Reem Island, Abu Dhabi

At 1800 ft, the 120-story Water Tower is composed of five bundled tubes. Imitating the stilt roots of mangroves in a neighboring mangrove forest, four of the tubes are separate at the bottom and converge into the core at the 90t floor and onwards. A steel-frame cable canopy encloses the tower, creating shade and harnessing wind upwards for ventilation.

The structure of each split tube is outbound: the split tubes’ column grid meets the core at different elevations.




At ground level, shaded outdoor space is between the tubes. When separate, the tubes take on individual and varying programs: a library, a market, a salon, a boxing ring. At their convergence on the 23rd floor, each floor becomes a compound live/work program to promote contact between different users.