Tornado storms awards

Tornado storms awards

The Tornado Tower in Doha, which features extensive use of Wicona unitised curtain walling, has won a major global award.

The accolade for Best Tall Building in the Middle East and Africa was won by the Tornado Tower, awarded by the US-based Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) – a world authority on the design, construction and development of tall buildings.

The award follows a record number of entries this year, and it is the first time a building in Qatar has won such a prestigious prize.

The 52-storey Tornado Tower used more than 30,000m2 of Wicona unitised curtain walling, installed as 6,000 glazed panels in 50 size variations.

The unitised facade allows the curvature of this iconic building to be expressed without the need for curved glass. Trapezoidal panels and their collection of angles give the 200m high building its signature curve and hyperboloid shape that depicts a whirlwind in a desert storm.

The Wicona unitised facade used 450 tonnes of aluminium for the project, and was installed across 50 storeys using floor cranes – a safer alternative to scaffolding. The units were fully assembled and glazed off site, holding 34mm reflective glass for the vision areas and opaque glazing to conceal the building structure between floors.

The unitised panels also support an external steel ‘lattice’. This outer structure is a key architectural feature and the lighting system installed at the junction points of the steelwork accentuates the form of the building at night to spectacular effect, using 35,000 different light combinations.