Bahrain World Trade Centre: taking Sustainable Architecture to Another Level
This is yet another architectural marvel from the Middle East that is surprisingly not from Dubai but from the city of Manama on the island of Bahrain.
Bahrain World Trade Centre, another ingenious design from the Bristol based architects, Atkins, is a 240 metre structure comprising of two identical 50-storey, sail-shaped commercial office towers overlooking the Arabian Gulf.
Its conspicuously striking features are its three 29 metre diameter horizontal-axis wind turbines that are supported by three 30 metre bridges spanning between the two towers.
The sail-shaped towers and their wind turbines of the Bahrain WTC towers personify the maritime environment of the coastal city of Manama.
The towers’ sail-like shape act as aerofoils that funnel and accelerate wind velocity within the entire structure. The chiselled vertical shape of the towers continuously reduce the pressure so that when combined with the rising velocity of the onshore breeze at increasing heights, an almost equivalent amount of wind velocity on each turbine can efficiently generate to power the buildings’ generators.
The Bahrain World Trade Centre is the world’s first building to incorporate large scale integrated wind turbines which will generate 11-15% of the energy requirements of the two towers.
Construction of Bahrain World Trade Centre was completed in March 2007 and is currently in full use.