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Home / News / Al Bahr Towers, Abu Dhabi
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Al Bahr Towers, Abu Dhabi: a glass facade with 2,000 automated mashrabiya sun-shades.

Two cylindrical office towers in Abu Dhabi wear a geometric sun-shade inspired by the traditional mashrabiya — automatically unfurling as the sun moves.

Reference project — not a Eurowindow project. This article summarises public information from the sources listed at the end, with our own commentary. Images belong to their owners and are embedded directly from Pinterest with a link back to the source.

The project at a glance

Image: Al Bahr Towers, Abu Dhabi (source: Inhabitat) — see the original pin on Pinterest.

What stands out in the facade

According to Wikipedia, Al Bahr Towers are two cylindrical office towers in Abu Dhabi, designed by AHR (formerly Aedas UK) and built by Al-Futtaim and Carillion, standing 145 m tall with 70,000 m² of floor area, completed in 2012. The most notable feature is the shading layer outside the glass facade: about 2,000 umbrella-like glass elements inspired by the traditional Middle Eastern mashrabiya, automatically opened and folded by the building management system as sunlight intensity changes.

According to the article, this mechanism cuts heat gain from direct sunlight through the glass by about 50% — a figure widely repeated in architecture coverage after the building opened.

Note: Wikipedia does not give the exact gap between the shading layer and the glass, and the page gives two different floor counts for the towers; we quote only what could be read.

Our take

From a pair of office towers in Abu Dhabi, three takeaways for curtain walls:

  1. A shading layer set apart from the glass turns a curtain wall into a two-layer system, not a single pane. The air gap and control mechanism between the two layers do most of the thermal work. See Eurowindow curtain walls.
  2. Shading that tracks the sun cuts heat load better than a fixed glass coating. This needs sensors and motors built into the design stage, not bolted on afterward.
  3. A traditional architectural idea (the mashrabiya) can still solve a modern engineering problem. Sun-shading is not only an aesthetic choice — it is part of the building's mechanical system.

If you are weighing options for a high-rise project, send your brief to the Eurowindow technical team to discuss specifics.

Sources

This article is for reference only and does not imply Eurowindow took part in this project. If you own an image or content and would like it changed or removed, please contact sonhn@eurowindow.biz; we will act immediately.