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Dubai Tower to Feature Passive Solar Cooling Technique

DUBAI — O-14, a twenty-two story commercial tower perched on a two-story podium, is slated to break ground during the first week of December 2006 in the heart of Business Bay in Dubai. The building, which will contains 300,000 square feet of space, is a collaboration between RUR Architecture of New York and developer Shabah Lutfi. O-14 will be located along the extension of Dubai Creek, occupying a prominent location on the waterfront esplanade.

The design for O-14 is for a tower sheathed in a forty centimeter-thick concrete shell perforated by over 1,000 openings that create a lace-like effect on the building’s façade.
The shell is not only the structure of the building, it acts as a sunscreen open to light, air, and views. The openings on the shell modulate depending on structural requirements, views, sun exposure, and luminosity.

A space nearly one meter deep between the shell and the main enclosure creates a so-called “chimney effect,” a phenomenon whereby hot air has room to rise and effectively cools the surface of the glass windows behind the perforated shell. This passive solar technique essentially contributes to a natural component to the cooling system for O-14, thus reducing energy consumption and costs, just one of many innovative aspects of the building’s design.

The concrete shell of O-14 also provides an efficient structure that frees the core from the burden of lateral forces and creates highly efficient, column-free open spaces in the building’s interior. Each floor of O-14 has been already been sold to future tenants who can arrange the flexible floor space according to their individual needs.