Al Bahar Towers is the new headquarters of the Board of Investment of Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi Investment Council) designed by Aedas. The concept of this building is to integrate building with cultural context and environmental issue. As a result, innovative façade system was developed to create responsive shading device through the use of parametric modeling and algorithmic.
2. Design Process
The building form and pattern was designed based on traditional Arab latticework.
a. facade pattern
b. floor plan
3.Parametric Modeling
Based on the geometric relationship, I create parametric facade and floor plan model by using Revit.
a. façade pattern
The façade is made up of geometric pattern with a series of a repeating regular hexagon shapes. However, there is no a regular hexagon pattern family in REVIT. Also, there is no mathematical relationship between a square and a regular hexagon. Thus, creating a rectangle pattern which consists of several triangles is required. This method cannot create the edge of the façade perfectly because the pattern is not a regular hexagon. Thus, further research is required to explore the solution of this limitation.
Mass Model
b. floor plan pattern
The floor plan pattern is made up of 3 circles. I create a family which consists of 4 circles and the shape of circle is changed depend on width of reference line. Then, the points located in intersection can be a reference for the shape of floor plan. Although the size of circle is changed well depend on a parameter, the points cannot be locked on the intersection point which means this is not perfect parametric relation. Thus, I crate two floor plan families manually. One is the first and top floor, another is the middle layer. Further research is required to explore the solution of this limitation.
c. structure and curtain wall mass
I create three family files to make project file: the curtain wall, structure and façade mass. These files have different size based on the building design.
4. Creating Project file
A project file is created by loading family files. Then, I create the floors, curtain wall and roof.
5. Rendering
6. Reference
a. http://www.aedas.com/Al%20Bahr%20Towers
b. http://en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php/Al_Bahar_Towers
c. CTBUH 11th Annual Awards - Oborn & Chipchase, "Al Bahar: Innovating the Intelligent Skin"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SSRUlCLUI4
d. Cooling buildings in Abu Dhabi's heat -- CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2012/11/19/elwazer-eco-cool-buildings.cnn?iref=allsearch
