Any addition to Tirana’s burgeoning skyline calls for a simple and elegant concept. This is especially true of the architecture being built around Skanderbeg Square, the city’s main plaza and cultural heart, where projects must make a bold contribution to the site without confusing its historical identity.
Barcelona Tower will serve as a modern landmark, rising 190 metres into spectacular view with a single “twisting” motion. The twist is both a graceful and pragmatic form: it makes for a more energy-efficient and aerodynamic building envelope (more resistant to wind loads) and combines with a central concrete core to support the overall structure.
To create the twist, floor plates rotate around the core by a consistent number of degrees as they ascend and taper off towards the sky – a kind of obelisk – accommodating first offices and then a majority of apartments. The form is set into a chunky “plinth” containing commercial space at ground level, which works together with the rich red of the concrete pigment to demarcate this architectural world from the one beyond it.
IMAGES BY
MIR
IMAGES BY
MIR