirates tourist offices: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras-Al-Khaimah, Sharjah, Umm Al-Quwain, and the various embassies; finally the third one (Papayrus Tower) is, as above mentioned, a sort of virtual library containing arab world specialized text. The part where the elements are combined in a single complex carries out a collective role, moving staircases and modular elements open and close an extremely flexible space, and art galleries, various services, entrance hall, some tourist and welcome offices gravitate around. The relation with the contiguous lake takes place through systems of footbridges at different levels, such as to enable the access to the external area from different positions. The footbridge, raised on light arches, culminates in the lake with a stair set into a cylindrical volume hanging on the water. A circular platform enables the visitors hosted in the pleasure boats that berth to arrive at the towers from the lake. The sections of the towers present a certain organicism due to the articulation of groins and flying buttresses which structure the whole architectonic framework, and they reveal spaces that at syncopated intervals dilate and stretch along the perimeter. Three archetypes then, as pretext and text, three archetypes which have been frequented for a long time and by then inserted in the formal genetic heritage of the arab world, objects with a millenary culture and transformed in architectonic elements with strong symbolic value and for many aspects similar to the emerging images of minarets. In comparison with the current scenery of the buildings existing in Dubai, this towers complex differs for at least three reasons: the first one consists in their fusion, as if the architecture offered a dialogue between the same elements of which it is composed, the second one enables the object to be observed from various points of view offering always new perspectives and standpoints, finally the third one consists in the fact that from the different towers levels, where the highest reaches the height foreseen by the call for competition, it’s possible to look at the surrounding panorama so enabling the visitors to lodge in the rings equipped with belvedere and restaurants and that reconnect the three towers to each other, visually re-hatching the whole panorama at 360°.

Europaconcorsi Beta

Urban Towers: the Papyrus, the Narghile and the Darbukka