Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Al Hamra Tower in Kuwait City is distinctive for its performance driven form, innovative engineering strategies and thoughtful response to climate conditions. At 1,354 feet tall, the 80-story office building is the tallest structure in Kuwait and the tallest building in the world to have a continuous stone façade. Al Hamra Tower’s asymmetrical geometry is generated by a simple operation of removal. Informed by solar analyses, the architect removed one quarter of the floor plate from the south façade, initiating at the southwest corner of the tower and rotating counter-clockwise over its height. Al Hamra’s sculptural form is essentially a passive solar protection strategy: its southern limestone-clad facade offers a shield against solar heat gain and acts as a heat-storing thermal mass. The east, north and west facades are clad in glass, permitting 270º views of the water.