Nexus Tower WAF Commercial Skyscraper of the Year 2024

Commercial

Dubai, UAE 2024

The Breathing Skyscraper

Nexus Tower

"Architecture must metabolize its climate, not fight it."

"Architecture must metabolize its climate, not fight it."

Client

Al Futtaim Group

Floor Area

148,000 m²

Duration

62 months

Status

Completed

Nexus Tower reframes the skyscraper typology for a desert city. Rather than hermetically sealing its interior against the heat, the building's diagrid exoskeleton acts as a secondary climate envelope — channeling prevailing winds through a 4-metre gap between the structural cage and the inner glazed facade. This passive stack effect reduces mechanical cooling loads by 34%, earning the tower the region's first Platinum LEED certification for a structure exceeding 300 metres.

The structural geometry was derived from a computational wind study of 800 site scenarios. The resulting form — a gentle anticlastic curve tapering toward a cantilevered crown — proved both aerodynamically optimal and formally distinctive against Dubai's skyline.

Nexus Tower — Site Photography, 2024

Recognition

Nexus Tower WAF Commercial Skyscraper of the Year 2024

Disciplines

—Architecture

— Structural Design

— Environmental Eng.

— Landscape

ARKTIS

Architecture & Technology Studio

We build structures that stand at the edge of what is technically possible and humanly necessary.

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