Al Bidda Tower
Rotating diagrid skyscraper that widens toward its summit, modeled on the spiral of a tornado.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Al Bidda Tower on the Doha Corniche follows a structural gamble: a forty-three story building that grows wider near its top than at its base, its diagonal curtain wall modeled on a tornado by the Australian firm GHD, built between 2006 and 2009. It traces how engineers wrapped the tower in a steel diagrid, a lattice of angled beams never before tried in Qatar at this scale, where getting the angles wrong anywhere in the spiral could have thrown the loads out of balance.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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