When offered this project, there were factors such as the location of the project, the problems in the region, the poverty the neighbouring residents lived in and the Client’s determination to improve the living conditions that motivated us to find the best solution to build appropriate accommodation to the region’s climate and residents’ culture so as to set a typology of design and construction in the area.

The main goal of this project was designing a residential tower capable of introducing spatial quality to its residents while providing affordability. This goal could be achieved only through the effective interaction and cooperation between the architect, the Client and the collaborators. 

The conceptual process aimed to create an integrated unity by the articulation of the different components, understanding the building as a volume and not as independent facades. That intention leads to a composition of added regular elements.

Beyond its aesthetical function, the facade intermittence gives protection and privacy to the users from the views of the other surrounding buildings and from the strength of the undesirable sun. Those elements are attached in the more massive volume of the staircase that anchors the whole.

Units had their layout idealized focusing on optimizing the pursued characteristics of the three zones of use - social, service and private - opening the living areas to the contact with the street and the views of the surroundings and locating the rooms in the rear area, much quieter and facing the morning sun. The kitchen and laundry are located in the middle, articulating those two zones. The openness of the social areas and the integration between living and the balconies were also an important issue in this process, reached by the special attention given to the structural system adopted and to the detailing of the sliding doors of the facade that hides completely behinds a providential wall with their trail inlaid in the floor, free of unevenness between interior and exterior.

Name: Swan II
Location: Sanabis, Bahrain
Client: Confidential
Status: Completed